America Still Lacks the Political Will to Change Its Failed Drug Policy

http://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/318-66/36717-america-still-lacks-the-political-will-to-change-its-failed-drug-p

Despite strides toward a more sane national drug policy, the deeper infrastructure of the War on Drugs remains fundamentally unaltered under Obama. Work focused on public health has not replaced paramilitary anti-trafficking efforts, known as interdiction, at home or abroad. Rather – much like an "all of the above" energy strategy that embraces solar while continuing to remove mountaintops in pursuit of coal – the new policies supplement the old.

As a result, the Drug War is costing taxpayers more than ever. Obama's 2017 drug budget seeks $31 billion, an increase of 25 percent from when he took office. This year, the federal government is spending more than $1,100 per person to combat the habit of America's 27 million illicit-drug users, and 22 million of them use marijuana.

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For taxpayers, the Drug War imposes huge costs: nearly $55 billion a year. Harvard economist Jeffrey Miron, in a study published by CATO in 2010, found state enforcement of drug prohibition – accounting for cops, judges, jails and prisons – costs more than $25 billion a year, with more than $5 billion spent fighting pot.

Federal Drug War spending has now topped $30 billion. ONDCP divides its spending in two buckets: one for "supply reduction" (global interdiction and law enforcement) and the other for "demand reduction" (prevention and treatment). When Obama took office, 60 percent of Drug War spending targeted supply. In 2016, the administration touts that "for the first time" the drug czar's office is seeking "more funding for demand-reduction efforts than those focused on supply reduction."