'" However, he goes on to make the statement, "But the answer to that isn't to make marijuana more available in the community." Quick has concerns that if the drug were made readily available to adults that it will naturally begin to fall into the hands of minors as well. This will result in an academic decline as well as an increase in disciplinary problems within schools. He concludes the article by providing a statistic, "Colorado Department of Corrections figures show that people imprisoned for marijuana crimes make up about 1 percent of inmates." Quick's point is that the effect on prison overcrowding by legalizing marijuana will be minimal at best. ("Marijuana resource center," 2013) concurs when they make the following statement, "In total, one tenth of one percent (0.1 percent) of state prisoners were marijuana possession offenders with no prior sentences." The following graph (Figure 1) provides a detailed representation:.
Figure 1. Drug possession offenders by percentage.
Most non-violent drug users never even see the inside of a prison, according to ("Speaking out against," 2010) "There is a popular myth that America's prisons are filling up with drug users arrested for simple possession of marijuana. This is a myth. In reality, a vast majority of inmates in state and federal prison for marijuana have been found guilty of much more than simple possession and many of those serving time for marijuana possession pled down to possession in order to avoid prosecution on more serious charges." In response to the information given above, I disagree with advocates view that prison overcrowding will improve with the legalizing of marijuana because, as recent research has shown, the number of marijuana related prisoners make up only a minor percentage of the overall prison population.
A number of advocates for legalization have suggested that the workload on local law enforcement would ease if marijuana were legal.