Marijuana

VP Harris made the news by calling on the Department of Health and Human Sevices to reclassify marijuana. No one should go to jail for smoking pot, Harris said. As of March 7, 2024 there were 155,692 federal prison inmates. Of these 81,900 were serving sentences for drug offense and 99% of those are for drug trafficking. Data from the US Sentencing Commission showed that only 92 people were sentenced for marijuana possession in 2017 out of nearly 20,000 drug convictions. At year end 2021 one million people were incarcerated in state prisons and 636,000 in local jails. In Minnesota out of 10,114 people in prison only 50 people are there for marijuana and 35 of those have prior felony convictions.