3502. "Highest and Best Use" Explained

You must determine fair market value based on the property's highest and best use. The highest and best use is the most profitable legally permissible use for which the property is physically, geographically, and economically adaptable.

Do not consider any personal value of the property to [name of property owner] or [his/her/its] need for the property. Also, do not consider the particular need of [name of condemnor] for the property.

The Treaty of Nanjing

On the 29th August, 1842 the British and Qing negotiators signed the Treaty of Nanjing which, with the two supplementary treaties, included the following major clauses: (1) Hong Kong Island to be ceded to Britain in perpetuity; (2) China to pay an indemnity of 21 million silver dollars to pay for the confiscated opium and the cost of the war, (3) five ports to be opened to foreign trade; (4) a tariff agreement entailing China's loss of tariff autonomy; (5) right of extraterritoriality (loss of Chinese jurisdiction over foreigners in China); and (6) Britain to enjoy most favoured-nation status.

The British were, of course, aware that these conditions exacted from the Chinese at gunpoint, had impaired Chinese sovereignty to a considerable extent. The question is, however, whether the significance of this event was apparent to the Chinese at the time. Recent research has shown that the first treaty arrangement was still largely perceived as part of traditional Chinese tributary diplomacy. In any case, the violent conflict with the West was confined to the maritime periphery, and the resulting treaty did not immediately undermine the notion of Chinese cultural superiority. Nevertheless it is now clear that the Opium War initiated a process of fundamental change in China's foreign relations, with further acts of foreign aggression and the imposition of subsequent 'unequal treaties' accelerating the process of dynastic decline which eventually led to the collapse of the Qing Empire in 1911.

Conclusion

In the twentieth century, the Chinese have embarked on a long and arduous struggle to expunge the humiliations which they suffered during and since the Opium War. When Hong Kong ceases to be a colony, the last reminder of that unpleasant encounter with Britain will have been eliminated. Foreign industrialists may continue to dream of the supposedly unlimited China market, but the Chinese state is once again in firm control of relations with the outside world. The Chinese are determined to keep the 'open door' sufficiently ajar to import vital technologies, while keeping all unwanted alien influences out. This is, of course, merely a return to entrenched ethnocentric tendencies of pre-Opium War days.

WASHINGTON (AP) - "U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is ultimately responsible" 
- Neil Barofsky, Special Inspector General of the TARP to the House 
Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. 
Geithner lead Fed efforts starting fall 2008 to prop up AIG with billions in emergency financing. 
After becoming Treasury secretary, his department and the Fed continued 
unveiling new aid packages for AIG. 

During the early days of the financial crisis, after the panic 
that followed the single largest one-day drop in the Dow Jones Industrial Average
(when the Congress had voted against the TARP bailout...
-- and which blackmailed the Congress to vote again and provide the TARP bailout of AIG.)

(AIG monopolized the SUPERFUND insurance business of protecting the environment and the public trust
with the help of its exclusive sales agent(EPA)and their marketing experts(DOJ & NRDC.))

AIG IS THE INSURER & FIDUCIARY FOR THE "IRON MOUNTAIN MINE BILLION DOLLAR SETTLEMENT" PLUS TRUSTEE & CONTRACTOR FOR THE REMEDIAL ACTION "CLEANUP" OF IRON MOUNTAIN MINES. THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT OWNS 90% OF AIG AND THE EPA IS OVERSIGHT AGENCY. SMELL ANYTHING?

EPA ADDS VAPOR INTRUSION TO SUPERFUND LIST OF RESPONSE ACTIONS.

GOT AAA CREDIT RATING?

Overview

American International Group was the largest insurance company in the United States before it suddenly collapsed in September 2008 under the weight of bad bets it made insuring mortgage-backed securities. The company was bailed out by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, but even after an initial infusion of $85 billion, losses continued to grow. The later rescue packages brought the total to $182 billion, making it the biggest federal bailout in United States history.

Much of A.I.G. — an assortment of businesses that run the gamut from aircraft leasing to life insurance for Indians to retirement plans for elementary-school teachers — remained profitable. But that could not offset losses, primarily from one London-based unit, that reached $25 billion for the third quarter of 2008. Given A.I.G.’s size and the complexity of its deals, federal officials decided that a bailout was preferable to the havoc in international markets that would likely follow bankruptcy.

The  losses continued into mid-2009, as the bailout swelled to $182 billion. But by the spring of 2010, the company had reclaimed its old title — top seller of fixed annuities. The company repaid $51 billion of the government’s money and in the fall of 2010 it announced that it had reached an agreement in principle to repay the Federal Reserve for the company’s 2008 rescue, and to gradually return the ownership of its stock to the public markets. Under the plan, the Treasury Department  temporarily owned 92.1 percent of A.I.G. before it began to sell its shares.

New Questions About the Bailout

In late October 2011, an investigation by the Government Accountability Office raised new questions about the Federal Reserve’s handling of the 2008 bailout of A.I.G.

The report said that New York Fed officials offered inconsistent explanations for their decision to pay other financial companies the full amounts they were owed by A.I.G., and that some of the explanations were contradicted by other evidence. The report also asserted that the decision to pay the full amounts, rather than seeking concessions as the government later did in other cases, disregarded the expectations of senior Fed officials in Washington and the expressed willingness of some of the companies to accept smaller payments.

The conclusion echoed the findings of previous federal investigations. The rescue mission succeeded, but efforts to minimize the costs and risks borne by taxpayers were insufficient. The new report also raised concerns about the explanations subsequently offered by New York Fed officials. 

For example, the G.A.O. said that officials at first told its investigators that they had initiated discussions about possible concessions with most of the 16 companies that stood on the other side of insurance-like contracts, called credit-default swaps, with A.I.G.

Then, according to the report, the officials said they had contacted eight companies before abandoning the effort. Even then, the report said, only four of those companies confirmed that they had been contacted by the Fed.

The New York Fed declined to comment on the specific account of the negotiations.

Once a Booming Company

A.I.G.’s complicated structure and aggressive approach reflected the determination of the man who built A.I.G., Maurice R. Greenberg, to create a global empire operating in complementary businesses. Not even the company’s annual reports to shareholders or its regulatory filings offered a chart of its complex corporate structure.

