15. The cost of incarcerating drug users is borne by the American taxpayer
In 2008, a study conducted by Harvard University economist Jeffrey Miron reported that the cost of imprisoning drug abusers and dealers in the United States exceeded $41 billion dollars annually. Miron pointed out that the federal government alone would realize savings of more the fifteen and a half billion dollars per year simply in incarceration costs per if drugs were legalized in the United States. Miron also calculated that legalizing drugs and taxing them at rates comparable to tobacco would generate more than $46 billion annually, with more than $8 billion coming from the legalization of cannabis alone. The total cost to American taxpayers for the War on Drugs is impossible to calculate, since much of it is funded by Defense Department budgets as part of their operations, and much more is funded through so-called black programs.
By the year 2000, the publicly known cost of the War on Drugs was $18.4 billion dollars. That amount included expenditures for treatment programs, interdiction, education programs, and aggressive policing but did not include the amount spent on prosecution of violators and incarceration. The War on Drugs did little to control the American desire for intoxication, by 2012 the United States led the world in both the recreational consumption of illegal drugs and incarceration rates of its citizens. That year just over 70% of men arrested and incarcerated tested positive for some form of illegal substance, a figure which is used to argue that drugs lead to criminal behavior. Those incarcerated for illegal drug use had a rate of recidivism of more than 50%. In contrast, those sent to treatment via drug courts had a recidivism rate of less than 20%.