What % of our economy is the result of PROHIBITION (aka the drug war)?

[mdmc]

If health care is 1/6th of our economy, I wonder how much of the economy is the direct result of the drug war.
The drug war economy includes -
jail for drug users (increased construction, maintenance, staffing, benefits, incarceration costs)
increased probation and parole costs
increased court costs
plus
the illegal drug trade (all the profits for selling illegal drugs)
plus
the cost of the violence that is required from unregulated markets
..

I wonder is the PEW trust has ever done a study..

[Deep13]

1. It's pretty expensive. nt

[demosincebirth]

2. I don't know, but one thing I do know is the the War on Drugs has

cost us over a trillion of our tax dollars. Also, many lives, here and abroad. Isn't it about time we take a look at overhauling our drug laws...like decriminalizing most of the illegal drugs?

[Echo In Light]

5. +1

[joycean]

3. It's difficult to estimate

but depending on the criteria, it has to be trillions of dollars over the last decade. My opinion is that yes, we should target supply and sale, but we should spend far more money on treatment than we currently do. We should treat addicts like people with a disease (the way the AMA says we should treat them) not like hardened criminals. Target the demand, and the supply will necessarily suffer.

That's how this all started, anyway, back with the Harrison Tax Act, because of doctors treating opium patients with opium. Politicians, unwilling or unable to understand this concept, abused the commerce clause to regulate (and criminalize) this practice, and drugs in general. You can see how well that worked out over the last 100 years. We are, after all, a completely drug free society.

[FiveGoodMen]

4. "We should treat addicts like people with a disease"

How should we treat happy, productive people who use the drugs that are currently banned?

[reggie the dog]

6. we should treat them to dinner

a nice bowl of weed and a nice warm happy mdma pill

[joycean]

7. good question

There is a tacit difference between a 'user' and an 'addict', and although not phrased in technical terms, you have elucidated that difference. I wasn't interested in making a comment on decriminalization, merely commenting on the medical soundness of sending an addict to prison instead of treatment. There has been reform on this front, but there can be more reform.

[Festivito]

8. Just guessing. 1% or 2%

Including police, courts, judges, prison, parole,

guessing under one percent.

Add in loss of employability, associated thievery and underworld repercussions, health costs, each times excess numbers of addicts due to draw of it being illegal,

I'm going with a total of 2%, 1/50th of the economy.

Just guessing.

[Lilith Velkor]

9. You forgot prison labor contracts

plus a billion dollar a year "rehab" industry.

I think it's...a lot.