What does “marijuana arrest” mean here?
The Ledger sums marijuana-coded criminal-history arrest records in the Texas DPS county-and-offense workbook. It retains rows whose offense or statute text contains “MARIJ” or “MARIHUANA,” then adds the adult and juvenile columns for each county and year.
The result is a count of reported records, not necessarily a count of unique people or unique arrest events. A person can appear under more than one offense code. The records also do not establish guilt, conviction, cannabis use, or a county resident's individual risk of arrest.
Can these figures change?
Yes. These statistics reflect records reported to the Texas criminal-history system and may change as criminal-justice agencies submit or correct records. The Ledger identifies the source release and retrieval date so later revisions can be compared rather than silently substituted.
How is the rate per 100,000 calculated?
For each county and year, reported marijuana-coded records are divided by the Census annual county population estimate, then multiplied by 100,000. This is a population-normalized comparison, not a resident arrest rate: the DPS county table does not establish that the people in those records lived in the county.
Which counties receive a rate rank?
Comparative rankings include counties with at least 10,000 residents. Calculated rates remain visible for smaller counties, but no rank is assigned. A tiny resident population can magnify a county-reported count, especially when records may concern nonresidents. The threshold is an editorial safeguard, not a claim that larger-county rates perfectly measure enforcement.
Why does the total differ from other publications?
The Ledger recomputes 41,701 marijuana-coded records for 2025 from the Texas DPS criminal-history county/offense workbook. The Marijuana Policy Project reports 29,496 Texas cannabis arrests for 2025 from FBI-derived data. The 12,205-record difference is disclosed, not reconciled away: criminal-history records and FBI/UCR reporting are different systems with different definitions, coverage, and counting practices, so their totals are not interchangeable.
What happens when a row is missing?
The page says “no matching row.” It does not show zero and does not include that county-year in derived statewide rates. A missing row tells us what the source lacks; it does not tell us how many records should have appeared.
What does the Ledger leave out?
No names, addresses, case numbers, charge narratives, demographic guesses, or case-level records enter the pipeline. The current dashboard also leaves out convictions because arrest-year and disposition-year tables need a separate comparison before they can be presented responsibly.