Photo by clarissa.stark

Close to 4,300 people were arrested in D.C. for possession of marijuana in 2011, up from the 2,150 arrested for the same crime a decade prior. Overall, marijuana-related arrests—including possession, distribution, conspiracy to distribute and possession with an intent to distribute—jumped from 3,487 in 2001 to 5,759 in 2011, according to MPD arrest statistics unveiled through a Freedom of Information request made by At-Large D.C. Council candidate Paul Zukerberg.

“MPD is snatching 6,000 people off the street, hauling them off to jail, and running them through the criminal justice system every year. These non-violent citizens—mostly young black men—are being saddled with permanent criminal records, and sentenced to a lifetime of underemployment,” said Zukerberg, a defense attorney who has worked on marijuana cases and promised to push for the decriminalization of small amounts of marijuana if elected to the council on April 23. (Zukerberg is profiled by the City Paper today.)

Marijuana arrests per capita have been high in D.C., some years among the highest in the country. Still, the amount of people using marijuana hasn’t really fallen, and as the Washingtonian exposed in a cover story last year, plenty of well-established and well-to-do Washingtonians are occasional smokers. The majority of the arrests, though, are of young African American men.

In D.C., possession is a misdemeanor that can be punished by up to 180 days in prison and a $1,000 fine. And despite D.C.’s liberal bend and the fact that medical marijuana is already legal—though not yet available—legislators haven’t heeded Zukerberg’s call, nor do they seem inclined too anytime soon.