Drug War Statistics

[Lucinda F. Boyd]

Drug War Statistics
Did you know....
Amount spent annually in the U.S. on the war on drugs: More than $51,000,000,000

Number of people arrested in 2011 in the U.S. on nonviolent drug charges: 1.53 million

Number of people arrested for a marijuana law violation in 2011: 757,969
Number of those charged with marijuana law violations who were arrested for possession only: 663,032 (86 percent)
Number of Americans incarcerated in 2009 in federal, state and local prisons and jails: 2,424,279 or 1 in every 99.1 adults, the highest incarceration rate in the world

Fraction of people incarcerated for a drug offense in state prison that are black or Hispanic, although these groups use and sell drugs at similar rates as whites: 2/3

Number of states that allow the medical use of marijuana: 18 + District of Columbia

Estimated annual revenue that California would raise if it taxed and regulated the sale of marijuana: $1,400,000,000

Number of murders in 2010 in Juarez, Mexico, the epicenter of that country’s drug war: 3,111, the highest murder rate of any city in the world

Number of students who have lost federal financial aid eligibility because of a drug conviction: 200,000+

Number of people in the U.S. that died from an accidental drug overdose in 2007: 27,658

Tax revenue that drug legalization would yield annually, if currently-illegal drugs were taxed at rates comparable to those on alcohol and tobacco: $46.7 billion

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that syringe access programs lower HIV incidence among people who inject drugs by: 80 percent

One-third of all AIDS cases in the U.S. have been caused by syringe sharing: 354,000 people

U.S. federal government support for syringe access programs: $0.00, thanks to a federal ban reinstated by Congress in 2011 that prohibits any federal assistance for them
More Resources
Get additional facts at the Drug War Facts website.
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