e cost for prohibition is high, regarding money and people’s lives. Since 1981, federal expenditures on drug enforcement have more than tripled from less than 1 billion dollars a year to 3 billion (Nadelman 8). According to the Drug Enforcement Board (DEA) and the Coast Guard have risen during the past 7 years from about $220 million to roughly $500 million. During the same period, FBI resources devoted to drug enforcement increased from $8 million a year to over $100 million; U.S. Marshals resources from $26 million to about $80 million; U.S. Attorney resources from $20 million to about $100 million; U.S. Customs resources from $180 million to about $400 million; and Bureau of Prison resources from $77 million to about $300 million. Expenditures on drug control by the military and the intelligence agents are more difficult to calculate, although by all amounts they have increased by at least the same magnitude and total hundreds of millions of dollars per year (8-9). Federal, state, and local government spend about $75 billion a year on law enforcement and criminal justice programs. About $20 billion of that is directly related to drug law enforcement. Roughly another $15 billion is related to crimes committed to obtain drug money or is systematically related in some way to drug commerce. This means about $35 billion per year is spent on drug law enforcement and lost by crimes committed to obtain drug money. The $35 billion along with money squandered on the ineffective drug suppression activities of the government, and the money lost as a result of the unnaturally high price of drugs, creates a $100 billion total (Duke 354-355). Benson Roe believes, “It is time to recognize that the problem is not the drugs but the enormous amounts of untaxed money diverted from the economy to criminals.” The economic incentive for dealers to push their product aggressively is a multi-billion dollar return, which has much ...
