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 2013 in the U.S. on nonviolent drug charges:
1.5 million
Number of people arrested for a
marijuana law violation in 2013:
693,482
- Number of those charged with marijuana law violations who were arrested for possession only: 609,423 (88 percent)
Number of Americans incarcerated in 2013 in federal, state and local prisons and jails:
2,220,300 or 1 in every 110 adults,
the highest incarceration rate in the world
Proportion of people incarcerated for a drug offense in state prison who are
black or Latino, although these groups use and sell drugs at similar rates as whites:
57 percent
Number of states that allow the
medical use of marijuana:
23 + District of Columbia
Number of states that have approved legally
taxing and regulating marijuana:
4 (Alaska, Colorado, Oregon and Washington)
Estimated annual revenue that California would raise if it
taxed and regulated the sale of marijuana:
$1,400,000,000
Number of people killed in Mexico's drug war since 2006:
100,000+
Number of students who have
lost federal financial aid eligibility because of a drug conviction:
200,000+
Number of people in the U.S. who died from a
drug overdose in 2013:
43,982
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