In first interview as HHS secretary, RFK jr states "we had about a third of our prison population that was in jail because of marijuana offenses”

One reason I have given significant attention to modern marijuana reform — and helped to start an academic center, OSU's Drug Enforcement and Policy Center, conducting research on the topic — relates to my worries that basic justice-system data and the potential consequences of marijuana criminalization have not often been examined and analyzed systemically and rigorously.  Critically, the same can and should and has been said about a wide variety of public-health issues related to modern marijuana reforms: an ad hoc committee of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (on which I had the honor of serving) released this big report last year emphasizing the critical importance of improved data collection and public health research in light of changing cannabis laws and practices.  

I provide this background to explain why I am not sure whether to be impressed or troubled or just nonplussed by new remarks by the new Secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., in response to questions from Laura Ingram on FOX.  The discussion of marijuana was only a little more than a minute toward the end of a lengthy interview, and the Marijuana Moment folks here provide the clip and highlights: 

Fresh off his Senate confirmation vote to become the secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said on Thursday that he is “worried about” the normalization of high-potency marijuana and that he feels its use can have “really catastrophic impacts” on people, but that state-level legalization can facilitate research into its harms and benefits.

Kennedy, who was vocal about his support for marijuana legalization when he was running for president — as well as during his time on the Trump transition team — has been notably silent on cannabis policy issues over recent months as he worked to win over senators to secure confirmation for the country’s top health role.  Now, during his first major media interview since receiving that final vote to secure the cabinet position earlier in the day, Kennedy told Fox News’s Laura Ingraham that he believes cannabis does hold serious harm potential.

The HHS secretary, who personally struggled with drug addiction during his youth, was asked about his cannabis policy position and noted that he’s been in recovery for over 40 years and attends daily 12-step meetings. “I hear stories all the time of the impacts of marijuana on people — and the really catastrophic impacts on them,” he said.

However, Kennedy said “that worry also has to be balanced [with] the impacts that we’ve had before” as it relates to criminalization. “Twenty-five states [have] now legalized marijuana, but we had about a third of our prison population that was in jail because of marijuana offenses,” he said. “That’s something we don’t want either.”

“Because of the legalization of recreational marijuana in 25 states, we have now a capacity to really study it and to compare it to states,” he said. “We need to do studies. We need to figure it out, and then we need to we need to implement policies to address” any health concerns.

I agree with RFK jr that "we don't want" to have "about a third of our prison population ... in jail because of marijuana offenses.” Fortunately, that has never been true or anywhere close to true (though we lack robust data here).  A 2015 Justice Department study of "Drug offenders in Federal Prison" estimated that just over 12% of the federal drug offender prison population in fiscal year 2012 (just before state legalization got started) was in federal prison for marijuana offenses.  These data mean than only about 5% of the total federal prison population — about a twenthieth, not a third — in 2012 was there based on marijuana offenses.  And because the federal system has always had, by far, the highest percentage of drug offenders incarcerated in its total prison population (usually around 40% compared to states having 20% or less of drug offenders), I can assert even absent robust data that it is likely that "our [national] prison population" has never had more than 5% of its members comprised of marijuana offenders.  

That all said, were I eager to try to find some possible kernal of reality in in this RFK jr claim, perhaps he was thinking about historic incarceration rates (including short jail stays) for all drug offenses or marijuana arrests nationwide or the impact of past marijuana offenses can have on future punishment.  Though the data here is again somewhat sketchy and changes all the time, there have been periods in the past when nearly one in three persons given some time behind bars nationally were involved in a drug offense (and, for decades, over 40% of the federal prsion population has been there for drug offenses, with the Bureau of Prisons now reporting that number at 43.8%).  In addition, national FBI arrest data highlight that marijuana arrests were a major portion of total drug arrests nationwide in the decades before state legalization reforms.  And the US Sentencing Commission issued this data report a few years ago noting that thousands of federal defendants (though far short of 1/3 of their sample) receive more criminal history points under the guidelines based on prior marijuana possession sentences. 

In the end, I am not sure I can find any data or sound foundation for what our new HHS head has said about "our prison population" in response to a question on the potential public health harms of cannabis.  But I find interesting that he expressed concern about the potential harms of cannabis criminalization, and I especially find just what the Trump Administration may do on both criminal justice and public health fronts to full of all sorts of uncertainty and intrigue.  Stay tuned.