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The War on Drugs Has Cost Taxpayers Over 1 Trillion Dollars
Submitted by Kit O'Connell via TheAntiMedia.org,
Despite increasing recognition of its usefulness as a medicine and increasingly state-level legalization, someone in the U.S. is arrested for marijuana possession about once every minute.
The “war on drugs” costs Americans a staggering amount of money every year that it persists. Despite the billions they receive, federal, state and local law enforcement have a proven inability to stem the flow of drugs on the nation’s streets.
Since Richard Nixon declared a war on drugs in June 1971, the cost of that “war” had soared to over $1 trillion by 2010. Over $51 billion is spent annually to fight the drug war in the United States, according to Drug Policy Alliance, a nonprofit dedicated to promoting more humane drug policies.
It’s also taken a massive toll on human lives. In 2013, at least 2.2 million people were incarcerated in the U.S., with some estimates reaching 2.4 million, making the U.S. home to the world’s largest prison population. A vast number of those prisoners are victims of the war on drugs, reported Alejandro Crawford in U.S. News and World Report in March:
“Still, we should take comfort in the fact that these are mostly violent criminals and hardened drug kingpins, right? Not so. About half the inmates in the federal prison system are there for nonviolent drug crime – up from 16 percent in 1970 – and the leading drug involved is marijuana. Of course, none of this seems to have made marijuana remotely difficult to procure for those who want it.”
Although four states and Washington, D.C., have legalized marijuana, and 23 states allow at least limited use of medical marijuana or cannabidiol (CBD) oil, someone is arrested about once every minute for marijuana possession in the U.S., according to the Washington Post’s Christopher Ingraham:
“In 2014, at least 620,000 people were arrested for simple pot possession — that’s 1,700 people per day, or more than 1 per minute. And that number is an undercount, because a handful of states either don’t report arrest numbers to the FBI, or do so only on a limited basis.”
Ingraham noted that even as some marijuana laws grew less restrictive and some states legalized recreational use, arrests crept up slightly in 2014 as other jurisdictions stepped up enforcement, reflecting an overall trend toward increased focus on cannabis:
“Nationwide, more than 1 in 20 arrests were for simple marijuana possession. Twenty years ago, near the dawn of the drug war, fewer than 2 percent of arrests were for pot possession.”
Drug prohibition is extremely profitable for police and the prison-industrial complex. Yet Crawford pointed out that while policies of prohibition have already failed society twice in the U.S., legalization offers some proven benefits, including reducing power and profits for organized crime:
“While states across our land continue to imprison nonviolent users and low-level growers and dealers, such cartels depend for a non-trivial portion of their revenues on the false premium supplied by prohibition. Since prohibition has been repealed in key states, the prison population appears finally to have begun to decline, and cartels face falling prices for marijuana.”
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Imagine how expensive the "War on Guns" will be...
or that could have bought a lot of drugs.
TPTB will not willfully give up the right to arrest you for minor offenses, because doing so would reduce their available tools to act "in your protection"
The reason laws increase is because the endgame of national law enforcement is to turn everyone into a criminal, and then selectively enforce the law.
Yeah, but look at all the armor, automatic weapons and tens of thousands of SWAT teams we got out of the deal.
Way better than prosperity.
The 'war on drugs' was designed to transfer money to the criminal and connected (the criminally connected) for their benefit and to finance foreign political rackets. Once one knows that Britain went to war in China in the middle of the 19th century for the right to import and sell opium (creating opium dens and addicts), to gain foreign exchange for coveted Chinese goods and political control, things begin to fall into place. American elites have never had a problem dumping drugs for profit and control into the neighborhoods of the dispossessed, they just had a problem stating and admitting what they were up to -- it's bad PR.
The DEA does not exist to eradicate drugs - they couldn't if they wanted to - they exist to cover and obfuscate what the CIA is up to. Vice squads are employed to control the racket, not eliminate it.
+10,000 Iggy!
or the war on confederate flags
It's all "for the children" you selfish bastards!
LBJ's "War on Poverty" has cost roughly $22 trillion, and look how awesome that worked out.
chrsn, That's $220 Trillion, (including unfunded liabilities).
