The Failed Drug War: My Personal Indoctrination

Almost a year ago today, I read THIS ARTICLE and it changed my life forever. I volunteered for 6 months to try to pass Proposition 19 here in California, a goal we fell just short of, but are working hard to achieve in 2012! I also formed a chapter of Students for Sensible Drug Policy on my college campus. I'll reserve any analysis until after you get a chance to read it. I will say though that the approach and the money they use to fund the "drug war" is absolutely staggering...

Here's a small highlight, or should I say "lowlight":

Nixon's first drug-fighting budget was $100 million. Now it's $15.1 billion, 31 times Nixon's amount even when adjusted for inflation. Using Freedom of Information Act requests, archival records, federal budgets and dozens of interviews with leaders and analysts, the AP tracked where that money went, and found that the United States repeatedly increased budgets for programs that did little to stop the flow of drugs. In 40 years, taxpayers spent more than:

— $20 billion to fight the drug gangs in their home countries. In Colombia, for example, the United States spent more than $6 billion, while coca cultivation increased and trafficking moved to Mexico — and the violence along with it.
— $33 billion in marketing "Just Say No"-style messages to America's youth and other prevention programs. High school students report the same rates of illegal drug use as they did in 1970, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says drug overdoses have "risen steadily" since the early 1970s to more than 20,000 last year.
— $49 billion for law enforcement along America's borders to cut off the flow of illegal drugs. This year, 25 million Americans will snort, swallow, inject and smoke illicit drugs, about 10 million more than in 1970, with the bulk of those drugs imported from Mexico.
— $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 rest of the article is equally as staggering. That's just the cold hard dollar figures. Get mad about this. This is one of the biggest injustices we have in society today.