[alpsgolden]

"If we ever decriminalize Marijuana at the Federal level, that seems to me like it would mean millions of prisoners held for offenses involving only that drug would need to be set free."

Millions? Millions??

Where on Earth are you getting "millions" from? And why is this completely absurd and unsubstantiated claim the top voted comment?

The idea that millions, or even hundreds of thousands of people are in jail for simply smoking a joint is a myth:

"Less than 1 percent of sentenced drug offenders in federal court in 2014 were convicted for simple drug possession, according to the U.S. Sentencing Commission, and most of those convictions were plea-bargained down from trafficking charges. Even on the state level, drug-possession convicts are relatively rare. In 2013, only 3.6 percent of state prisoners were serving time for drug possession, often the result of a plea bargain, compared with 12 percent of prisoners convicted for trafficking. Virtually all the possession offenders had long prior arrest and conviction records. The meth users that Tustin, California, police officer Mark Turner encountered in his undercover narcotics days were sentenced to drug classes. “Then they would skip out of the classes and always re-offend,” he says." (Source: http://www.city-journal.org/html/decriminalization-delusion-... )

Also read: https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2015-03-10/the-smart...

[DanBC]

> and most of those convictions were plea-bargained down from trafficking charges.

What counts as trafficking in the US? In England merely handing your friend a joint can be seen as dealing.

[SomeStupidPoint]

Trafficking can be a small amount of pot and a box of ziplock bags, but you're generally talking about 28-40g before you'll get charged (and usually more like 100g+), and the fed sentencing guidelines all involve the prefix "kilo" on the weights, so that tends to be the scale they're concerned with.

[ClayFerguson]

I would dare say that there have been millions of people whose lives have been affected very badly by the Marijuana laws, however I didn't look up the incarceration statistics, so if you feel the need to correct that number, no problem. Doesn't affect my point at all.