One thing Oregon's weed has has done for Idaho. The Idaho State Patrol is generating a ton of revenue with traffic stops on cars coming into Idaho from Oregon. The freeway is now patrolled by K9 units. If the dog alerts on the suspect vehicle, the driver is toast.
The Idaho State Patrol...like all other State Patrol’s...exists to generate revenue. That is their primary mandate...under the guise of monitoring and enforcing safety on state and federal highways.
A complete waste of tax dollars,
The new arrest data, released Monday by the FBI, comes at a time when nearly 30 states allow the drug for medical use and eight have legalized it recreationally.
"It's really shocking in this era that these numbers are so high," said Maria McFarland Sánchez-Moreno, executive director of Drug Policy Alliance. "It really makes you question why law enforcement is wasting resources and locking people up for personal use of marijuana."
The statistic is not only telling for those targeted by the war on drugs, it's also costly for taxpayers who footed the bill for about 587,700 people to make their way through the criminal justice system last year.
A study found that in 2010, when busts reached about 750,000, the cost of arrests amounted to more than $3.6 billion—and Sánchez-Moreno says the cost is still in the billions, even though overall arrests are down 20 percent since their peak.
And that's not even counting the cost of lost work time and the lingering financial burden of having a criminal record that stunts future employment opportunities, she added.
It all comes as 57 percent of voters think legalization of pot would make society better, according to a poll released in August. The same poll said 86 percent of Americans believe weed should be legalized in some capacity.
