Weed arrests are down significantly in the U.S., but a new report shows prohibition states continue to drive most enforcement activity.
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Cannabis policy reform advocacy group the Marijuana Policy Project on Monday released a new report on weed-related arrests in the United States that illustrates the wide gap between states that have legalized pot and those that haven’t. Based on FBI Crime Explorer data, the report examines cannabis arrest data in all 50 states, including a state-by-state breakdown of arrest data.
Since 1995, law enforcement agencies in the United States have made more than 21 million cannabis arrests. The report shows that as states turned to more pragmatic regulation and legalization of cannabis, “the era of mass arrests is beginning to wane, but not everywhere.
“Cannabis legalization across 24 states has driven a historic decline in cannabis arrests nationwide, from a high of nearly 900,000 to over 200,000 annually,” MPP executive director Adam J. Smith wrote in a statement from the group. “That is still an alarmingly high number, with each of those arrests representing an actual person whose current reality and future prospects may well be derailed by a criminal record. Across half of our country, hundreds of thousands of Americans are still being funneled into the criminal justice system every year for a victimless ‘crime’ that is very likely legal in the next state over.”
The report found that annual cannabis arrests in the United States (including Washington, D.C. and U.S. territories) dropped from a peak of over 870,000 in 2007 to 211,104 in 2025. The findings show that cannabis arrest rates have dropped 85.53%, with possession arrests dropping by an average of 84.61% and sales arrests decreasing by an average of 80.39%.
“We have come a long way since nearly 900,000 annual arrests, but 200,000 Americans arrested every year for cannabis is still a human rights disaster and we have to end it.” Smith writes in a text message. “And the only way it ends is to end this nation's disastrous century of prohibition, federally and in every state.”
In 2025, law enforcement agencies in states that have legalized marijuana reported 22,357 cannabis arrests, while states that continue to prohibit pot reported 186,581 cannabis arrests. The 24 states with legal cannabis made a total of 222,261 fewer cannabis arrests in 2025 compared to the year prior to their legalization of cannabis.
Prohibition states made more than eight times as many cannabis arrests than legalization states in 2025, although they have a smaller total population.
MPP released its report on marijuana arrests data from around the country on April 20, a date celebrated worldwide as the cannabis community holiday 4/20. The group says the occasion is a fitting time to remember those who carry the ongoing impact of cannabis-related arrests, including lost employment opportunities and housing instability.
“4/20 is a great day to take stock of where we are and how far we’ve come. And we’ve come a long way from the days of blanket cannabis prohibition,” says Smith. “But it’s also a time to look ahead to a day when American adults, no matter where they live, no longer need to fear that their lives will be upended by an arrest for possessing a plant that humans have been using for thousands of years.”
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