Detailing "Mellowed Federal Enforcement" and other federal stories from Marijuana Law, Policy & Reform

In a recent post over at Marijuana Law, Policy & Reform, I have already noted a new essay, "How State Reforms Have Mellowed Federal Enforcement of Marijuana Prohibition" that I had the pleasure of co-authoring with my colleague Alex Fraga.  The forthcoming short piece is now up on SSRN, and here is part of its abstract:

Over [a] quarter century of state reforms, blanket federal marijuana prohibition has remained the law of the land. Indeed, though federal marijuana policies have long been criticized, federal prohibition has now been in place and unchanged for the last half century.  But while federal marijuana law has remained static amidst state-level reforms, federal marijuana prohibition enforcement has actually changed dramatically.  In fact, data from the U.S. Sentencing Commission (USSC) reveals quite remarkable changes in federal enforcement patterns since certain states began fully legalizing marijuana in 2012.

This essay seeks to document and examine critically the remarkable decline in the number of federal marijuana sentences imposed over the last decade.  While noting that federal sentences imposed for marijuana offenses are down 83% from 2012 to 2020, this essay will also explore how the racial composition of persons sentenced in federal court has evolved as the caseload has declined....  The data suggest that whites are benefiting relatively more from fewer federal prosecutions.

Reports from the Drug Enforcement Administration indicate that marijuana seizures at the southern US border have dwindled as states have legalized adult use and medicinal use of marijuana, and the reduced trafficking over the southern border likely largely explain the vastly reduced number of federal prosecutions of marijuana offenses. Nonetheless, though still shrinking in relative size, there were still more than one thousand people (and mostly people of color) sentenced in federal court for marijuana trafficking in fiscal year 2020 and over 100 million dollars was committed to the incarceration of these defendants for activities not dissimilar from corporate activity in states in which marijuana has been legalized for various purposes. 

In addition to welcoming feedback on this short piece, I also figure it would be useful to highlight a few additional posts with other recent coverage of federal reform issues and dynamics over at MLP&R:

• Notable new CRS report on ways a President could legalize or decriminalize marijuana at the federal level

• Some early coverage of big new federal GOP bill, the States Reform Act, to legalize marijuana

• "New GOP weed approach: Feds must ‘get out of the way’" ... which is an important historic drug policy theme

• Highlighting the persistent Democratic divide over federal marijuana reform

• Another Veterans Day with veterans still not getting support when it comes to medical marijuana access

• Latest Gallup poll indicates that over two-thirds of Americans still support making marijuana legal