Marijuana possession sentences range anywhere from three months to thirty years in prison, depending on the time, place, amount of marijuana, and even the police officer’s mood. Astoundingly, doing time is only part of the story. Of the hundreds of thousands of people who are arrested each year, but do not serve time are still effected by the charge. These individuals have to suffer the consequences of having a drug related felony on their record; a charge that can cripple job prospects, loan opportunities, housing, and even federal benefits. But the cost of a Marijuana charge is not just felt by the people who are convicted of one, but also the ones who do the convicting. On an annual basis, enforcing laws on Marijuana possession costs the government more than $3.6 billion, according to the American Civil Liberties Union. However, not only money is lost, but hours upon hours of time as well. Typically, it can take a police officer hours to arrest and book a suspect. Not to mention, that individual will often spend a night or more in local jail, then proceed to court hearings, and possibly even more time in prison, depending on the severity of the charge. A Human Rights Watch report released in 2012, tracked 30,000 New Yorkers with no prior criminal record before they were arrested for marijuana possession; 90 percent had no …show more content…
One could even say that the War on Drugs is solely to blame for America’s prisons being dangerously overcrowded. According to an infographic recently released by the Federal Bureau of Prisons, over 50 percent of inmates in federal prisons are currently there for drug offenses. And of that, 27.6 percent of drug offenders are locked up for Marijuana related crimes, followed by powder cocaine (22.5 percent), methamphetamine (22.5 percent), crack cocaine (11.5 percent), heroin (8.8 percent), and other (7.2