Are cops creating criminals for pointless reasons?

Marijuana law just creates criminals By Hakeem Jeffries, Special to CNN

The main idea of this article is that New York police are arresting over 400,000 people and paying $75million a year but many people believe that is never a good thing.

Details or evidence I have from this article is when the writer says that more than 50,000 people got arrested in 2011 for possessing a small amount of marijuana at the time. Another detail I have about the article is when it states that a majority of the arrests that occur are in the same neighborhoods and about 85% of those arrests being Black and Latina though there are some cases where young whites have been arrested as well.

In my opinion I feel as though they could’ve developed a better system to subdue people with the substance of marijuana instead of arresting them because some people feel as though they're above the law and become rebellious over time so there is always going to be someone to be arrested and that's wasting too much time, money, and effort.

This article has helped me to think more deeply about the situation because it has me wondering why can’t anyone just stop smoking. I mean I know it can be addictive but that's why there's rehab centers they're there to help you in any way possible.

My only question is why can't people just stop smoking? Because they're only hurting themselves and the people they love. One other question I have is why are cops wasting so much just to keep these guys behind bars? In my opinion they can think up better strategies to keep drugs out of the pockets of people.