Two leading civil rights organizations are calling for the complete decriminalization of personal drug use in the US in a comprehensive new report released on Wednesday.
The report, published by the American Civil Liberties Union and Human Rights Watch, concluded that last year someone was arrested every 25 seconds on drug use or possession charges.
The research catalogues the enforcement of laws that criminalize personal drug use, for which police make more arrests than any other crime. The organizations’ stand is one of the most forceful yet in the ongoing conversation about the country’s sprawling criminal justice system and the lasting effect that low-level drug offenses can have on Americans.
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“This is first time both organizations have come together and made such a strong call for [decriminalization],” said Tess Borden, the report’s author.
The report, titled Every 25 Seconds, after the frequency of drug arrests, looks specifically at personal drug use, and not trafficking or other drug crimes. Last year, more than 1.25 million arrests were made by local law enforcement for drug use or possession alone, and about half of those were for marijuana use or possession, according to the report.
Tyler Marshall, a Louisiana man who spoke to Human Rights Watch using a pseudonym, was charged with marijuana possession in 2015 and sentenced to 10 years in prison after pleading guilty. The report quotes court transcripts of Marshall entering his guilty plea, as most drug cases are resolved. After Marshall’s defense attorney instructs him to plea guilty, he tells the court: “Oh, I have to? Yeah. But I’d be lying though.”
The large majority of drug cases are resolved through plea deals. In New York, for example, the report found that 99.8% of adults convicted of drug possession in a five-year period accepted plea deals.
Marshall told Human Rights Watch that his wife has a disability, and was two months behind on rent without him to help support her. “My wife, I cook for her, clean for her, bathe her, clothe her,” he said. “Now everything is on her, from the rent to the bills, everything.”
The rate of drug arrests varies widely by state, although data indicates that non-marijuana drug use is largely consistent throughout the country.
As with other areas of the criminal justice system, arrest data for personal drug crimes shows a sharp racial disparity. According to the report’s findings, black adults are two and a half times as likely as white adults to be arrested for drug possession. Borden said the report was unable to analyze any disparities in arrest rates for Latinos because the FBI does not track data for Latinos arrested.
Other policy experts and international groups, including the World Health Organization, have called for the complete decriminalization of personal drug use. Several states have already decriminalized marijuana, with five more set to vote on the issue in November. Borden said the organizations’ call for complete decriminalization “takes the mainstream drug conversation a step further”.
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“We’ve driven drug use underground with criminalization and we’ve failed to provide communities who are dealing and struggling with dependence issues the help and the treatment that they have a right to,” she said.
Arrest data also indicates that people charged with drug possessions are often carrying just trace amounts of an illicit substance, according to the report.
Among the other case studies highlighted by Borden is that of Matthew Russell, who was arrested in Texas for an amount of methamphetamines so small that the lab technician described it as a “trace” amount and couldn’t give the amount a precise measurement.
In March Russell, who maintains his innocence, faced 20 years for the possession charges because of previous felony convictions. Russell, who also used a pseudonym, said the previous convictions were also related to his drug dependence.
“I’m so stressed out that some days it almost makes me want to kill myself … [20 years,] that scares me,” he told Human Rights Watch.
In August, Russell was sentenced to 15 years in prison.
