With Pennsylvania lawmakers under pressure to act on marijuana legalization when they reconvene next week, new data is underscoring the urgency, revealing that more than 12,000 people were arrested for cannabis possession in the Keystone state last year.
Put differently, that means Pennsylvania police make an average of 32 marijuana possession arrests each day, the data from the National Incident Based Reporting System (NIBRS) and Uniform Crime Reporting System (UCRS) shows.
In 2023, 10,463 adults and 1,578 juveniles were arrested for possession of up to 30 grams of marijuana. And consistent with national enforcement trends, those arrests have disproportionately affected Black residents. While about 75 percent of Pennsylvania’s population is white, Black people accounted for 40 percent of the cannabis arrests.
“I think that the ongoing arrests in Pennsylvania should motivate lawmakers, as it did in other states,” Chris Goldstein, a NORML regional organizer who received a presidential pardon for his own federal cannabis possession case, told Marijuana Moment on Friday.
While more than 80 cities in the state have moved forward with locally decriminalizing or reducing penalties for simple possession, the fact that there are still upwards of 12,000 arrests statewide makes Pennsylvania “stand out” nationally as “having some
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