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What are the real costs of the “war” on drugs?
In this blog, over the last few months, I have talked mainly about the social cost of the drug war. For this author that is the real cost. Money is just slips of paper or colorless, odorless, bank transfer figures. Human lives are solid and real.
But the drug war costs money. Cold, hard cash. Unimaginable amounts of it and I have a pretty good imagination. According to drugsense.com (who gets its info from whitehouse.gov) the federal government spent more than $15 billion dollars in 2010 fighting the “war” on drugs.
That’s every year, by the way. $15 billion every year. Sometimes more sometimes less, but about that.
What are we getting for our money?
The Drug War keeps pot out of the hands of children?According to “Monitoring our Future” (an Obama Administration initiative) the percentage of teenagers who say getting marijuana is “fairly easy” or “very easy” [pdf] has remained steady in the 80%-90% range. So we spend $15 billion per year and get zero impact on the availability of marijuana to minors. Zero.
The Drug War prevents kids from using drugs?Between 1991 and 2011 the percentage of 12th graders who used marijuana “in the last year” went from 23.9% to 36.4% [pdf]. We are paying $15 billion per year so that teenagers can get drugs more easily and use them more often.
But that $15 billion is just federal law enforcement. It just covers the arrests. Then there are the prison sentences. Hundreds of thousands get arrested every year for marijuana-related offenses. Not all of them go to prison, but cultivation and sale of marijuana often carries more severe penalties than manslaughter or burglary.
According to the Marijuana Policy Project [pdf]: “Federal government figures indicate there are more than 41,000 Americans in state or federal prison on marijuana charges right now, not including those in county jails. That’s more than the number imprisoned on all charges combined in eight individual European Union countries.”
Keep in mind that it costs an average of $40,000 per year to keep someone in prison which adds more than $1.6 billion the total.
Also from the MMP: “According to estimates by Harvard University economist Jeffrey Miron, replacing marijuana prohibition with a system of taxation and regulation would save between $10 billion and $14 billion per year in reduced government spending and increased tax revenues.”
Most people believe that spending these billions per year is saving us from the zombie apocalypse where drugged-out maniacs will go door to door smashing your windows and raping your cats.
But the truth is, all that money is buying us NOTHING but misery.
In this blog, over the last few months, I have talked mainly about the social cost of the drug war. For this author that is the real cost. Money is just slips of paper or colorless, odorless, bank transfer figures. Human lives are solid and real.
But the drug war costs money. Cold, hard cash. Unimaginable amounts of it and I have a pretty good imagination. According to drugsense.com (who gets its info from whitehouse.gov) the federal government spent more than $15 billion dollars in 2010 fighting the “war” on drugs.
That’s every year, by the way. $15 billion every year. Sometimes more sometimes less, but about that.
What are we getting for our money?
The Drug War keeps pot out of the hands of children?According to “Monitoring our Future” (an Obama Administration initiative) the percentage of teenagers who say getting marijuana is “fairly easy” or “very easy” [pdf] has remained steady in the 80%-90% range. So we spend $15 billion per year and get zero impact on the availability of marijuana to minors. Zero.
The Drug War prevents kids from using drugs?Between 1991 and 2011 the percentage of 12th graders who used marijuana “in the last year” went from 23.9% to 36.4% [pdf]. We are paying $15 billion per year so that teenagers can get drugs more easily and use them more often.
But that $15 billion is just federal law enforcement. It just covers the arrests. Then there are the prison sentences. Hundreds of thousands get arrested every year for marijuana-related offenses. Not all of them go to prison, but cultivation and sale of marijuana often carries more severe penalties than manslaughter or burglary.
According to the Marijuana Policy Project [pdf]: “Federal government figures indicate there are more than 41,000 Americans in state or federal prison on marijuana charges right now, not including those in county jails. That’s more than the number imprisoned on all charges combined in eight individual European Union countries.”
Keep in mind that it costs an average of $40,000 per year to keep someone in prison which adds more than $1.6 billion the total.
Also from the MMP: “According to estimates by Harvard University economist Jeffrey Miron, replacing marijuana prohibition with a system of taxation and regulation would save between $10 billion and $14 billion per year in reduced government spending and increased tax revenues.”
Most people believe that spending these billions per year is saving us from the zombie apocalypse where drugged-out maniacs will go door to door smashing your windows and raping your cats.
But the truth is, all that money is buying us NOTHING but misery.
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