Guy Scarpa Jr. is still in Supermax prison now for allegedly being a pot drug kingpin. The same Guy Scapa who as an FBI confidential informant in 1993 passed on to the FBI information from cell tier mate Ramzi Yousef that al Qaeda planned to hijack multiple airliners and crash them. For his efforts. Scarpa is still in prison, held incommunicado in Florence, Colorado to shut him up. Not much different than the Man In The Iron Mask. The war on pot was more important than going after al Qaeda mass murderers. Yousef's uncle is Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Osama's right hand man responsible for planning and carrying out the 9/11 attack. The FBI had orders from the Clinton administration to stand down on Scarpa's information, which those empty suits did willingly.
See: http://peterlance.com/wordpress/?p=682
imagine how many junkies we would have if it was legal
Fewer than there are now, as suggested by empirical date. See Portugal and Switzerland, where junkies can get their fix legally - it has de facto solved the huge problem these countries once had with their heroin epidemics.
After German reunification, medical statistics from 1870 onward were discovered in Leipzig. It had previously been assumed that they had gotten lost in the war. Anyway, after analyzing the statistics, it became clear that there were slightly fewer opiate addicts in Germany before the stuff was made illegal than after.
So, no need to "imagine" - we already know.
Probably a lot fewer, as they wouldn't have to be so secretive about using drugs. Plus users could be more certain of exactly what and how much they were using.
Besides, people who want to use drugs are using drugs. People who don't want to use drugs are not using drugs. That wouldn't change. It's like gay marriage. Making it legal doesn't change anything for anybody unless they're gay and want to get married.
I wouldn't care if heroin were legal; I wouldn't use it because I don't enjoy opiates, I don't have that kind of time to waste, and under the best of circumstances the stuff is dangerous as hell. On the other hand, I've never lived anyplace where pot was legal. The stuff was always available to me, regardless of legality. At times when I wanted pot, I had pot and used it. At times when I didn't want to be using pot, I didn't.
In general, more freedom is better.
Protect and encourage the Drug producers, Ban drugs to create an illegal trap for consumers, Ship and distribute the drugs, Offer for a cost to pretend to have an Expensive war on drugs, Burn any opposition, Setup Prisons for theDolts that get caught for great money.. Many more benifits..
Its a Win Win Win big business.
I'm sure if we criminalize more inanimate objects, this will improve.
Well, thank God we're winning! U S A ! ! U S A ! !
A lot of money to protect big pharma and paper mills ....
It's a fake war on drugs which costs real money. Just like Obama's war on ISIS:
Afghan Opium Production Increased 40 Times Since NATO, US Invasion
Since NATO entered Afghanistan in 2001, heroin production has increased 40 times, according to the head of Russia’s Federal Drug Control Service. One million people have died from Afghan heroin since 2001.
“Afghan heroin has killed more than 1 million people worldwide since the ‘Operation Enduring Freedom’ began and over a trillion dollars has been invested into transnational organized crime from drug sales,” said Viktor Ivanov, at the conference on the drug situation in Afghanistan.
http://www.mintpressnews.com/afghan-opium-production-increased-40-times-...
Pulitzer Prize Winner Gary Webb wrote about CIA drug sales of crack cocaine in the ghettos of California to raise money for the Contras. Unhappily, Gary Webb committed suicide by shooting himself twice in the head, the most remarkable feat of his life.
bonuses for the cia all around this year.
It's not a war on drugs, it's a battle for control of the people.......
WAR AND DRUGS!
...& yet people can't understand the child malnutrition problem in Afghanistan.
Afghanis don't give a shit about growning food to feed their children; they care about growing poppies to sell for US dollars which are not then used to buy foodstuffs.
More children would probably be fed under a Taliban regime.
INTERnational fucking disgrace.
Somehow kids getting ass raped ruins their appetites?
"Pulitzer Prize Winner Gary Webb wrote about CIA drug sales of crack cocaine in the ghettos of California to raise money for the Contras."
That's the type of situation that a lot of Canadians and Europeans don't understand when they rant about how crazy Americans and their gun laws are. They don't realize that the spooks have funded and caused an incredible amount of violence in this country. They were involved with the mob, the Crips, Mexican cartels, white supremacists groups, possibly Farrakhan.. on and on.
They also don't realize that they're next, well maybe the Europeans do now.
Ms No,
And didn't that lead to his suicide, with TWO rounds of .38 cal. to the head?
Afghan heroin has killed more than 1 million people worldwide ...
More than one million people using heroin from Afghanistan have died worldwide during Operation Enduring Freedom.
Enduring freedom from prosecution is more likely. Afghan heroin does not leap out of the ground, grab one by the arm, and kill, kill, kill. People sticking it their bloodstream, on the other hand, do kill, kill, kill.