Though its name is American, the company is rooted in Asia. According to company lore, its founder, Cornelius Vander Starr, a World War I veteran, traveled to Asia with only 300 Japanese yen (less than $3 today) in his pocket and started the firm in Shanghai in 1919. With a partner, he sold marine and fire insurance and expanded rapidly throughout the Philippines, Indonesia and China by hiring locals as agents and managers, a business strategy A.I.G. uses today. Nearly half of A.I.G.’s 116,000 direct employees — about 62,000 people — are in Asia.

Mr. Greenberg, who joined A.I.G. in 1960, focused on making giant commercial deals, increasing the company’s share of the life insurance business and writing what were, decades ago, unusual types of coverage, like insurance against kidnapping and protection from suits against a company’s officers and directors.

The company’s distress followed an unusual period of turmoil. Early in 2005, questions arose about financial transactions that had the effect of making the company’s earnings look better. Mr. Greenberg resigned as chief executive after regulators sent a wave of subpoenas to A.I.G.; eventually it restated earnings covering a five-year period.

In July 2010, the company agreed to pay $725 million to three Ohio pension funds to settle six-year-old claims of accounting fraud, stock manipulation and bid-rigging. Taken together with earlier settlements, A.I.G. will ladle out more than $1 billion to Ohio investors, money that will go to firefighters, teachers, librarians and other pensioners. The company said it would raise $550 million of the sum through a new public offering, to avoid drawing on taxpayer funds.

Exposure Connected to Home Loans

A.I.G.’s problems rested in its London-based financial products unit, part of its financial services group, which was exposed to securities tied to the value of home loans.

The financial products group sold credit-default swaps, complex financial contracts allowing buyers to insure securities backed by mortgages. As home values fell, the value of the underlying mortgages declined, and A.I.G. had to reduce the value of the securities on its books.

More importantly, the swaps contracts gave A.I.G.’s counterparties the right to demand that it post increasing amounts of collateral as the value of a security sunk. It was these demands for billions in collateral at a time the credit markets were freezing up that brought the company to the brink.

In September 2008, after A.I.G. failed to get a bank loan to avoid bankruptcy, the Federal Reserve agreed to an $85 billion bailout of the insurance giant. The decision marked the most radical intervention in private business in the central bank’s history. The total cost of the taxpayer bailout has since ballooned to $182 billion.

In August 2011, A.I.G. said that it had finished an “active wind-down” of its financial products division, the unit whose derivatives contracts tied to subprime mortgages — a portfolio with a notional value of more than $1.6 trillion at one point. The company said that the notional value of the financial products’ portfolio had fallen 42 percent to $198.4 billion, as the company closed out most of the remaining troublesome mortgage derivatives contracts.

Big Bonus Payments and a Change at the Top

A.I.G. became the target of widespread outrage after it was revealed on March 15, 2009, that it had paid $165 million in bonuses two days before, including some to members of the trading unit that had caused its collapse. President Obama ordered the Treasury to see if the payments could be blocked or recovered.

On March 18, at a highly charged Congressional hearing, Edward M. Liddy, A.I.G.’s chairman and chief executive at the time, said he had asked employees making more than $100,000 a year who had shared in the bonus payout to give half the money back, reflecting the public and political disgust at the idea of rewarding the same people who had helped drive the company and the economy into distress. Mr. Liddy said that some had already volunteered to give it all back but resisted releasing the names, saying some employees had received death threats.

On March 19, spurred on by a tidal wave of public anger, the House of Representatives voted 328 to 93 to get back most of the money by levying a 90 percent tax on bonuses paid by any company accepting more than $5 billion in bailout funds. But almost all the A.I.G. bonuses were returned, leaving little left to tax.

In early 2010, A.I.G. agreed to cut employee bonuses by $20 million and would distribute about $100 million. But the reductions may not be enough to appease the company’s critics, who do not accept its argument that it has to honor contracts established before its government bailout. A.I.G. first promised the retention bonuses to keep people working at its financial products unit, which traded in the derivatives that imploded in September 2008, leading to the biggest government bailout in history.

Mr. Liddy was installed by the Federal Reserve when it rescued A.I.G. in September 2008 at a salary of $1 a year. In August 2009, after 10 grueling months on a job he had taken as a form of public service, he announced his resignation, saying the job was too big and too complex as currently designed. Robert H. Benmosche, a former head of MetLife, succeeded Mr. Liddy that month.

Congressional Oversight Report

In June 2010, the Congressional Oversight Panel, a body charged with reviewing the state of financial markets and the regulators that monitor them, published a 337-page report on the A.I.G. bailout. It concluded that the Federal Reserve Bank of New York did not give enough consideration to alternatives before sinking more and more taxpayer money into A.I.G. “It is hard to escape the conclusion that F.R.B.N.Y. was just ‘going through the motions,’ ” the report said.

One of the regulators’ most controversial decisions was awarding the banks that were A.I.G.’s trading partners 100 cents on the dollar to unwind debt insurance they had bought from the firm. Critics have questioned why the government did not try to wring more concessions from the banks, which would have saved taxpayers billions of dollars.

Timothy Geithner, who became the Treasury secretary, repeatedly said that as steward of the New York Fed, he had no choice but to pay A.I.G.’s trading partners in full.

But two entirely different solutions to A.I.G.’s problems were presented to Fed officials by three of its outside advisers, according to the documents. Under those plans, the banks would have had to accept what the advisers described as “deep concessions” of as much as about 10 percent on their contracts or they might have had to return about $30 billion that A.I.G. had paid them before the bailout. Had either of these plans been implemented, A.I.G. may have been left in a far better financial position than it is today, with taxpayers at less risk and banks forced to swallow bigger losses.

Even if the waiver was warranted, experts say it unfairly handcuffed A.I.G. and has undermined the financial interests of taxpayers. If, for example, the banks misled the A.I.G. about the mortgage securities it insured, taxpayer money could be recouped from the banks through lawsuits.

Relationship with Goldman

After making too many risky, outsize financial bets and paying billions of dollars in claims to Goldman and other banks, A.I.G. has few options in getting money back from Goldman, which many at A.I.G. contend misled the company into insuring flawed mortgage deals. But as part of the bailout deal in the fall of 2008, the insurer was required to forfeit its right to sue several banks — including Goldman, Société Générale, Deutsche Bank and Merrill Lynch — over any irregularities with most of the mortgage securities it insured in the pre-crisis years.

