A thought occurred to me yesterday. I saw a news report on the cartel war on the border going on in Mexico that Americans spend something like $30 billion dollars on cocaine. (I tried to verify this but internet connection is on a military network and lots of sites are blocked.)

Then I did a search to see what we spend on the War on Drugs. I found http://www.drugsense.org/wodclock.htm. Accordin to it, as of March 30, 2009, state and local expenditures on the War on Drugs is $12 billion dollars. So, annualized that comes out to $48 billion.

Now, I know that cocaine is a lot more expensive than pot. But I can’t find reliable statistics on how much Americans spend on weed. I would guess that there are a lot more marijuana users than coke users. So, let’s say that Americans spend another $30 billion on the chronic.

We’re spending almost $50 billion to try and stop people who then succeed in spending $60 billion on illegal drugs? (And that $60 billion is a very rough figure that is probably light several billion since it doesn’t include even an estimate of how much is spent on heroin, speed or ecstay.)

Lunacy!

Alain