A Justice Department watchdog took more than a year to reply to an attorney’s letter outlining concerns about apparent defects in how the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) collects and reports data on marijuana possession arrests—then finally responded by suggesting that the FBI should investigate itself.
Eric Sterling, a longtime drug policy reform activist and former congressional staffer, sent a letter to DOJ’s Office of the Inspector General (OIG) in May 2022, claiming to have discovered that a Maryland police department was reporting cannabis possession citations issued under the state’s decriminalization law at the time as arrests as part of a long-standing data sharing partnership with FBI. If other state and local law enforcement agencies were similarly lumping those penalties together, Sterling reasoned, the practice could significantly alter FBI’s annual reports, which are used to inform public reporting and policymaking.
Including simple citations for marijuana possession in the same category as arrests—where people are taken into custody, booked and processed—would inflate the number of recorded arrests, potentially skewing public perceptions of how police prioritize resources and painting an inaccurate picture of how policies such as decriminalization and legalization are being implemented by law enforcement.
Sterling, who serves as an appointed
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