The A.I.G. waiver and other material were released in May by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform amid 250,000 pages of largely undisclosed documents. The documents indicate that regulators ignored recommendations from their own advisers to force the banks to accept losses on their A.I.G. deals and instead paid the banks in full for the contracts. That decision, say critics of the A.I.G. bailout, has cost taxpayers billions of extra dollars in payments to the banks. It also contrasts with the hard line the White House took in 2008 when it forced Chrysler‘s lenders to take losses when the government bailed out the auto giant.

As a Congressional commission convened hearings on June 30, 2010, exploring the A.I.G. bailout and Goldman’s relationship with the insurer, the release of 500 pages of documents by the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission show how Goldman’s aggressive and repeated demands for billions in cash from A.I.G. drove the insurer to the brink of failure in September 2008.

For more than a year before the government bailed out A.I.G., Goldman demanded cash from the insurer, based on Goldman’s lower valuations of mortgage securities. A.I.G. battled Goldman in an epic dispute but ultimately surrendered and sent much of the requested money.

Joseph J. Cassano, the former chief executive of the unit that insured the mortgage securities, told the inquiry commission on June 30 that he had fought back against demands for cash from banks like Goldman until his retirement from A.I.G. in March 2008.

When Mr. Cassano left, A.I.G. had put up $3 billion to shore up deterioration in mortgage securities; six months later, A.I.G. had transferred $7 billion to Goldman.

The market for mortgage securities was declining during this period, but the commission documents indicate that Goldman’s demands were far more aggressive than that of other banks.

A New Direction

The insurance giant ended up owing the Fed about $46 billion in two forms: about $20 billion in borrowings under the original revolving credit facility, and a $26 billion preferred stake that the company must redeem. A.I.G. said it would repay those amounts by the end of March 2011.

The company said it would use its own resources to pay back the $20 billion in loans, including the proceeds it expects to receive from the sale of a big overseas life insurance unit to MetLife. That sale, announced in March, should yield $6.8 billion in cash and $8.7 billion in MetLife stock, and close by the end of the year.

Still more money to repay the Fed is expected to come from an initial public offering of a second big foreign life insurance business on the Hong Kong exchange. The offering was delayed for several months while A.I.G. tried unsuccessfully to sell the unit to a British company, but A.I.G. now says the Hong Kong offering is back on. It did not provide a time frame.

In addition, the Treasury has agreed to help the Fed sever its ties with A.I.G., by providing the means for the company to redeem most of the Fed’s $26 billion in preferred interests. That money will come from the unused portion of an emergency assistance package that the Treasury made available to A.I.G. as its troubles reached a peak in early 2009.

A.I.G. said it would use $22 billion of that money to redeem an equal amount of the Fed’s preferred stake, then immediately transfer the stake to the Treasury. The company said it would redeem the remaining $4 billion with the “proceeds from future asset monetizations,” including sales of two smaller Japanese insurance units.

Taking all of those steps will end the Fed’s role as a lender to A.I.G. and an investor in the company, a role that has never fit in well with the Fed’s duties as a central bank. The Treasury will come out of the transaction with a larger preferred stake in A.I.G., but expects the company to keep taking steps to pay it down, according to the new agreement in principle.

Once the Fed has been fully repaid, the agreement calls for A.I.G. to exchange all of the Treasury’s preferred shares for 1.65 billion shares of common stock. To offset the dilution of A.I.G.’s current common shareholders, the company said it would issue up to 75 million warrants, which would allow those non-government shareholders to buy more common stock in the future, for $45 a share.

When the exchange from preferred to common has been done, the Treasury began to sell its common shares on the public markets, something it is expected to do gradually over time.

Maurice R. Greenberg, the former chief executive of the American International Group, 
sued the United States Treasury and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York
 on Monday, Nov. 21, 2011, contending that their takeover of the insurer in the fall of
 2008 was improper and that the Fed breached its duty to A.I.G. 
shareholders when it unwound the company’s disastrous bets on mortgage securities.        

1. (2004 - number of DEA and FBI agents) "The DEA employed about 4,400 officers with the authority to make arrests and carry firearms as of September 2004. These DEA agents primarily investigate major narcotics violators, enforce regulations governing the manufacture and dispensing of controlled substances, and perform various other functions to prevent and control drug trafficking.

   "The FBI employed 12,242 full-time personnel with arrest and firearm authority. These agents investigate more than 200 types of federal crimes. The FBI has concurrent jurisdiction with the DEA over drug offenses under the Controlled Substances Act."

   Source: 

   Reaves, Brian, "Federal Law Enforcement Officers, 2004" (Washington, DC: USDOJ, Bureau of Justice Statistics, Jan. 2009), NCJ222984, Table 1, p. 2. As quoted from the web on 10/29/09 at http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/dcf/enforce.htm
   http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/fleo04.pdf



2. (2003 - sheriff's offices with drug enforcement units) "Nine in 10 sheriffs' offices regularly performed drug enforcement functions (table 29). Sheriffs' offices with drug enforcement responsibilities employed 90% of all local police officers.

   Thirty-six percent of sheriffs’ offices operated a special unit for drug enforcement with one or more officers assigned full-time (table 30). A majority of sheriffs' offices serving a population of 250,000 or more residents had a fulltime drug enforcement unit. There were an estimated 4,031 officers assigned full time to drug enforcement units nationwide. The average number of officers assigned ranged from 27 in jurisdictions with 1 million or more residents to 2 in those with fewer than 50,000 residents."

   Source: 

   Hickman, Matthew J.. and Reaves, Brian A., "Sheriffs' Offices 2003" (Washington, DC: USDOJ, Bureau of Justice Statistics, May. 2006), NCJ 211361. p. 15. As quoted from the web on 10/30/09 at http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/dcf/enforce.htm
   http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/pub/pdf/so03.pdf



3. (2003 - sheriffs' officers assigned to drug task forces) "In 2003 an estimated 47% of sheriffs' offices had one or more officers assigned full time to a multi-agency drug enforcement task force (table 31), including 89% of sheriffs' offices serving 1 million or more residents. About 71% of all officers worked for a department that assigned officers to a drug task force.

