Used to be in Clark County that a man or woman could smoke the ganja without any fear of getting smoked out by the law. According to a report released earlier this month by a Washington D.C.-based advocacy group, there were only 107 arrests across the entire county for the sale or possession of marijuana.
That was 1990.
What a difference a decade and some change makes. By 2002 it was a lot easier to get busted for pot —the number of arrests had risen to 4,032, an increase of more than 3,600 percent. The difference in the number of arrests for the sale of marijuana was even greater—a jump from 9 to 560. The county also saw a huge increase in the number of marijuana possession arrests—from 98 in 1990 to 3,472 in 2002, an increase of more than 3,400 percent. To put things in perspective, Clark County had more arrests than Dallas County and Wayne County, home of Detroit, though it has fewer people than either.
The 31-page report was authored by the Sentencing Project, a criminal justice research organization. Even Clark County's explosive population growth during the last 15 years—an increase of about 86 percent—doesn't begin to account for the 3,600 percent increase in marijuana-related arrests. "The number of arrests were relatively trivial in 1990, but it's still a remarkable increase in a relatively short period of time," says Marc Mauer, assistant director of the Sentencing Project.
"I take issue with those numbers," says Sgt. Chris Jones, spokesperson for the Las Vegas Police. "I do not think they are accurate. They just don't seem feasible." In particular he doubts the 1990 numbers could be so low. He tells the Weekly that when he joined the force in 1994, he probably arrested nine people himself.
The report's figures come from the Geospatial and Statistical Data Center at the University of Virginia, which in turn compiled its numbers from the U.S. Department of Justice. So, if the numbers are accurate, what explains the disparity between Clark County and other large counties, whose pot arrests either increased modestly or even went down? "There's no reason to think this reflects dramatic differences in marijuana use," Mauer says. "So it appears that much of this is policy-driven."
And the policy in Las Vegas? Well, if you talk to the police, it sounds as if their policy hasn't changed much. Marijuana is an illegal drug. The police arrest people using it. Before 2001, possession of even a tiny amount of marijuana was a felony in Nevada. But the legislature that year passed a law that made possession of an ounce or less of pot a misdemeanor, technically punishable by up to six months in jail but more likely to result in only a $500 fine. An initiative petition on the November 2006 ballot would completely decriminalize marijuana use by adults aged 21 and older, and it would also set up a process to license and regulate the sale of marijuana.
"We have increased arrests because people have greater access to it," says Kami Dempsey, campaign manager for the Coalition to Control and Regulate Marijuana, which is spearheading the ballot initiative.
The Sentencing Project report paints a picture of a country beset by an increasing focus on marijuana trafficking. According to the study, while overall drugs arrests increased by 41 percent between 1990 and 2002, marijuana arrests during the same period increased by 113 percent. And of the 734,000 marijuana arrests in 2000, only 6 percent of them resulted in felony convictions.
"The mass majority of Americans would say that in the drug hierarchy marijuana is on the low end of things," Mauer says. "If you judge it on its own terms, presumably the point is to cut down use and raise the price, but there's nothing to point to there. Marijuana is as available as it was before this huge increase."
With methamphetamine use exploding across the Valley, it would seem that marijuana would be pretty low on Metro's priority list. "Marijuana is still considered an illegal drug," says Jones. "To say we have made it less important is inaccurate. We are there to enforce the law." So, if Metro had to choose between going after a pound of meth or 100 pounds of marijuana—the weight at which an individual can be charged with trafficking pot—where would it direct its resources? "We would go for both," Jones says. "We don't differentiate when it comes to large-level narcotics or drug traffickers."
Mauer says he hopes the report sparks dialogue in local communities about how law-enforcement resources should be best utilized. "These should be conscious decisions about how a community responds to an issue. "