THE Lowly Peon

AP: War on drugs has met none of its goals

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17 May 2010, 10:53am

Some interesting things to note regarding the "war on drugs", which in my opinion is about as much a waste of money as airport security.

First, the age old "it would be worse if we hadn't done it at all" thing. This is much like the stimulus package. If the economy continues to suck, people say it's because the stimulus wasn't enough. If the economy does better, it's because of the stimulus. No control group makes drawing conclusions you like very easy.

Walters [previous anti-drug coordinator] insists society would be far worse today if there had been no War on Drugs. Drug abuse peaked nationally in 1979 and, despite fluctuations, remains below those levels, he says. Judging the drug war is complicated: Records indicate marijuana and prescription drug abuse are climbing, while cocaine use is way down. Seizures are up, but so is availability.

• "$121 billion to arrest more than 37 million nonviolent drug offenders, about 10 million of them for possession of marijuana. Studies show that jail time tends to increase drug abuse."
• "$450 billion to lock those people up in federal prisons alone. Last year, half of all federal prisoners in the U.S. were serving sentences for drug offenses."
• "The $320 billion annual global drug industry now accounts for 1 percent of all commerce on the planet."

(via wjerome)