The utterly failed War on Drugs

It's failed so miserably, that in this highly-read, in-depth AP investigative piece, even President Obama's own drug czar admitted it's largely failed.

"In the grand scheme, it has not been successful," Gil Kerlikowske told The Associated Press. "Forty years later, the concern about drugs and drug problems is, if anything, magnified, intensified."

That said, he, like his boss has a wont of doing, told a big fib, claiming the Obama Administration is devoted to more work on drug addiction prevention, treatment, etc.

Well, it is, unless you look for the dollar signs. Then, it's not.

And, on the addiction prevention side, it's not trying anything new, even though programs like DARE are known flops. How is it a flop, and how badly?

We need a long blockquote from the story, that's how, and how badly:

Using Freedom of Information Act requests, archival records, federal budgets and dozens of interviews with leaders and analysts, the AP tracked where that money went, and found that the United States repeatedly increased budgets for programs that did little to stop the flow of drugs. In 40 years, taxpayers spent more than:

— $20 billion to fight the drug gangs in their home countries. In Colombia, for example, the United States spent more than $6 billion, while coca cultivation increased and trafficking moved to Mexico — and the violence along with it.

— $33 billion in marketing "Just Say No"-style messages to America's youth and other prevention programs. High school students report the same rates of illegal drug use as they did in 1970, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says drug overdoses have "risen steadily" since the early 1970s to more than 20,000 last year.

— $49 billion for law enforcement along America's borders to cut off the flow of illegal drugs. This year, 25 million Americans will snort, swallow, inject and smoke illicit drugs, about 10 million more than in 1970, with the bulk of those drugs imported from Mexico.

— $121 billion to arrest more than 37 million nonviolent drug offenders, about 10 million of them for possession of marijuana. Studies show that jail time tends to increase drug abuse.

— $450 billion to lock those people up in federal prisons alone. Last year, half of all federal prisoners in the U.S. were serving sentences for drug offenses.

At the same time, drug abuse is costing the nation in other ways. The Justice Department estimates the consequences of drug abuse — "an overburdened justice system, a strained health care system, lost productivity, and environmental destruction" — cost the United States $215 billion a year.

Harvard University economist Jeffrey Miron says the only sure thing taxpayers get for more spending on police and soldiers is more homicides.

"Current policy is not having an effect of reducing drug use," Miron said, "but it's costing the public a fortune."

Meanwhile, we can't stop Mexico ... Ten percent of the Mexican economy is built on drug proceeds, with $25 billion smuggled in from the United States every year. Out of that, only 25 cents of each $100 smuggle, or one-quarter of 1 percent, is caught at the border, the story notes.

Here in this part of the world, at least one politician welcomed the story.

El Paso City Councilman Beto O'Rourke is glad to see the in-depth expose, tiring of the drug violence of neighboring Juarez, Mexico. He wants marijuana legalization to be part of the attempted answer.