tHe War on MariJUana in BlacK anD WHite

[The commander] ... regularly exhorted Task Force officers to keep their
arrest numbers up. All the officers were aware that the federal grant that
funded their unit, and on which their jobs depended, was good for only
eighteen to twenty-four months. [The commander] warned that they would
need statistics to show that the federal money was well spent and thus to
secure another grant. On more than one occasion, he sent the Task Force
out to begin a shift with comments like, “Let’s go out and kick ass,” and “[E]
verybody goes to jail tonight for everything, all right?” 141
As far back as 1973, the National Commission warned against perverse financial
incentives embedded in the structure of early drug war funding programs:
The funding mechanism is so structured that it responds only when “bodies”
can be produced or counted. Such a structure penalizes a reduction in the
body count, while it rewards any increase in incidence figures and arrest
statistics with more money. Those receiving funds thus have a vested
interest in increasing or maintaining those figures. 142
Four decades later, states remain heavily dependent on federal funding such as Byrne
grants, 143 and the federal government continues to evaluate the performance of law
enforcement agencies receiving Byrne money in part through the number of people
arrested, rather than by more appropriate and logical barometers, such as decreases in
drug use, availability, addiction, overdoses, and deaths. 144
Even if the decision to award, or to continue to award, the federal block grant to a local
enforcement agencies is not directly or indirectly tied to reported arrest data, the mere
fact of receiving money for the purpose of drug law enforcement likely incentivizes
local enforcement agencies to make drug arrests, and low-level drug arrests in
141 United States v. Reese, 2 F.3d 870, 874 (9th Cir. 1993).
142 See DrUg Use in AMericA: ProBleM in PersPectiVe, supra note 78, at 282.
143 The National Criminal Justice Association, along with dozens of other law enforcement associations, submitted a letter to
Congress in 2011 explaining the critical role that JAG funding plays for local and state law enforcement:
Jobs are created and retained across America because of the investment of Byrne JAG dollars, in direct law enforcement,
local government … as well as the ample multiplier effect which increase jobs and economic activity in our communities. …
Because of Byrne JAG’s reach, this dynamic is at play in every pocket of our country.
Letter from the Nat’l Stakeholder Coalition on Byrne JAG Funding to the Senate Appropriations Subcomm. on Commerce, Justice,
Science, and Related Agencies (Sept. 9, 2011), available at http://www.naco.org/legislation/policies/Documents/Justice%20and%20
Public%20Safety/National%20Stakeholder%20Coalition%20Letter%20on%20Byrne%20JAG%20Funding%20-%209-9-11%20-%20
with%20signatures.pdf.
144 See generally Christopher Hallam & David R. Bewley-Taylor, Mapping the World Drug Problem: Science and Politics in the United
Nations Drug Control System, 21 int’l J. of DrUg Pol’Y 1 (2010) (discussing the current limitations in assessing the global use of drugs and
the drug problem).
The Rise in Marijuana Possession Arrests
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