After 40 years, the United States’ war on drugs has cost $1 trillion and hundreds of thousands of lives. Drug use is rampant and violence even more brutal and widespread, according to a Fox News report issued last year.
The waste of taxpayer dollars is staggering, and the cost of human lives is truly depressing. The Fox news report listed these drug war failures:
- $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.
- $49 billion for law enforcement along America’s borders to cut off the flow of illegal drugs. This year, 25 million Americans will use illicit drugs, about 10 million more than in 1970, with the bulk of those drugs imported from Mexico.
- $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. Read more →