For the second year in a row, the FBI has reported that law enforcement made over two-hundred-thousand (200,000) arrests in the United States related to cannabis. Of those charged with violating marijuana laws in 2023, eighty-four percent (84%) were charged with possession only, and the FBI reported that in 2023 nearly twenty-five (25%) percent of all drug-related arrests were for marijuana possession. While these arrest numbers are lower than the peak in 2007, when just under half of all drug arrests were cannabis-related, they represent virtually no decline from 2022, which also saw over 200,000 arrests related to cannabis throughout the United States. Lacking any adult-use commercial cannabis markets, certain states in the U.S. Midwest and South are at the forefront of these FBI 2023 arrest statistics. Two states from the Midwest (Iowa and Nebraska) and one from the South (Louisiana) stand out with more than half of all drug arrests reported as cannabis-related by local law enforcement agencies in these states in 2023. In other Southern states, like Alabama, Mississippi, and South Carolina, and other Midwestern states like Wisconsin, Indiana, and Kansas, over forty percent (40%) of all drug arrests were for marijuana-related offenses in 2023. While there has been some variation in the local law enforcement reporting percentage over the years, the 2023 FBI data for states with significant increases in marijuana-related arrest numbers over the past few years (states like Iowa, Alabama, and Kansas) show concretely how some local law enforcement agencies in some parts of the country remain stuck using marijuana prohibition to wage the failed “War on Drugs” even as the majority of Americans now support medical and adult-use cannabis legalization throughout the United States.
