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I say it's due to lax enforcement (marijuana arrests lowest priority), the move towards decriminalization, and the recent medical marijuana laws.

Look at these arrest stats for mj--

1970 - 187,000
1979 - 392,000
1991 - 288,000
2004 - 771,000

Let's compare that to past-month mj use.

1970-1979: Arrests double, while past-month usage reaches a peak.
1979-1991: Arrests decline by 25%, past-month usage declines to a multi-year low.
1991-2004: Arrests up over 150%, past-month usage up 40%!

http://www.briancbennett.com/charts/fed-data/crime/intox-arrests.htm

http://www.briancbennett.com/charts/nsduh/nsduh.htm

Therefore, stricter enforcement is assocated with higher past-month use!

My statement was that "past month" marijuana use has been up recently (ie., the last couple of years). I said that rise was due to a number of factors that have been building up over the years -- lax enforcement (marijuana arrests lowest priority), the move towards decriminalization, and the recent medical marijuana laws. These factors lead to a lower perceived risk.

You wish to focus on just one those factors -- arrests. Fine. For the last 10 years, the number of marijuana arrests has been flat. As a percentage of the population, therefore, it's actually gone down. As a percentage of marijuana smokers, it's gone down even more.