According to new data, the federal government is convicting fewer people who are caught violating cannabis trafficking laws.
A factsheet issued by the United States Sentencing Commission showed just over 1,000 people were federally sentenced for violating cannabis trafficking laws in 2020, down 67/3 percent since 2016. Overall, cannabis was involved in less than seven percent of all drug trafficking cases in 2020. The top district for cannabis trafficking offenders was the Western District of Texas, which reported 308 offenses.
“These trends illustrate the fact that state-legal domestic cannabis production has supplanted the foreign market and that marijuana law enforcement is becoming less of a federal priority in an age where the majority of Americans believe that cannabis ought to be legal,” NORML’s Deputy Director Paul Armentano said. “It is vital that Congress takes action to amend federal law in a manner that comports with this reality.”
Throughout 2020, 64,565 cases were reported to the U.S. Sentencing Commission, with 16,501 of the cases involving drugs and 16,287 involving drug trafficking. Of the cannabis trafficking offenders, nearly 90 percent were men with the average age of 34 years old. Nearly 60 percent of the offenders were U.S. citizens. A little over 65 percent had little to no prior criminal history and 1.9 percent were Career Offenders, which is defined as someone who commits a crime of violence or a controlled substance after previously receiving two prior felony convictions for those crimes.
The average guideline minimum sentence as well as the average sentence imposed have both slightly increased over the past five years. The average guideline minimum has risen from 24 months in 2016 to 38 months in 2020. The average sentence imposed increased from 26 months to 29 months in the same time frame. Just over 80 percent of offenders were sentenced to less than five years, 16 percent were sentenced to 5-10 years and just over four percent were sentenced to more than 10 years.
Sentences were primarily increased for possession of a weapon or having a leadership or supervisory role in the offense. Sentences were primarily decreased for minimal participation in the offense or meeting the safety valve criteria in the sentencing guidelines. Of the offenders, 88 percent were sentenced to prison, with 33.1 percent convicted of an offense that carried a mandatory minimum sentence.
The data from the study is backed by a previous study that also found legal cannabis leads to safer borders and less cannabis trafficking. Analysis from the Cato Institute showed cannabis seizures by Border Patrol have decreased over time.
“State??level marijuana legalization has significantly undercut marijuana smuggling. Based on Border Patrol seizures, smuggling has fallen 78 percent over just a five??year period. Because marijuana was the primary drug smuggled between ports of entry, where Border Patrol surveils, the value of the agency’s seizures overall—on a per??agent basis—has declined 70 percent,” David Bier, an analyst at Cato, wrote in the conclusion of the study.
Another study found violent crimes have decreased significantly in states with legalized cannabis that border Mexico. The study concluded a drop in demand for black market cannabis has led to a drop in violent crimes. The rates of other crimes, such as robbery, murder and aggravated assaults have also declined and are also being attributed to states implementing legalized medical ad recreational cannabis.
On the contrary, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime’s World Drug Report 2021 found that the COVID-19 lockdown restrictions may have accelerated drug trafficking using the Internet. The report showed China and India were the most frequently mentioned countries for shipments of drugs using the darknet of the 19 major darknet markets analyzed from 2011-2020.
