A new national study on the criminalization of drug use in the United States estimates that someone is arrested every 25 seconds for possessing illegal drugs intended for personal use.

The report released Wednesday finds one of every nine arrests by state police nationwide in 2015 was for possession. That's more than 1.25 million arrests per year, more than half of which were for marijuana.

"This means that police made more arrests for simple marijuana possession than for all violent crimes combined," states the new study by Human Rights Watch and the American Civil Liberties Union.

The study also emphasizes that the so-called "war on drugs" leads to disproportionately severe results for Alabama's poor.

While drug use is rampant in many communities across America, arrest trends reveal that arrests focus on the less privileged, according to the study.

"Data we obtained from Florida and Alabama reveals that, at least in those two states, the majority of drug possession defendants were poor enough to qualify for court-appointed counsel," the study states.

"Yet in 2009, drug possession defendants in the 75 largest US counties had an average bail of $24,000 (for those detained, average bail was $39,900). For lower-income defendants, such high bail often means they must remain in jail until their case is over."

In other words, a possession charge in Alabama can easily be the catalyst of the catastrophic impacts on people's lives - from job loss to eviction - that often attend long periods of incarceration.

President Richard Nixon declared "war on drugs" in 1971, a move that the study described as likely "more political in nature than a genuine response to a public health problem."

That war continues to contribute to major disruptions and systemic problems in poor and minority communities to this day.

"Between 1980 and 2003 the number of drug offenders in state prisons grew twelvefold," the study finds. "By 2014, an estimated 208,000 men and women were serving time in state prisons for drug offenses, constituting almost 16 percent of all state prisoners."

The study also found that the state of drug possession criminalization in the U.S. - where possession charges can result in double-digit prison sentences - is undermining key constitutional protections.

"In 2009 (the most recent year for which national data is available), more than 99 percent of people convicted of drug possession in the 75 largest US counties pled guilty," the study says. "Our interviews and data analysis suggest that in many cases, high bail--particularly for low-income defendants--and the threat of long sentences render the right to a jury trial effectively meaningless."

Beyond the socioeconomic disparity identified in the new study, there is also a clear racial disparity to drug possession arrests.

In every single state where the organization was able to gather enough police data, "[b]lack adults were arrested for drug possession at higher rates than white adults," the study found. Alabama, however, was one of the states that did not provide enough data.

"These figures likely underestimate the racial disparity nationally, because in three states with large Black populations--Mississippi, Louisiana, and Alabama--an insufficient proportion of law enforcement agencies reported data and thus we could not include them in our analysis."

The study recommends the full decriminalization of possession of drugs intended for personal use. It urges that police not make arrests and that prosecutors decline to prosecute such cases. The study also urges state lawmakers to revise laws so that personal possession is not a felony and cannot be used to enhance sentencing.