   "Nationwide, an estimated 3,477 officers were assigned full time to a drug task force. The average number assigned full time ranged from 9 in sheriffs' offices serving a population of 1 million or more to 1 in those serving fewer than 10,000 residents."

   Source: 

   Hickman, Matthew J.. and Reaves, Brian A., "Sheriffs' Offices 2003" (Washington, DC: USDOJ, Bureau of Justice Statistics, May. 2006), NCJ 211361.
   http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/so03.pdf



4. (2006 - prescription drug diversion and fraud) "According to law enforcement reporting, some individuals and criminal groups divert CPDs [controlled prescription drugs] through doctor-shopping and use insurance fraud to fund their schemes. In fact, Aetna, Inc. reports that nearly half of its 1,065 member fraud cases in 2006 (the latest year for which data are available) involved prescription benefits, and most were related to doctor-shopping, according to the Coalition Against Insurance Fraud (CAIF). CAIF further reports that diversion of CPDs collectively costs insurance companies up to $72.5 billion annually, nearly two-thirds of which is paid by public insurers. Individual insurance plans lose an estimated $9 million to $850 million annually, depending on each plan’s size; much of that cost is passed on to consumers through higher annual premiums."

   Source: 

   National Drug Intelligence Center, Drug Enforcement Administration, "National Prescription Drug Threat Assessment," (Washington DC, April 2009), p. 20.
   http://www.justice.gov/ndic/pubs33/33775/33775p.pdf



5. Crime - Law and Policy

   The Controlled Substances Act of 1970:

   "(a) Establishment There are established five schedules of controlled substances, to be known as schedules I, II, III, IV, and V ...."

   "(b).... The findings required for each of the schedules are as follows:

   "(1) Schedule I. - (A) The drug or other substance has a high potential for abuse. (B) The drug or other substance has no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States. (C) There is a lack of accepted safety for use of the drug or other substance under medical supervision.

   "(2) Schedule II. - (A) The drug or other substance has a high potential for abuse. (B) The drug or other substance has a currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States or a currently accepted medical use with severe restrictions. (C) Abuse of the drug or other substances may lead to severe psychological or physical dependence.

   "(3) Schedule III. - (A) The drug or other substance has a potential for abuse less than the drugs or other substances in schedules I and II. (B) The drug or other substance has a currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States. (C) Abuse of the drug or other substance may lead to moderate or low physical dependence or high psychologicaldependence.

   "(4) Schedule IV. - (A) The drug or other substance has a low potential for abuse relative to the drugs or other substances in schedule III. (B) The drug or other substance has a currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States. (C) Abuse of the drug or other substance may lead to limited physical dependence or psychological dependence relative to the drugs or other substances in schedule III.

   "(5) Schedule V. - (A) The drug or other substance has a low potential for abuse relative to the drugs or other substances in schedule IV. (B) The drug or other substance has a currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States. (C) Abuse of the drug or other substance may lead to limited physical dependence or psychological dependence relative to the drugs or other substances in schedule IV."

   Source: 

   U.S. Code. Title 21, Chapter 13 -- Drug Abuse Prevention and Control -- Section 812, Schedules of Controlled Substances, p. 384.
   http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/usc.cgi?ACTION=RETRIEVE&FILE=$$xa$$busc21.wais&start=2717826&SIZE=24600&TYPE=PDF
   http://mapinc.org/url/1NCZaa7Q



6. "Initial schedules of controlled substances Schedules I, II, III, IV, and V shall, unless and until amended (FOOTNOTE 1) pursuant to section 811 of this title, consist of the following drugs or other substances:"

   SCHEDULE I
   (b): (10) Heroin
   (c): (2) 5-methoxy-3,4-methylenedioxy amphetamine [MDMA]. (8) Ibogaine. (9) Lysergic acid diethylamide [LSD] . (10) Marihuana [marijuana, cannabis]. (11) Mescaline. (12) Peyote. (15) Psilocybin. (16) Psilocyn. (17) Tetrahydrocannabinols.
   Sec. 3: Gamma hydroxybutyric acid (GHB)

   SCHEDULE II
   (a): (1) Opium and opiate, and any salt, compound, derivative, or preparation of opium or opiate. (3) Opium poppy and poppy straw. (4) coca (FOOTNOTE 3) leaves, except coca leaves and extracts of coca leaves from which cocaine, ecgonine, and derivatives of ecgonine or their salts have been removed; cocaine, its salts, optical and geometric isomers, and salts of isomers ...
   (b:): (6) Fentanyl. (4) Dihydrocodeine. (11) Methadone.

   SCHEDULE III
   (a): (1) Amphetamine
   (e): Anabolic steroids

   SCHEDULE IV
   (1) Barbital. (7) Meprobamate [Milltown].

   SCHEDULE V
   (1) Not more than 200 milligrams of codeine per 100 milliliters or per 100 grams.
   (5) Not more than 100 milligrams of opium per 100 milliliters or per 100 grams.

   Source: 

   U.S. Code. Title 21, Chapter 13 -- Drug Abuse Prevention and Control -- Section 844, Penalties for Simple Possession, pp. 385-387.
   http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/usc.cgi?ACTION=RETRIEVE&FILE=$$xa$$busc21.wais&start=2717826&SIZE=24600&TYPE=PDF
   http://mapinc.org/url/1NCZaa7Q
   http://www.deadiversion.usdoj.gov/schedules/orangebook/e_cs_sched.pdf



7. Sec. 844. Penalties for simple possession [of Controlled Substances in the United States]

   STATUTE
   (a) Unlawful acts; penalties
   It shall be unlawful for any person knowingly or intentionally to possess a controlled substance unless such substance was obtained directly, or pursuant to a valid prescription or order, from a practitioner, while cting in the course of his professional practice, or except as otherwise authorized by this subchapter or subchapter II of this chapter."

   "Any person who violates this subsection may be sentenced to a term of imprisonment of not more than 1 year ....."

   "if he commits such offense after a prior conviction under this subchapter or subchapter II of this chapter, or a prior conviction for any drug, narcotic, or chemical offense chargeable under the law of any State, has become final, he shall be sentenced to a term of imprisonment for not less than 15 days but not more than 2 years, and shall be fined a minimum of $2,500 ...."

