One state after another is legalizing and decriminalizing marijuana, and yet the drug war is charging up again.



Marijuana arrests are rising in the U.S., even as more states legalize cannabis. There is now an average of one marijuana bust roughly every 48 seconds, according to a new FBI report released on Monday.

Now here's the kicker: the marijuana busts are the exact kind that should be going away.



The increase in marijuana arrests—659,700 in 2017, compared to 653,249 in 2016—is driven by enforcement against people merely possessing the drug as opposed to selling or growing it, the data shows. Last year, there were 599,282 marijuana possession arrests in the country, up from 587,516 in 2016. Meanwhile, busts for cannabis sales and manufacturing dropped, from 65,734 in 2016 to 60,418 in 2017.

This country is so not a democracy.

Overall, marijuana arrests made up 40.4% of the nation's 1,632,921 drug arrests in 2017. Drug arrests as a whole also increased last year, up from 1,572,579 in 2016. There is now a drug bust every 19 seconds in the U.S.

How did this happen?

Start by looking at the White House.

Just last week Trump recommitted to a global War on Drugs.



An NDP MP says U.S. President Donald Trump is using his "bully pulpit" to strong-arm Canada and 129 other countries into committing to a U.S.-led "war on drugs" policy. NDP health critic Don Davies told HuffPost Canada it was "extremely frustrating" to see the government sign the "Global Call to Action on the World Drug Problem," brokered on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly this week. "Donald Trump is using his bully pulpit right now to compel countries to sign on to this flawed policy because these countries are in vulnerable positions," he said, noting Canada's position negotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Even more symbolic, just a month earlier, the Trump Administration admitted to creating a secretive marijuana committee to spread disinformation about marijuana. No really.



The Trump administration was evasive in August when BuzzFeed News reported on a secretive marijuana committee operated by the White House — detailing memos that indicated the committee’s agenda to propagate negative attitudes toward pot and portray the drug as a national threat. But now the White House’s Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) has acknowledged the committee’s existence in a letter to a Democratic senator seeking information in light of BuzzFeed News’ report.

...

However, BuzzFeed News first reported in August on several memos sent to federal agencies concerning the Marijuana Policy Coordination Committee, which solely sought negative information on the drug. The memos instructed 14 agencies and the Drug Enforcement Administration to submit “data demonstrating the most significant negative trends” on the drug and identify issues with state legalization ballot measures, in part to prepare a report for President Donald Trump, who has previously supported states’ rights on marijuana. The committee complained in one memo that the narrative around marijuana is unfairly biased in favor of the drug and said it wanted to turn the tide on increasing marijuana use.

This is straight out of the 1980's. The difference is that this time the president's fans flat out refuse to believe this truth.

Despite law enforcement action, legalization continues to move ahead.

