Interesting new data from the FBI concerning marijuana (and other drug) arrests in 2017

Over at Forbes, Tom Angell has already mined the latest new FBI crime data to focus on marijuana arrests via this piece headlined "Marijuana Arrests Are Increasing Despite Legalization, New FBI Data Shows." Here are excerpts:

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.

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.

The increase in cannabis possession arrests comes despite the fact that four additional states legalized marijuana on Election Day 2016. While among those states, legal recreational sales were only in effect in Nevada by the end of 2017, the prohibition on possession for adults was lifted soon after the successful votes there as well as in California, Maine and Massachusetts....

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.

As with all data, there are lots of stories and possible spins within. Though overall marijuana arrests went up, this was because possession arrests went up (only) 2% while arrests for more serious marijuana offenses went down 8%. Given the reality that a lot more people had access to "legal" marijuana but were still not allowed to use it in public spaces and a lot more people were involved in marijuana manufacturing and sales under state laws, these national data probably can and should be seen as evidence that marijuana reform is "working" to some extent to reduce the criminal justice footprint of marijuana prohibition.