   "if he commits such offense after two or more prior convictions under this subchapter or subchapter II of this chapter, or two or more prior convictions for any drug, narcotic, or chemical offense chargeable under the law of any State, or a combination of two or more such offenses have become final, he shall be sentenced to a term of imprisonment for not less than 90 days but not more than 3 years, and shall be fined a minimum of $5,000."

   Source: 

   U.S. Code. Title 21, Chapter 13 -- Drug Abuse Prevention and Control -- Section 844, Penalties for Simple Possession, pp. 416-417.
   http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/usc.cgi?ACTION=RETRIEVE&FILE=$$xa$$busc21.wais&start=2939781&SIZE=9863&TYPE=PDF
   http://mapinc.org/url/0npxgLDk



8. Sec. 844. Penalties for simple possession [of Controlled Substances - also called the Crack/Powder Cocaine Disparity]

   STATUTE
   (a) Unlawful acts; penalties
   ".... Notwithstanding the preceding sentence, a person convicted under this subsection for the possession of a mixture or substance which contains cocaine base shall be imprisoned not less than 5 years and not more than 20 years, and fined a minimum of $1,000, if the conviction is a first conviction under this subsection and the amount of the mixture or substance exceeds 5 grams, if the conviction is after a prior conviction for the possession of such a mixture or substance under this subsection becomes final and the amount of the mixture or substance exceeds 3 grams, or if the conviction is after 2 or more prior convictions for the possession of such a mixture or substance under this subsection become final and the amount of the mixture or substance exceeds 1 gram."

   UPDATE: On August 3, 2010, President Obama signed the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010. Per the Sentencing Project, "the minimum quantity of crack cocaine that triggers a 5-year mandatory minimum from 5 grams to 28 grams, and from 50 grams to 280 grams to trigger a 10-year mandatory minimum sentence. The amount of powder cocaine required to trigger the 5 and 10-year mandatory minimums remains the same, at 500 grams and 5 kilograms, respectively. The legislation also eliminates the mandatory minimum for simple possession of crack cocaine. The quantity disparity between crack and powder cocaine has moved from 100 to 1 to 18 to 1."

   Source: 

   U.S. Code. Title 21, Chapter 13 -- Drug Abuse Prevention and Control -- Section 844, Penalties for Simple Possession, p. 417.
   http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/usc.cgi?ACTION=RETRIEVE&FILE=$$xa$$busc21.wais&start=2939781&SIZE=9863&TYPE=PDF
   http://mapinc.org/url/0npxgLDk
   The Sentencing Project, "Fair Sentencing Act Signed by President Obama," August 3, 2010.
   http://www.sentencingproject.org/detail/news.cfm?news_id=984&id=164



9. "The 5-part test for fulfilling the accepted medical use criteria of Schedule II is now comprised of the following:

   • the drug’s chemistry must be known and reproducible;
   • there must be adequate safety studies;
   • there must be adequate and well-controlled studies proving efficacy;
   • the drug must be accepted by qualified experts; and
   • the scientific evidence must be widely available.

   A drug must meet all 5 criteria to be considered for rescheduling by the DEA."

   Source: 

   American Medical Association, Council on Science and Public Health, "Report 3 of the Council on Science and Public Health: Use of Cannabis for Medicinal Purposes" (December 2009) p. 8.
   http://americansforsafeaccess.org/downloads/AMA_Report.pdf



10. (origin of the CSA) "With increasing use of marijuana and other street drugs during the 1960s, notably by college and high school students, federal drug-control laws came under scrutiny. In July 1969, President Nixon asked Congress to enact legislation to combat rising levels of drug use. Hearings were held, different proposals were considered, and House and Senate conferees filed a conference report in October 1970. The report was quickly adopted by voice vote in both chambers and was signed into law as the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970. ... Included in the new law was the Controlled Substances Act."

    Source: 

    Eddy, Mark, "Medical Marijuana: Review and Analysis of Federal and State Policies," Congressional Research Service (Washington, DC: March 31, 2009), p. 3.
    http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL33211.pdf



11. (placement of drugs in the CSA) "As this paper demonstrates, the pharmacological effect of a drug does not necessarily determine how a drug will be governed. Rather, it is the way a drug is framed that determines how the drug will be popularly understood and ultimately regulated. According to the Regulatory Regime / Norms model, the meaning of any drug (how it is perceived or understood) is initially ambiguous and indeterminate. As a result, the project of getting a drug into a particular regulatory regime is about allocating specific meaning and significance to the drug in order to prompt individuals to think and feel about the drug in a way that allows for regime placement. This is accomplished by framing a drug to match the norms of a particular regime. Thus, the critical work at the level of regulation is in the framing."

    "Once a group has persuasively framed a drug in a way that resonates with the norms of its regime of choice, then the drug may be placed in that regime, regardless of whether the designation decision is supported by scientific or medical evidence. As we have seen with cocaine, marijuana and anabolic steroids, however, if a drug in the criminal regulatory regime is closely associated with socially maligned groups or racial minorities, then it is substantially more difficult for the drug to eventually migrate out of the regime."

    Source: 

    Paul-Emile, Kimani, "Making Sense of Drug Regulation: A Theory of Law for Drug Control Policy," Fordham University School of Law, Cornell Journal of Law and Policy (December 2009), p. 52.
    http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1523401



12. (crime - law & policy - temporary scheduling) "Because policymakers were concerned about the effects of pharmaceutically created and other modified drugs, Congress gave the Attorney General the authority to temporarily place a substance onto Schedule I of the CSA to “avoid imminent hazards to public safety.”¹³ When determining whether there is an imminent hazard, the Attorney General (through the DEA) must consider the drug’s history and current pattern of abuse; scope, duration, and significance of abuse; and risk to public health. Once scheduled through this temporary scheduling process, a substance may remain on Schedule I for one year. The Attorney General then has the authority to keep the substance on Schedule I for an additional six months before it must be removed or permanently scheduled."

