Informant38

Burma: 2092 Political Prisioners In Prison
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Not to disparage even slightly the plight of Burmese dissidents, but:

Nearly 60,000 marijuana offenders are incarcerated in the United States at any given time, according to a study published in the Federation of American Scientists' "Drug Policy Analysis Bulletin." More than a quarter of marijuana offenders are incarcerated for personal possession, with no other drugs involved in the offense.

Stop the Drug War
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Blacks constitute 13 percent of all drug users, but 35 percent of those arrested for drug possession, 55 percent of persons convicted, and 74 percent of people sent to prison.
Nationally, Latinos comprise almost half of those arrested for marijuana offenses.

DPA Network
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Some of this is strategy - arresting people who do worse things, but can't be prosecuted for that, is made possible by the bizarrely harsh penalties for marijuana.
Most of it is Grundyism. Or Ydgrunism.
Or straight-up Puritanical fear.
Or an actual considered response to the nature of the marijuana experience.
Or subtle racism
Or overt racism.
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The movement to outlaw marijuana in this country did not gear up until after the repeal of alcohol prohibition. The movement built a mythology of marijuana misinformation, replete with tales of crazed addicts committing murders while high on the drug. Anti-marijuana crusaders managed to convince Congress to take action in 1937 with the Marijuana Tax Act. Even though the American Medical Association pointed out that the case against marijuana was built on exaggerated horror stories that demonized marijuana and made rational policy design impossible, Congress passed the bill outlawing non-medical untaxed uses of marijuana.

It is unclear what motivated the prohibitionists-- perhaps the same Puritanical impulses that motivated alcohol prohibition. A more cynical observer might point to the liquor industry's interest in wiping out competition once alcohol prohibition ended. Whatever the impulses, the ensuing wave of propaganda warped public opinion concerning marijuana. A Gallup Poll in 1969 showed that only 3% of Americans realized marijuana was not addictive...

Edelson/Leda-Harvard Law School