Opfer des Drogenkriegs
Amount spent annually in the U.S. on the war on drugs: More than $51,000,000,000
Number of people arrested in 2013 in the U.S. on nonviolent drug charges: 1.5 million
Number of people arrested for a marijuana law violation in 2013: 693,482
Number of those charged with marijuana law violations who were arrested for possession only: 609,423 (88 percent)
Number of Americans incarcerated in 2013 in federal, state and local prisons and jails: 2,220,300 or 1 in every 110 adults, the highest incarceration rate in the world
Proportion of people incarcerated for a drug offense in state prison who are black or Latino, although these groups use and sell drugs at similar rates as whites: 57 percent
Number of states that allow the medical use of marijuana: 23 + District of Columbia
Number of states that have approved legally taxing and regulating marijuana: 4 (Alaska, Colorado, Oregon and Washington)
Number of states that have decriminalized marijuana by eliminating criminal penalties for simple possession of small amounts for personal use: 20
Estimated annual revenue that California would raise if it taxed and regulated the sale of marijuana: $1,400,000,000
Number of people killed in Mexico's drug war since 2006: 100,000+
Number of students who have lost federal financial aid eligibility because of a drug conviction: 200,000+
Number of people in the U.S. who died from a drug overdose in 2013: 43,982
Tax revenue that drug legalization would yield annually, if currently-illegal drugs were taxed at rates comparable to those on alcohol and tobacco: $46.7 billion
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that syringe access programs lower HIV incidence among people who inject drugs by: 80 percent
One-third of all AIDS cases in the U.S. have been caused by syringe sharing.
- About the intended and unintended beneficiaries and victims of the war on drugs. Intended beneficiaries: deterred potential (problem) users who avoid serious drug related harm because of prohibition; unintended beneficiaries: drug dealers and producers who make profits because of continuing demand in spite of the illegality of the good in question. The intended victims are the same dealers and producers who are the unintended beneficiaries. The taxpayers are unintended victims. ... (387)...
- Already this year about 20 people have been killed after taking what they thought was ecstasy, with seven deaths in Scotland over the past two months alone. These fatalities exceed recent annual tallies of ecstasy-related deaths – for all the scaremongering, ecstasy is a comparatively harmless drug, less dangerous than alcohol or tobacco. Sadly, in many cases the pill popped turns out to be the far stronger PMA, which takes longer to kick in, so users may take another, with catastrophic results. These unfortunate youngsters seeking the thrill of intoxication are victims of prohibition. They are dead because our nation continues to wage a war on drugs launched four decades ago by a crooked US president; a war that drives users underground and prevents regulation of products ingested by millions each weekend. If it was contaminated olive oil killing the nation's kids, there would be an outcry; instead, those victims are "druggies", blamed for their own deaths. Yet our society encourages an illegal market to boom, as shown by the cost of ecstasy halving in a decade, while the world's most brutal gangsters cream off huge profits and reduce the purity of their products. Politicians shun the evidence of scientists and ignore the devastating impact of their stupidity: only this month the coalition made the myopic decision to ban qat, a mild stimulant, though experts said there was no need, and east African farmers warned this will drive them towards destitution.
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- We get control over the marketplace (end financing of terrorism by drug markets; Marlboro does not)