    Source: 

    Sacco, Lisa N. and Finklea, Kristin M., "Synthetic Drugs: Overview and Issues for Congress, Congressional Research Service (Washington, DC: Library of Congress, October 28, 2011), p. 3.
    http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R42066.pdf



13. Crime - Research

    (effects of decriminalization) "Generalizing from the findings on Prohibition, we can hypothesize that decriminalization would increase the use of the previously criminalized drug, but would decrease violence associated with attempts to control illicit markets and as resolutions to disputes between buyers and sellers. Moreover, because the perception of violence associated with the drug market can lead people who are not directly involved to be prepared for violent self-defense, there could be additional reductions in peripheral settings when disputes arise (see Blumstein & Cork, 1997; Sheley & Wright, 1996)."

    Source: 

    Jensen, Gary F., "Prohibition, Alcohol, and Murder: Untangling Countervailing Mechanisms," Homicide Studies, Vol. 4, No. 1 (Sage Publications: Thousand Oaks, CA, February 2000), pp. 33-4.
    http://www.ncjrs.gov/App/publications/Abstract.aspx?id=180958



14. (prohibition, alcohol consumption, and homicide) "The data are quite consistent with the view that Prohibition at the state level inhibited alcohol consumption, and an attempt to explain correlated residuals by including omitted variables revealed that enforcement of Prohibitionist legislation had a significant inhibiting effect as well. Moreover, both hypotheses about the effects of alcohol and Prohibition are supported by the analysis. Despite the fact that alcohol consumption is a positive correlate of homicide (as expected), Prohibition and its enforcement increased the homicide rate."

    Source: 

    Jensen, Gary F., "Prohibition, Alcohol, and Murder: Untangling Countervailing Mechanisms," Homicide Studies, Vol. 4, No. 1 (Sage Publications: Thousand Oaks, CA, February 2000), p. 31.
    http://www.ncjrs.gov/App/Publications/abstract.aspx?ID=170654



15. (alcohol and violent crime) "Contrary to conventional wisdom and popular myth, alcohol is more tightly linked with more violent crimes than crack, cocaine, heroin or any other illegal drug. In state prisons, 21 percent of inmates in prison for violent crimes were under the influence of alcohol--and no other substance--when they committed their crime; in contrast, at the time of their crimes, only three percent of violent offenders were under the influence of cocaine or crack alone, only one percent under the influence of heroin alone."

    Source: 

    Califano, Joseph, Behind Bars: Substance Abuse and America's Prison Population, Forward by Joseph Califano, The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University (1998).
    http://www.casacolumbia.org/absolutenm/articlefiles/379-Behind%20Bars.pd...



16. (effect of police crackdowns) The Canadian Medical Association Journal published research on the impact of a police crackdown on a public illicit drug market in the Downtown Eastside (DTES) section of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The researchers found that:

    "Our results probably explain reports of increased injection drug use, drug-related crime and other public-order concerns in neighbourhoods where activities related to illicit drug use and the sex trade emerged or intensified in the wake of the crackdown. Such displacement has profound public-health implications if it "normalizes" injection drug use among previously unexposed at-risk youth. Furthermore, since difficulty in obtaining syringes has been shown to be a significant factor in promoting syringe sharing among IDUs in Vancouver, displacement away from sources of sterile syringes may increase the rates of bloodborne diseases. Escalated police presence may also explain the observed reduction in willingness to use a safer injection facility.³³ It is unlikely that the lack of benefit of the crackdown was due to insufficient police resources. Larger crackdowns in the United States, which often involved helicopters to supplement foot and car patrols, have not had measurable benefits and have instead been associated with substantial health and social harms."

    Source: 

    Wood, Evan, Patricia M. Spittal, Will Small, Thomas Kerr, Kathy Li, Robert S. Hogg, Mark W. Tyndall, Julio S.G. Montaner, Martin T. Schechter, "Displacement of Canada's Largest Public Illicit Drug Market In Response To A Police Crackdown," Canadian Medical Association Journal, May 11, 2004: 170(10), pp. 1554-1555.
    http://www.ecmaj.ca/cgi/reprint/170/10/1551



17. (effect of police crackdowns) The Canadian Medical Association Journal published research on the impact of a police crackdown on a public illicit drug market in the Downtown Eastside (DTES) section of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The researchers found that:

    "We detected no reduction in druguse frequency or drug price in response to a large-scale police crackdown on drug users in Vancouver's DTES. The evidence that drugs became more difficult to obtain was consistent with reports of displacement of drug dealers and was supported by the significantly higher rates of reporting that police presence had affected where drugs were used, including changes in neighbourhood and increases in use in public places. These observations were validated by examination of needle-exchange statistics.

    "Our findings are consistent with those showing that demand for illicit drugs enables the illicit drug market to adapt to and overcome enforcement-related constraints. Although evidence suggested that police presence made it more difficult to obtain drugs, this appeared to be explained by displacement of drug dealers."

    Source: 

    Wood, Evan, Patricia M. Spittal, Will Small, Thomas Kerr, Kathy Li, Robert S. Hogg, Mark W. Tyndall, Julio S.G. Montaner, Martin T. Schechter, "Displacement of Canada's Largest Public Illicit Drug Market In Response To A Police Crackdown," Canadian Medical Association Journal, May 11, 2004: 170(10), p. 1554.
    http://www.cmaj.ca/cgi/content/full/170/10/1551



18. (disproportional minority drug arrests) "Police departments deploy most patrol and narcotics police to certain neighborhoods, usually designated "high crime." These are disproportionately low-income, and disproportionately African American and Latino. It is in these neighborhoods where the police make most patrols, and where they stop and search the most vehicles and individuals, looking for "contraband" of any type in order to make an arrest. The item that people in any neighborhood are most likely to possess, which can get them arrested, is a small amount of marijuana. In short, the arrests are ethnically- and racially-biased mainly because the police are systematically "fishing" for arrests in only some neighborhoods, and methodically searching only some "fish."⁶ This produces what has been termed "racism without racists."

    Source: 

    Harry G. Levine, Jon B. Gettman, Loren Siegel. "Arresting Blacks for Marijuana in California: Possession Arrests, 2006-08.” Drug Policy Alliance, LA: October 2010, p. 13.
    http://drugpolicy.org/docUploads/ArrestingBlacks.pdf



19. (policing of cannabis in the UK) South Bank University's Criminal Policy Research Unit conducted a detailed study of the policing of cannabis in England. The study found that:

    "One in seven of all known offenders in England and Wales were arrested for the possession of cannabis.

    "There has been a tenfold increase in the number of possession offences since the mid-1970s. There is no evidence that this increase has been an intended consequence of specific policy.

