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AP IMPACT: After 40 years, $1 trillion, US War on Drugs has
<br />failed to meet any of its goals
<br />Associated Press
<br />MEXICO CITY
<br />MEXICO CITY (AP) — After 40 years, the United States' war on drugs has cost $1 trillion and hundreds of thousands of lives,
<br />and for what? Drug use is rampant and violence even more brutal and widespread.
<br />Even U.S. drug czar Gil Kerlikowske concedes the strategy hasnt worked.
<br />in the grand scheme, it has not been successful,' Kerlikowske told The Associated Press. 'Forty years later, the concem about
<br />drugs and drug problems is, it anything, magnified, intensified.'
<br />This week President Obama promised to "reduce drug use and the great damage it causes" with a new national policy that he
<br />said treats drug use more as a public health issue and focuses on prevention and treatment.
<br />Nevertheless, his administration has increased spending on interdiction and law enforcement to record levels both in dollars
<br />and in percentage terms; this year, they account for $10 billion of his $15 5 billion drug-control budget.
<br />Kerlikowske, who coordinates all federal anti -drug policies, says it will take time for the spending to match the rhetoric.
<br />Nothing happens overnight,' he said. 'We've never worked Ole drug problem holistically. We'll arrest the drug dealer, but we
<br />leave the addiction."
<br />His predecessor, John P Walters, takes issue with that.
<br />Walters insists society would be far worse today if there had been no War on Drugs. Drug abuse peaked nationally in 1979
<br />and, despite fluctuations, remains below those levels, he says. Judging the drug war is complicated: Records indicate
<br />marijuana and prescription drug abuse are climbing, while cocaine use is way down. Seizures are up, but so is availability
<br />'To say that all the things that have been done in the war on drugs haven't made any difference is ridiculous," Walters said. it
<br />destroys everything we've done. It's saying an the people involved in law entorcment, treatment and prevention have been
<br />wasting their time. It's saying all these people's work is misguided.'
<br />In 1970, hippies were smoking pot and dropping acid. Soldiers were coming home from Vietnam hooked on heroin. Embattled
<br />President Richard M. Nixon seized on a new war he thought he could win.
<br />'This nation faces a major crisis in terms of the increasing use of drugs, particularly among our young people,' Nixon said as he
<br />signed the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act. The following year, he said: 'Public enemy No. 1 in the
<br />United States is drug abuse. In order to fight and defeat this enemy, it is necessary to wage a new, all -out offensive?
<br />His first drug - fighting budget was $100 million. Now it's $15.1 billion, 31 times Nixon's amount even when adjusted for inflation.
<br />Using Freedom of Information Act requests, archival records, federal budgets and dozens of interviews with leaders and
<br />analysts, the AP tracked where that money went, and hound that the United States repeatedly increased budgets for programs
<br />that did little to stop the flow of drugs. In 40 years, taxpayers spent more than:
<br />— $20 billion to fight the drug gangs in their home countries. In Colombia, for example, the United States spent more than $6
<br />billion, while coca cultivation increased and trafficking moved to Mexico — and the violence along with it.
<br />— $33 billion in marketing "Just Say No" -style messages to America's youth and other prevention programs. High school
<br />students report the same rates of illegal drug use as they did in 1970, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says
<br />drug overdoses have °risen steadily' since the earty 1970s to more than 20,000 last year.
<br />— $49 billion for law enforcement along America's borders to cut off the flow of illegal drugs. This year, 25 million Americans
<br />will snort, swallow, inject and smoke illicit drugs, about 10 million more than in 1970, with the bulk of those drugs imported from
<br />Mexico
<br />— $121 billion to arrest more than 37 million nonviolent drug offenders, about 10 million of them for possession of marijuana.
<br />Studies show that jail time tends to increase drug abuse.
<br />— $450 billion to lock those people up in federal prisons alone. Last year, hag of all federal prisoners in the U.S. were serving
<br />sentences for drug offenses.
<br />At the same time, drug abuse is costing the nation in other ways. The Justice Department estimates the consequences of drug
<br />abuse — "an overburdened justice system, a strained health care system, lost productivity, and environmental destruction" —
<br />cost the United States $215 billion a year.
<br />Harvard University economist Jeffrey Miron says the only sure thing taxpayers get for more spending on police and soldiers is
<br />more homicides.
<br />"Current policy is not having an effect of reducing drug use," Miron said, 'but it's costing the public a fortune."
<br />From the beginning, lawmakers debated fiercely whether law enforcement — no matter how well funded and well trained —
<br />could ever defeat the drug problem.
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