Marijuana Policy Project

A police officer in Asheville, N.C. spots a car driving 10 miles-per-hour over the speed limit. The car is pulled over, and what started out as a simple traffic stop ends in a simple possession charge. Farther north, a man is arrested for drug trafficking. He was accused of moving hundreds of pounds of marijuana from California to West Virginia. What’s the difference between these two cases? The drug trafficker was given a Presidential pardon recently.

A student at UMBC, who wishes to be known as Ben, was visiting his girlfriend in Asheville. While his girlfriend was driving, a police officer pulled her over for a speeding violation, but a subsequent search of his person and the car revealed about an ounce of marijuana and various paraphernalia, a misdemeanor under North Carolina’s law. If convicted, Ben, a first time offender, faces up to 120 days in prison and a $500 fine.

Anthony Foglio, Jr. was arrested in West Virginia for drug trafficking. He stood accused of bringing hundreds of pounds of marijuana from Santee, California to West Virginia while he held a residence in both places. Foglio was convicted and given three years probation, but recently he received one of the 15 presidential pardons given out by President Bush.

Why did Foglio receive the pardon while a college student is forced to face charges that could haunt him forever? Foglio is an associate pastor at Sonrise Community Church in Santee, Calif. Plus, numerous contributions to the Bush campaign have been made by members of the church. Is this how George Bush plans to spend the rest of his time in office? Punishing college students and helping his buddies out is no way to run a country.

Foglio calls it “God’s mercy,” but he already received some mercy when he got probation instead of the one-to-five years in prison that West Virginia law mandates. Not only did he receive a pardon, but his congregation decided to give him another chance. Now Foglio continues to preach, using his “troubled past” to connect to the gospel.

Both Ben and Foglio are casualties in the “War on Drugs” which costs United States taxpayers about $7.6 billion a year. Both California and New York’s budget for marijuana law enforcement is about $1 billion every fiscal year. This means that each marijuana arrest costs about $10,400. Is the cost worth the results? You would expect usage and availability to go down while costs go up, but the exact opposite is occurring.

Marijuana related arrests rose 165 percent from 1991 to 2003. The increase in arrests has not led to a reduction of new users, reduction of availability, reduction of potency, or an increase in prices.

Obviously these statistics point out the truth: The so called “War on Drugs” is not working. The prohibition of marijuana is actually harming the efforts of law enforcement agents and fiscally harming the United States. Most marijuana arrests are made on people who have no intentions to sell it. By focusing on street arrests, law enforcement agents spend less time trying to arrest suppliers, the people who are actually harming this country. These outdated laws ruin future opportunities for good people. Ben will now have to spend numerous hours in court and thousands of dollars hiring a lawyer. Isn’t it time that we take a second look at who the real criminals are?