    "Possession offences most often come to light as a by-product of other investigations.

    "A minority of patrol officers ‘specialise’ in cannabis offences: 3 per cent of officers who had made any arrests for possession accounted for 20 per cent of all arrests.

    "Arrests for possession very rarely lead to the discovery of serious crimes.

    "Officers often turn a blind eye to possession offences, or give informal warnings.

    "Of the 69,000 offenders who were cautioned or convicted in 1999, just over half (58 per cent) were cautioned.

    "The financial costs of policing cannabis amount to at least £50 million a year (including sentencing costs), and absorb the equivalent of 500 full-time police officers.

    "The researchers conclude that:

    "- re-classification of cannabis to a Class C drug will yield some financial savings, allowing patrol officers to respond more effectively to other calls on their time;
    "- the main benefits of reclassification would be non-financial, in removing a source of friction between the police and young people;
    "- there would be a very small decline in detection of serious offences, but this should readily be offset by the savings in police time."

    Source: 

    "Findings: The Policing of Cannabis as a Class B Drug," (London, England: Joseph Rowntree Foundation, March 2002), p. 1.
    http://www.jrf.org.uk/sites/files/jrf/332.pdf



20. (drug dealing and employment) The average "dealer" holds a low-wage job and sells part-time to obtain drugs for his or her own use. "Earnings for drug selling were positively correlated (though weakly) with legitimate earnings. Drug selling seemed to be a complement to, rather than a substitute for, legitimate employment."

    Source: 

    Reuter, P., MacCoun, R., & Murphy, P., Money from Crime: A Study of the Economics of Drug Dealing in Washington DC (Santa Monica, CA: The RAND Corporation, 1990), pp. 49-50.
    http://www.rand.org/pubs/reports/2005/R3894.pdf

Crime

(1980-2010 - Total, marijuana and drug arrests by year) Although the intent of a 'War on Drugs' may have been to target drug smugglers and 'King Pins,' over half (52.1%) of the 1,638,846 total 2010 arrests for drug abuse violations were for marijuana -- a calculated total of 853,839. Of those, an estimated 750,591 people (45.8%) were arrested for marijuana possession alone. By contrast in 2000, a total of 734,497 Americans were arrested for marijuana offenses, of which 646,042 (40.9%) were for possession alone. From 1996-2010, there were 10.1 million arrests for marijuana possession and 1.4 million arrests for the sales and trafficking of marijuana, equaling a total of 11.5 million marijuana arrests during that fifteen year time frame.

(1995-2010 - marijuana arrests percent share of total drug arrests by year) The following table references the drug and marijuana arrests columns in the "US Arrests" table. It pairs "Total Marijuana Arrests," "Marijuana Trafficking/Sale Arrests," and "Marijuana Possession Arrests" against "Total Drug Arrests" to arrive at the percentage each has of the total for the respective years. This table shows the growing dominance of marijuana arrests among total drug arrests in the U.S., rising from a percentage of 39.9% of total drug arrests in 1995 to 52.1% of such arrests in 2010. Further, while arrests for sales and trafficking have wavered a few percentage points around 5-6% of total drug arrests, the numbers driving marijuana's increased dominance of drug arrests are those for simple possession, jumping from 34.1% in 1995 to 45.8% in 2010. Arrests for marijuana possession have risen from about a third to about a half of all drug abuse violation arrests over the fifteen year 1995-2010 period.

(1996-2010 - drug and marijuana arrests percent change over prior year) The following table references the total, drug and marijuana arrests columns in the "US Arrests" table. It shows the percentage change over the prior year for "Total Arrests," "Total Drug Arrests," "Total Marijuana Arrests," "Marijuana Trafficking & Sale Arrests," and "Marijuana Possession Arrests." Total Arrests in the United States have ranged between 13.1 million and 15.3 million over the fifteen year period (1996-2010), with the annual percent change for that time span averaging -0.9%. Drug arrests have ranged between a low of 1.4 million in 1996 and a high of 1.9 million in 2006, with an average percent change over the fifteen year period of +0.8%.

The percentage change values for marijuana arrests confirm their upward trend. Total marijuana arrests in 2010 (853,839) were +45% higher than those in 1995 (588,964). The year that the percentage growth in marijuana arrests peaked - 2003 - began a five-year upward trend largely driven by arrests for marijuana possession. For simple possession, the average annual percent change covering 1996-2010 equaled +2.8%; in contrast, that value for trafficking and sales was +1.4%.

1. (corruption - police) "...several studies and investigations of drug-related police corruption found on-duty police officers engaged in serious criminal activities, such as (1) conducting unconstitutional searches and seizures; (2) stealing money and/or drugs from drug dealers; (3) selling stolen drugs; (4) protecting drug operations; (5) providing false testimony; and (6) submitting false crime reports."

   Source: 

   General Accounting Office, Report to the Honorable Charles B. Rangel, House of Representatives, "Law Enforcement: Information on Drug-Related Police Corruption: (Washington, DC: USGPO, May 1998), p. 8.
   http://www.ethicsinstitute.com/pdf/Drug%20Corruption%20Report.pdf



2. (corruption - police) "In addition to protecting criminals or ignoring their activities, officers involved in drug-related corruption were more likely to be actively involved in the commission of a variety of crimes, including stealing drugs and/or money from drug dealers, selling drugs, and lying under oath about illegal searches. Although profit was found to be a motive common to traditional and drug-related police corruption, New York City’s Mollen Commission identified power and vigilante justice as two additional motives for drug-related police corruption. The most commonly identified pattern of drug-related police corruption involved small groups of officers who protected and assisted each other in criminal activities, rather than the traditional patterns of non-drug-related police corruption that involved just a few isolated individuals or systemic corruption pervading an entire police department or precinct."

   Source: 

   General Accounting Office, Report to the Honorable Charles B. Rangel, House of Representatives, "Law Enforcement: Information on Drug-Related Police Corruption" (Washington, DC: USGPO, May 1998), p. 3.
   http://www.ethicsinstitute.com/pdf/Drug%20Corruption%20Report.pdf



3. (corruption - police) The United Nations Drug Control Program noted the inevitable risk of drug-related police corruption in 1998, when it reported that "wherever there is a well-organized, illicit drug industry, there is also the danger of police corruption."

