[mugs99]

Sure it does. It says that there's around 450,000 in prison on drug offenses out of 2,019,234 -- that's 22%.

The figures given in the article you cited are identical to the Butterfield report (458,000 & 2,019,234) in the NY Times in 1991. I noticed you didn't use Department of Justice statistics...

We now have well over 2 million in prison and another 820,000 in jail. In total, over 7 million are currently on probation, parole or locked up.
Look at the incarceration rate over the decade 1995 to 2005, the get tough on drug crimes decade: The state incarceration rate rose 14 percent, and the federal rate rose 72 percent...Attributed almost entirely to the drug war.
During this decade the prison industry ballooned into a $40-billion-a-year industry...and drugs are still cheap and plentiful in every town in America.

Your 70-80% drug-related offenses include those who possessed drugs or were high on drugs when they committed the crime they were charged with. They'd be arrested even if drugs were legal, so I don't see how we can count them.

LOL!
Not true. Drug related offenses do not include those who were in possesssion or high when they committed other crimes...You're grasping at straws. The 758% surge in the female incarceration rate is almost entirely attributed to the drug war.

The War On Drugs is a total failure that has brought nothing but the spread of violence and crime. It's time to stop this national disgrace.
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[robertpaulsen]

In response to the poster who claimed half the people in prison are there because of drug crimes, I said 22% were in prison because of drug crimes and backed up that percentage with a link.

You came along and said "The numbers range from 70% to over 80% depending on which source you want to believe". Where did you get that percentage?

"The War On Drugs is a total failure"

Measured how? What do you mean, total failure?