The Failed War on Drugs

Today, the U.S. accounts for about 4.5% of he world's population but 25% of the world's prisoners. The War on Drugs  has been a major contributor to this high incarceration rate.

$51,000,000,000 - Conservative estimate of annual government spending on the U.S. War on Drugs.

1.5 million - Number of people arrested in 2013 in the U.S. on nonviolent drug charges.

693,482 - Number of people arrested for a marijuana law violation in 2013.

609,423 (88%) - Number of those charged with marijuana law violations who were arrested for possession only.

2,220,300 - Number of Americans behind bars in 2013 in federal, state and local prisons and jails: 1 in every 110 adults, the highest incarceration rate in the world.

57% - proportion of people  incarcerated for a drug law violation in state prison that are black or Hispanic, although these groups use and sell drugs at similar rates as whites.

23 - Number of states that allow the medical use of marijuana, plus the District of Columbia.

$46.7 billion- Tax revenue that drug legalization would yield annually, if currently-illegal drugs were taxed at rates comparable to those on alcohol and tobacco.

100,000+ - Number of people killed in Mexico's drug war since 2006.

200,000+ - Number of students who have lost federal financial aid eligibility because of a drug conviction.

43,982 - Number of people in the U.S. that died from an accidental drug overdose in 2013. (See www.drugpolicy.org)

ADDENDUMS: Militarily-Related Bits and Pieces

*David Krieger and Daniel Ellsberg have called for the elimination of 450 ICBMs deployed and ready to fire at moment's notice. Presidents have only 12 minutes to decide to launch. (David Krieger is president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation).

*Excluding maintenance costs, building an air wing of over 2,400 F-35 Joint Strike Fighters is estimated to cost at least $1.5 trillion. If one laid out $1.5 trillion end-to-end in $100 bills, it would circle the earth at the equator 59 times.

*The Pentagon spends about $100 million annually to maintain nuclear weapons in Europe, not counting the cost of the estimated 3,000 people directly involved in security, maintenance, command and control.

*Although the Pentagon doesn't publish the total number of nations in which it has military bases due to secrecy considerations, Tom Tomorrow  says that: "Since the end of World War II, Washington has extended its security umbrella to cover not only Europe, but also virtually all of Latin America and large parts of East Asia. Tomorrow says that the U.S. has an active military presence in 147 countries. 

*The Pentagon's FY 2017 budget is $582.7 -- excluding the Overseas Contingency Operations fund. This expenditure compares to $171.4 billion for China and $84.9 for Russia.

*Seventy House members joined in a bipartisan letter to President Obama, urging him to maintain his policy of refusing to transfer shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles ("MANPADS") to Syrian combatants, including those who have been vetted and trained by the Department of Defense and the CIA. The big fear is that the weapon could be used to bring down commercial airlines.