The “War On Drugs” Is A $2.5 Trillion Racket: How Big Banks, Private Military Companies And The Prison Industry Cash In
July 14th, 2011Via: AmpedStatus:
Anyone who researches the “War on Drugs” already knows that it has been a very costly disaster. As the Global Commission on Drug Policy recently reported:
“The global war on drugs has failed, with devastating consequences for individuals and societies around the world….
Vast expenditures on criminalization and repressive measures directed at producers, traffickers and consumers of illegal drugs have clearly failed to effectively curtail supply or consumption….
Government expenditures on futile supply reduction strategies and incarceration displace more cost-effective and evidence-based investments in demand and harm reduction.”
The War on Drugs has cost US taxpayers over $2.5 trillion dollars. From 1998 – 2008, a UN study estimates that the use of opiates has increased 35 percent and cocaine use has increased 27 percent. Due to nonviolent drug offenses, the US prison population has increased “more than twelvefold since 1980.”
The War on Drugs has also fueled organized crime and drug related violence has dramatically increased over the past few years. Due to drug war violence, since December of 2006, a stunning 45,000 people have been killed in Mexico alone.
Despite numerous reports and a mountain of evidence proving the utter failure of the War on Drugs, the Obama Administration has defended the effort and escalated the war. What many reports criticizing the War on Drugs fail to discuss is how successful the war has been at enriching the global financial elite. The War on Drugs, just like the War on Terror, is another criminal racket set up to benefit profiteering banks, military companies and the prison industrial complex at our tragic expense.
