Countering bogus claims by White House Drug Czar John Walters that hundreds of thousands of marijuana addicts are flocking to drug treatment, a Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) report shows that 82.5% of people seeking treatment for marijuana – a stunning majority – are doing so only because of government coercion and other involuntary means. The report shows that many of those in treatment for marijuana do not enter because of problems with the drug but because they are first-time offenders arrested for marijuana possession who have been given the option by a judge or drug court to choose drug treatment or jail.

According to the government report, fifty-seven percent of the 255,000 individuals admitted for primary marijuana treatment in 2001 were referred by the criminal justice system – that is, they chose treatment over jail. Many of these individuals are youth who have been caught with the drug. Admissions involving primary marijuana and no alcohol increased by an astonishing 520% from 1992-2001, the nine-year period covered by the report, and made up 15% of all admissions. This highlights the astonishing time and cost spent targeting marijuana users in the taxpayer funded "war on drugs". In the final year of the report, 800,000 Americans were arrested on marijuana charges – most of these are arrested for possession.