The price that Americans are paying for the drug war has become an issue in these times of severe federal, state, and local budget deficits. Some of these costs can be found within the Economics link at Drug War Facts and have been distilled into the flyer, “The Federal, State, and Local Price of the Drug War.”
Consider these costs, remembering that each point represents a direct quote from the linked authoritative source:
$714 billion – That’s the current Federal budget deficit as of April 2010.
$48.7 billion – That was total estimated cost of U.S. drug prohibition in 2008.
$6.2 billion– That’s the price America paid to imprison drug offenders in 2007.
$2 billion – That’s what was spent on counternarcotics programs in Afghanistan from 2005-2009. This, of course, excludes the cost of the war.
$1.4 billion – That’s how much revenue California is losing or really the funds that the state could collect if it taxed marijuana.
Please note that these costs were also the subject of the first of a new series of audio segments for Drug War Facts on the Drug Truth Network, with this first segment airing on May 3, 2010.