Criminal drug offenses in Michigan in 2017 were most often related to heroin, according to a report from Detox.net, a division of the American Addiction Centers.
The report says only about 21 percent of criminal offenses in Michigan are related to drugs – and that means the state is tied for the second-lowest criminal drug offenses in the nation.
Ruchi Dhami is the Director of Marketing Insights and Development at the American Addiction Centers.
She says these statistics mean other states should be looking to Michigan's criminal justice system to see how they can improve.
“We should really turn to states like Michigan to learn from their criminal justice processes,” Dhami says.
On the other hand, the data also show Michigan's average length of sentence for a drug offense is 77 months, which is on the higher end of all states.
Dhami says the American Addiction Centers compiled this data to show people how prevalent drug-related incarceration is across the nation.
“It should be a wake-up call to just how many people are incarcerated and you know the importance of focusing on getting people in to treatment.”
This report, which used 2017 federal sentencing statistics from the U-S Sentencing Commission, says more than 30 million Americans have used an illegal drug in the past month -- a 6 percent increase from 20-16.