Its not a war, its a jobs program.
Probably would have cost the Government/Taxpayers less to just buy the drugs from the cartels and hand that shit out at high schools and post offices for free...
And would have saved a lot of lives too.
https://thinkpatriot.wordpress.com/2015/08/10/a-modern-approach-to-secur...
You have to provide guns, also.
legalize and tax.
legalize.
there, fixed it for ya.
It should be available from the local pharmacopia at cost.
The only problem with your idea is that the authorities would impose such a high tax that there still would be incentive for a black market.
Yes, and in every state with medical cannabis, local weed dealers go on dealing exactly because of that.
The cost of a joint in a free market will be about $0.10
https://thinkpatriot.wordpress.com/2015/08/14/prepare-for-big-weed/
It seems like a joint and a cigarette ought to be about the same price
Marihuana/hemp has far more uses than tobacco: as a highly nutritious foodstuff, healthy oil for cooking and cosmetics, for use in textiles from paper to cloth, to treat a range of diseases and aggravations, and as a bio-fuels source, etc...
It is also quite a bit easier to grow and process than tobacco.
For those reasons and more it should in fact be quite a bit cheaper than tobacco..
Legalize, period. What is so great about paying tribute to the ruling class?
None of it works, but since they can't admit to a fuck up anytime or anywhere, it's up to the states to change the rules. depending on who we elect president, cannabis might be moved down the schedule, but I'm not holding my breath......
Time for revolution is NOW
But the cost to the taxpayers has to weighed against the enormous opportunities for law enforcement and political parasites to get rich through bribery and corruption. /sarcasm off
And asset forfeiture.
There was/is a war against poverty. If you are homeless it is a crime to exist. Can't afford a driver's licence or id, you are screwed. Except for thanksgiving or xmas when people get guilty consciousnesses and throw the poor a turkey bone so the thrower can feel good about his or her stooping to help the 'poor'
Federal, State, City and Town revenue....nothing more.
What did they really do during the war on drugs in South and Central America? There is no way to know the actual cost but it looks to have worked out pretty well for a growing empire who wants to hand pick the leaders of nations. As it turns out these chosen leaders haven't been too good to the people, their resources or true capitalist markets. There were lots of missing people, terror and dead bodies all along the way though.
Bush family has gotten filthy rich off drugs. Don't expect the war on drugs to end anytime soon...
Its not a war on drugs...its a war on US
and, you know, all the ruined lives and stuff.
The Drug War turned our beloved nation into a cesspool of violence, murder and corruption. Welfare just ensures a steady supply of ruthless soldiers willing to kill and die for more drug turf. Mexican Drug Cartel leaders have become billionaires and American cops get to retire at age 55 making 6 figures for life. Millions of untaxed dollars flows into the Ghettos from the suburbs every single hour. There’s way too much money being made for it to ever end!
Funny, Bush used cocaine and was an alcoholic, Obama choomed weed, yet they never served time but became presidents. The rest of the USA, not so lucky.
Clinton conned some star struck gal into giving him oral sex in the whitehouse and had numerous affairs, but prostitution in most states is illegal.
Never mind what congress members are doing when not insider trading or taking bribes.
With the FDA's help, Doctors get patients 'hooked' on prescription drugs and the pharmacies are just too happy to follow the 'law' as the coin is great.
America, where white is black and black is white. You never know what you are going to get.
Obama admitted he snorted cocaine when he had the money for it. Is that how he stays so crack head skinny?
Homos are almost always thin...
How ironic that our government is the biggest enabler of drug addicts the world has ever known! They should all be wearing rags and starving to death but somehow they manage to buy more drugs and survive?
There is one drug the government has been peddling that is far more damaging than all the other drugs because it has the capacity to alter the whole course of the world as it is doing at present.
Do you know which drug I am referring to?
Virtually zero and sometimes negative interest rates on depositors.
If the various gangs and agencies weren't creating the problem and not solving the problem nobody would need them.
They'll undoubtedly each do their part to help each other have a need to push for more funding to fight the war on themselves.
And for those that do sincerely try to stop these activities you won't find anyone more anti-drug supporting than me.
War on drugs to help keep the CIA in business dealing them. Win/win/win/win, funding the terrorist police state, funding the CIA, increased profits to the CIA via higher prices, profit to the private prison system via new inmates for consentual behavior.
