A new government report shows that federal marijuana trafficking cases continue to decline as state-level legalization expands – MEDCAN24

A new report by the U.S. Sentencing Commission (USSC) shows that federal marijuana drug cases continue to decline steadily as state legalization takes place. Sentencing Commission (USSC) shows.

USSC 2024, Sourcebook of Federal Sentence Statistics published recently by the USSC, confirms a downward trend in cannabis prosecutions that has been observed over the past decade. This is due to the push for state-level reform and the shifting priorities of federal enforcement.

According to the report, in 2024 there will be approximately 500 federal cases of cannabis trafficking. It’s down significantly from the nearly 3,500 cannabis trafficking cases reported in 2015 and around 5,000 marijuana-related crimes in 2013.

The new sourcebook does not cite an exact number of federal marijuana trafficking crimes in 2024. Instead, it publishes a table that shows marijuana along with trafficking for other controlled drugs.

This chart shows the majority of cases in the last decade have involved methamphetamine. Since last year, fentanyl has become the most popular drug target. Powder cocaine is no longer the top priority.

And while marijuana was the third most common trafficking target a decade ago, it now appears to rank below methamphetamine, powder and crack cocaine, fentanyl and heroin—the lowest rank for any drug tracked in the report.

Cannabis legalization advocates have long maintained that providing adults with access to licensed marijuana markets would reduce the demand for illegal products. This, in turn, will lead to fewer arrests and less illicit production. This idea is reinforced by the latest USSC report, which shows a decline in federal cases of cannabis trafficking as more states legalize.

USSC’s 2024 Annual Report notes that of all drug cases last year—for manufacture, sale and transportation—marijuana accounted for about 2.6 percent.

Criminal sentences were also lowest for marijuana among all drug trafficking cases, averaging 36 months—a slight drop from the average 37 months in last year’s report.

According to the report, “the average length of drug-trafficking sentences has decreased for three out of six of the major drug types, including heroin, marijuana, and powder cocaine.” In 2024 the average punishment for crack and powder cocaine crimes increased, but for methamphetamine it remained constant.

U.S. 2024 Annual report Sentencing Commission

Notably, federal guidelines from USSC advising judges to treat prior marijuana possession offenses more leniently officially took effect in late 2023.

Federal judges are required to consider prior convictions when deciding on sentencing in new cases. As more states legalized marijuana, supporters pushed to update the guidelines so that cannabis records would not necessarily lead to increased sentences.

USSC published a report the same year that showed that in previous years, hundreds of federal prisoners received higher sentences for cannabis possession in states with marijuana reforms.

The data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection last year showed, meanwhile that cannabis seizures at the southern border decreased again in 2023 as state marijuana legalization continued to grow.

Separate Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) data published last September showed that at least 200,000 people were arrested for cannabis in 2023—and simple possession again made up the vast majority of those cases. These figures are likely to be underestimated due to inconsistencies and questions surrounding the methodology of the FBI.

Meanwhile, a Maine man is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to resolve a dispute that could help clarify the boundaries of a federal law known as the Rohrabacher–Farr amendment, which protects state-legal medical marijuana activity from prosecution by the federal government.

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