Even the pro-druggie libs decry your chart and acknowledge, “There is a huge problem with the chart, in that 40 years of federal drug control spending does not add up to $1.5 trillion”
Personally, I think the blue line is significantly incorrect but I can’t prove that (I think the addicted community is higher than 1+%)
The rest of the quote:
“While the $1.5 trillion figure doesn’t correspond to the numbers at right, it’s actually low. In 2010, the AP put the 40-year tab of federal drug control spending at $1 trillion. But the massive federal drug control budget—for fiscal year 2013, it’ll be $3.7 billion for interdiction, $9.4 billion for law enforcement, and $9.2 billion for early intervention—is actually a pretty small slice of the pie. States and municipalities have their own drug war expenses—investigating, trying, and locking up drug offenders—and those expenses actually dwarf what the federal government spends.
“According to The Economic Impact of Illicit Drug Use on American Society, last published by the Department of Justice in 2011, enforcing illegal drug laws imposes an annual cost on the American criminal justice system of $56 billion; while incarceration of drug offenders imposes an annual cost of $48 billion.
“That’s $104 billion spent annually by states and cities on two aspects of the drug war (and doesn’t include treatment, public assistance, and a slew of other costs), compared to roughly $21 billion spent by the federal government.”
“I think the addicted community is higher than 1+%”
1.9% according to the feds: http://www.samhsa.gov/data/sites/default/files/NSDUH-DetTabs2014/NSDUH-DetTabs2014.htm#tab5-1b