Marijuana users are still being arrested in record numbers every single day! Marijuana users are still being arrested in record numbers every single day!

â��It's hard sometimes to get a handle on raw numbers, likr the large figures dished out by the U.S. Census and other fact-issuing agencies.

The FBI's annual Crime in the United States is a good example. To say that 13.1 million people out of a population of 308 million were arrested is nebulous; so, too, is to say that the highest number of arrests -- 1,638,846 -- were for drug-abuse violations.

Digging deeper, 52 percent of the drug-abuse violators were arrested on marijuana offenses, and 88 percent of them, or 750,591, were jailed for simple possession.

In other words, every hour, more than 90 people are arrested for possessing cannabis in the United States, among the highest totals on record.

Marijuana-related arrests have been rising steadily since 1992's 300,000 busts, or 33 per hour, according to NORML. And even then, there are still far fewer Americans arrested for marijuana than for driving under the influence (1.4 million) and simple theft (1.2 million).