A new report from the United States Sentencing Commission, a government agency responsible for promoting judicial transparency and reduce sentencing disparities, says that marijuana trafficking arrests have dropped significantly in the years since recreational legalization started taking hold across America.
In 2012, the same year that residents of Colorado and Washington voted to end cannabis prohibition, nearly 7,000 people were found guilty of trafficking weed. Now, with recreational use allowed in eight states and retail sales raking in millions of dollars, fewer and fewer people are ending up in jail for distributing dank. In 2016 there were only 3,381 marijuana trafficking convictions, a drop of over 50% since the same data was tallied four years prior.
And while 3,381 people wasting away in prison because of cannabis crimes is still far too many, a look at the Sentencing Commission’s regional data shows that a vast majority of the convictions are taking place in only four small regions of the country. Almost 75% of all 2016 marijuana trafficking convictions are taking place in Arizona, New Mexico and the Western and Southern districts of Texas. Coupled with…