An annual FBI update has revealed that more that police made more than 200,000 weed arrests in 2022, but the number was likely higher, according to weed legalization outfit NORML.

Despite widespread legalization and decriminalization initiatives across the United States, local and state police still reported 227,108 weed arrests last year according to data released last week by the FBI’s Crime Data Explorer.

As of June of 2023, 23 states and the District of Columbia have regulated marijuana for recreational use, including New York, California and Illinois.

With the majority of the population living in states where weed can be legally purchased, you would expect the number of weed infractions to decline year over year. But these numbers actually represent an increase in arrests — up from 219,489 according to NORML:

In all, some 30 percent of all reported drug-related arrests in 2022 were for cannabis. Marijuana arrests peaked in the United States in 2007, when police made over 870,000 marijuana-related arrests. At that time, just under half (48 percent) of all drug-related arrests in the United States were for marijuana-related violations.

 

The overall number of arrests is higher than the 227,108 reported for 2022, as only 83% of the nation’s law enforcement agencies have reported their data to the FBI’s crime database for the year.

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