Dude, I knew it was bad for marijuana smokers in New Jersey, but I didn’t know it was this bad. The gulf is much wider than I would’ve guessed. It’s like the difference between a dimebag of schwag and an ounce of kind bud. (Sorry if my pot references are dated. I’ve been out of the game for almost 20 years. By the way, are we still using beepers to contact our dealers?)
The facts are startling: New Jersey is third in the nation in total arrests for marijuana, and second in the nation on a per capita basis. Only New York and Texas arrest more people by raw numbers, and only Wyoming has a higher rate arrests, according to an analysis done by NJ.com.
In New Jersey in 2016, over 35,000 people were arrested on marijuana offenses, with the bulk of the arrests (over 32,000) for simple possession, according to the FBI. In short, and get ready to have your mind blown: One out of every 250 New Jerseyans were arrested for weed in 2016.
Digest that for a moment. One out of every 250 New Jersey residents were arrested for marijuana in 2016. And that includes babies and 90-year-olds. Take out the population of those under 14 and over 60, and the pinched for pot rate goes to one arrest for every 200 New Jersey citizens.
This is disgusting.