"....................someone in the U.S. is arrested for marijuana possession about once every minute."
whoever that dude is, I'll bet he's super jonesin' for a pizza by now.
One pizza every minute X arrests. Short pizza makers...
Rick Ross approves this message.
Imagine how many jobs, programs, subsidies, arms and equipment companies, training comanies, the re-sale market for former military grade weapons, institutions etc. etc. etc. are tied to the good old war on drugs. I would love to see the fake war go away, but then we'd suffer such a dislocation of people from their jobs/incomes and their spending that the nation would convulse. These sinister fuckers almost force a citizen to invest in prison stocks, big pharma, and weapons companies to in order to retire in a traditionally defined way. Maybe the band-aid simply needs to be torn off but I imagine the national body would bleed to death. I'd rather invest in a guillotine manufacturer.
Warpigs
the neat thing about the war on drugs are the economics underlying the illicit trade in drugs. in a way the economies develope entirely based upon the need to stay hidden...for as long as possible while making as much money as possible. interestingly the premium isn't as much as it should be because of market price discovery. it operates as a sort of free underground economy, organized as any good business should be with really serious debt and respect enforcers. any serious student of anarchy and/or libertarianism should look at the social and economic structure of a human society left to its own devices to develop naturally. the other interesting thing are the parallels between the present .gov/wall street nexus and organized crime are obvious. they are the ultimate criominals. they control the laws and the money so they are free to do what they want, a criminals' paradise.
Absolutely everything the US govt gets involved in is a failure. When it is shown to perform poorly, they ask for more money. Then this cycle continues forever. The solution is to reduce the size and role of federal government.
The solution is to ELIMINATE THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT ALONG WITH THEIR WHORE RETARDED SISTER, THE FED, AS WELL AS WALL STREET. Cut off the head, and the body will die. Do away with the disease prone and cancer ridden concept of a "republic". No more central government. Make government more "state centric"
Actually, it is time to do away with the State altogether. Every servive the government performns, inlcuding judicial and defense services, would be cheaper and more efficient if provided by the free market.
"War on drugs" what the fuck does that even mean? Aside from making busy work and putting money into the pockets of judges, lawyers, the unimaginably huge private prison system. This is not about saving us from the evils of drugs, fellow sheeple, it is about control.Do any of you really, truly believe that TPTB give a rats ass about your well being, and whether or not you blow out all of your brain cells with a bong or a needle? The only real, ever present threat to the American peeps are the various branches of goobermint...same as it ever was. The fine ideals of our founding fathers have been permanently corrupted by an endless stream of clueless homo-monkeys. Enough is enough. The time for a revolution is NOW
I'm wondering when the ISIS-favorite highly addictive methamphetamine Captagon goes on sale in the U.S. See http://metro.co.uk/2015/10/19/what-exactly-is-captagon-the-drug-of-choic...
No doubt various elements of TBTB are fighting over the distribution rights for Miami, Chicago, NY, LA, etc.
Can you tell your neighbor what he can put in his body? Then how can a group of people, or someone they designate, tell him the same thing?
Isn't this war on drugs the same as the war on terror?
Both are war on consciousness waged by the ruling classes against those ruled over.
AND, I REPEATED THOSE POINTS
under this too superficial article:
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-12-08/americas-reckless-fight-against-evil-six-mistakes-road-perpetual-war
America's Reckless Fight Against Evil: Six Mistakes On The Road To Perpetual War
Meanwhile, we are headed towards "legalized marijuana" ending up following the pattern outlined in this article: Anatomy of an Oligopoly: the Beer Industry
Remember the 1980s when then Senator Biden was in charge of stopping the cocaine cowboys?
Oh yeah, they're real serious about stopping the flow of drugs!
It certainly has had a much bigger cost for Mexico.
Good thing we're arresting people who've never hurt anyone.
Are these three 747's that the CIA left parked in a foreign country for a year being used for hauling big loads of drugs in so-called government operations?You bet.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-12-08/malaysia-hunting-mystery-owner-...
Hint: not even all the cocaine and heroin these guys bring in can keep the $20 trillion of deficit from imploding on itself.
Lets see........
Steal a billion dollars on Wall Street.......get a million dollar fine, and retire to the caymans........
Smoke a joint on Wall Street....get a 1000 dollar fine and retire to Sing Sing........
What a Country......LMAO!......
Yeah but my shares of private prison companies are doing awesome. Fuck America and fuck Americans. I have boat payments to make! If we need to throw millions of innocent people in jail, so be it.