According to our friends at the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University (who spend their days pursuing and crunching mass amounts of federal data, bless their hearts) federal drug prosecutions in June dropped 16.8% over the previous month, with the feds reporting 1,058 new drug cases. Moreover, TRAC reports that federal drug prosecutions dropped nearly 7% over last year.
Still, don’t go getting any crazy ideas – like, that the feds aren’t still dogging drug users. In fact, fully 32% of June cases were handled by U.S. Magistrate Courts, which handle less serious crimes – including “petty offenses” like simple possession. Interestingly, Texas’ Western District, which includes Austin, has fallen from the No. 1 most active judicial district, per capita, for drug prosecutions last year to No. 8, behind comers Hawaii, Iowa, Kansas, and Montana.
This article appears in October 5 • 2007.