More potent reviews of criminal justice data via the Washington Post‘s Wonkblog

In this post last week, titled ” “There’s little evidence that fewer prisoners means more crime,” I made much of some recent postings on the Washington Post Wonkblog and suggested that sentencing fans ought to make a habit of checking out Wonkblog regularly.  This set of new posts at that blog reinforce my views and recommendation:

• The federal government’s incredibly poor, misleading argument for marijuana prohibition

• America’s marijuana arrest rates, in one chart

• More guns, less crime? Not exactly.

• Medical marijuana opponents’ most powerful argument is at odds with a mountain of research

Though all these posts merit a close read, I especially recommend the first one linked above, as it meticulously details all significant problems with all the “science” claims made by the federal government to justify marijuana prohibition. Here is how that piece it gets started:

The New York Times editorial board is making news with a week-long series advocating for the full legalization of marijuana in the United States. In response, the White House’s Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) published a blog post Monday purporting to lay out the federal government’s case against marijuana reform.

That case, as it turns out, it surprisingly weak. It’s built on half-truths and radically decontextualized facts, curated from social science research that is otherwise quite solid. I’ve gone through the ONDCP’s arguments, and the research behind them, below.

The irony here is that with the coming wave of deregulation and legalization, we really do need a sane national discussion of the costs and benefits of widespread marijuana use. But the ONDCP’s ideological insistence on prohibition prevents them from taking part in that conversation.