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2.5 trillion taxpayers’ dollars spent so far on the War on Drugs

Not only is the War on Drugs failing to wipe out drugs and ruining millions of lives, it is also wasting vast sums of taxpayers’ money too. Over $100 billion is spent every year enforcing the War on Drugs. It costs more to keep someone in prison that it costs to send them to college, and when they are released over 50% reoffend within a year.

And it’s not just the waste of money; it’s the lost revenue that is expensive as well. Since drugs are illegal they cannot be regulated or taxed by governments. Harvard economist Jeffrey Miron estimates that regulating and taxing drugs would free up in $76.8 billion a year in the US alone!

1 million people with HIV in Russia

HIV and other blood-borne diseases like Hepatitis spread when drug users share contaminated needles. When drug policy relies upon police enforcement and punishment, many addicts are afraid to seek help and often don’t have access to clean needles. The result is a devastating increase in fatal disease.

Over a third of Russia’s injecting drug users have HIV, while the government refuses to support needle exchange or heroin substitution. And the problem is spreading: now 1 in 3 HIV contaminations in sub-Saharan Africa is from sharing dirty needles.

500,000 prisoners in USA for drugs

The War on Drugs is one of the main causes of imprisonment around the world. Millions of people are in jail because of non-violent drug law violations and this is at its worst in the US. The US has 5% of the world’s population but 25% of the world’s prisoners.

And most of these prisoners are poor and/or from ethnic minorities: according to Human Rights Watch, in some US states, black men are up to 57 times more likely to be sent to jail for drugs than white men!

But 500,000 prisoners for drug crimes in the US is only the tip of the iceberg. This figure ignores all the prisoners that are in jail because they failed a drug test when on probation or had to steal, prostitute, or kill to pay for drugs because prohibition has made drugs like cocaine up to 10 times more expensive than legal drugs like tobacco and alcohol.

Over 30 countries enforce the death penalty for drug charges

International Human Rights Law states that the death penalty may only be applied to the ‘most serious crimes’. The UN Human Rights Committee have stated that drug offences do not constitute ‘most serious crimes’ and therefore executions for drug crimes are violations of international human rights law. Yet the number of countries enforcing the death penalty for drug related crimes has increased dramatically since The War on Drugs began.

In 2009, Iran executed 172 people for drug offences and this is thought to be dwarfed by China’s figures! Saudi Arabia, Vietnam, Singapore, and Malaysia are also particularly committed to this form of punishment for drugs.

Over 47,000 murders in Mexico

Since the drugs trade is illegal, it operates outside the laws and regulation of governments. Instead criminals use guns and violence to secure their power and profits. The cartels recruit young and poor members of the community to become foot soldiers and low-level drug dealers, so that when governments do try to crack down, they are able to fight back with widespread violence – and invariably it is the small-time drug dealers that get killed or arrested, rather than the real criminals at the top of the food chain.

In Mexico, 50,000 soldiers and federal police are fighting the cartels, yet the violence continues to escalate, with shoot-outs, beheadings, and mass graves becoming more common by the day. And as long as there is a demand for illegal drugs, the problems of the drug trade will remain. Crack down in one region and it appears in another: before Mexico, there were 52,000 murders in Colombia in 1991-1992, and now regions like Guatemala and West Africa are being overrun too.

The illegal drugs trade is worth $300-400 billion a year

Since drugs are illegal, a huge criminals market has been created to supply the world’s ever increasing demand for these substances. More than 50% of organized crime’s profits now come from the illegal drug trade and this in turn funds corruption and violence all over the world.

And since the drug markets are illegal, governments have no control. Instead criminals who are only interested maximizing profits make all the decisions. Youngsters are often targeted as customers, drugs are cut with dangerous and sometimes-fatal impurities, and ever more powerful and dangerous forms of drugs are developed like crack cocaine, meth amphetamine, and skunk.

150-300 million drug users in the world

Despite the huge expense and millions of arrests, more people are using illegal drugs today than even before. The problem is that governments’ drug policies are focusing on the supply of drugs rather than concentrating on lowering their demand: for example, in the US almost twice as much is all money is spent on police enforcement than on drug treatment and prevention.

As long as there is a demand there will be a supply. So the more governments fail to address the demand, the more criminals will continue to be funded by the black-market…and the more users will be exposed to the added dangers of poisonous impurities in the drugs and contact with the criminal underworld. In other words, the War on Drugs is often more harmful to the users than the drugs themselves.