Modbert
Daydream Believer
- Sep 2, 2008
- 33,178
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If you think it's possible to fight two major wars simultaneously AND achieve an overall net reduction in federal spending at the very same time you're not living in the real world.
Actually, it's three wars if you want to be technical. The War on Drugs is a drain on our resources, and not just monetary wise either. There are also the costs of keeping said people we catch in prison, where drugs are actually easier to obtain.
War On Drugs Clock
$10 Billion by the Federal Gov't and $16 billion by the States as we speak for a total of around $27 billion.
The U.S. federal government spent over $19 billion dollars in 2003 on the War on Drugs, at a rate of about $600 per second. The budget has since been increased by over a billion dollars.
State and local governments spent at least another 30 billion.
Arrests for drug law violations this year are expected to exceed the 1,841,182 arrests of 2007. Law enforcement made more arrests for drug abuse violations (an estimated 1.8 million arrests, or 13.0 percent of the total number of arrests) than for any other offense in 2007.
Police arrested an estimated 872,720 persons for cannabis violations in 2007, the highest annual total ever recorded in the United States, according to statistics compiled by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Of those charged with cannabis violations, approximately 89 percent, 775,137 Americans were charged with possession only. An American is now arrested for violating cannabis laws every 38 seconds.
Since December 31, 1995, the U.S. prison population has grown an average of 43,266 inmates per year. About 25 per cent are sentenced for drug law violations.
The numbers are boggling.