   Source: 

   United Nations International Drug Control Program, "Technical Series Report #6: Economic and Social Consequences of Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking" (New York, NY: UNDCP, 1998), p. 38.
   http://www.unodc.org/pdf/technical_series_1998-01-01_1.pdf



4. (corruption - flow of laundered money) In its 2007 U.S. Money Laundering Threat Assessment, the U.S. Department of the Treasury described the movement of cash smuggled from drug transactions: "Cash associated with illicit narcotics typically flows out of the United States across the southwest border into Mexico, retracing the route that illegal drugs follow when entering the United States.⁸² Upon leaving the country, cash may stay in Mexico, continue on to a number of other countries, or make a U-turn and head back into the United States as a deposit by a bank or casa de cambio. Illicit funds leaving the United States also flow into Canada, which, like Mexico, is a source of illegal narcotics."

   Source: 

   U.S. Department of the Treasury. "2007 National Money Laundering Strategy" (Washington, DC: 2007), p. 50.
   http://www.treas.gov/press/releases/docs/nmls.pdf



5. (effect of criminal funds on governments) "The magnitude of funds under criminal control poses special threats to governments, particularly in developing countries, where the domestic security markets and capital markets are far too small to absorb such funds without quickly becoming dependent on them.¹⁶⁰ It is difficult to have a functioning democratic system when drug cartels have the means to buy protection, political support or votes at every level of government and society.¹⁶¹ In systems where a member of the legislature or judiciary, earning only a modest income, can easily gain the equivalent of some 20 months’ salary from a trafficker by making one "favourable" decision, the dangers of corruption are obvious.¹⁶²"

   Source: 

   United Nations International Drug Control Program, "Technical Series Report #6: Economic and Social Consequences of Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking" (New York, NY: UNDCP, 1998), p. 39.
   http://www.unodc.org/pdf/technical_series_1998-01-01_1.pdf



6. Corruption - Data

   (2006-2007 - corruption - Afghanistan) "Afghanistan currently ranks in the second lowest percentile on the World Bank’s corruption index.²⁹³ A significant component of this index is based on the activities of corruption prone government agencies. Survey after survey reveals the Afghan perception of law enforcement and courts as among the most corrupt institutions in the country.²⁹⁴ A 2006 poll by the Asia Foundation found that 77 per cent of Afghans believed corruption was a problem at the national level.²⁹⁵"

   Source: 

   United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, "Addiction, Crime and Insurgency: The transnational threat of Afghan opium" (Vienna, Austria: October 2009), p. 137.
   http://www.unodc.org/documents/data-and-analysis/Afghanistan/Afghan_Opiu...



7. (2002 - corruption in Colombia) "Colombia has suffered the tragic consequences of endemic theft by politicians and public officials for decades. Entwined with the production and trafficking of illegal drugs, this behaviour exacerbated underdevelopment and lawlessness in the countryside, where a brutal war continues to claim the lives of some 3,500 civilians a year. A World Bank survey released in February 2002 found that bribes are paid in 50 per cent of all state contracts.²⁷ Another World Bank report estimates the cost of corruption in Colombia at US $2.6 billion annually, the equivalent of 60 per cent of the country’s debt.²⁸"

   Source: 

   Herrera, Eduardo Wills, and Cortés, Nubia Urueña, "Global Corruption Report 2003: South America" Transparency International (Berlin, Germany: Transparency International, 2003), p. 108.
   http://www.transparency.org/content/download/4378/26541/file/11_South_America_(Wills_Uruena).pdf



8. (2000 - corruption in Colombia) "The Presidential Programme Against Corruption in Colombia specifically addresses ‘narco-corruption’.³⁶ Colombia, with a capacity to produce 580 tonnes of pure cocaine in 2000,³⁷ is particularly poisoned by the interplay of narcotics and violence, with an estimated one million people internally displaced as a result of battles for territorial control by rebel groups and paramilitary forces. ‘The corruptive effect of this kind of profit is devastating, since it has penetrated to perverse levels in the judiciary and the political system,’ the official report of the Presidential Programme concluded, adding that the rapid accumulation of wealth from illegal drugs ‘has fostered codes and behaviours which promote corruption, fast money and the predominance of private welfare over general interest’."

   Source: 

   Luzzani, Thelma, Transparency International, "Global Corruption Report 2001: South America" (Berlin, Germany: Transparency International, 2001), p. 176.
   http://www.transparency.org/content/download/4302/26311/file/rr_s_americ...



9. (1999 - corruption in Colombia and Central America) "Another problem occurs when officials turn a blind eye to a narcotics trade that looms large in the region. 'Central America has become the meat in the sandwich' - as a trans-shipment point, storehouse and money laundering centre - in the drug traffic from Colombia to the US, said Costa Rican parliamentarian Belisario Solano. The Costa Rican Defence Ministry estimates that between 50 and 70 tonnes of cocaine travel through Costa Rica to the US every year."

   Source: 

   Gutiérrez, Miren, Transparency International, "Global Corruption Report 2001: Central America, the Caribbean and Mexico" (Berlin, Germany: Transparency International, 2001), p. 160.
   http://www.transparency.org/content/download/4289/26272/file/rr_c_am_car...



10. (1998 - corruption in Colombia) "In 1998, DEA reported that drug-related corruption existed in all branches of the [Colombian] government, within the prison system, and in the military... In November 1998, U.S. Customs and DEA personnel searched a Colombian Air Force aircraft in Florida and found 415 kilograms of cocaine and 6 kilograms of heroin."

    Source: 

    United States General Accounting Office, "Drug Control: Narcotics Threat from Colombia Continues to Grow" (Washington, DC: USGPO, 1999), p. 15.
    http://www.gao.gov/archive/1999/ns99136.pdf



11. (1993-1997 - corruption - police) On average, half of all police officers convicted as a result of FBI-led corruption cases between 1993 and 1997 were convicted for drug-related offenses.

    Source: 

    General Accounting Office, Report to the Honorable Charles B. Rangel, House of Representatives, "Law Enforcement: Information on Drug-Related Police Corruption" (Washington, DC: USGPO, May 1998), p. 35.
    http://www.ethicsinstitute.com/pdf/Drug%20Corruption%20Report.pdf



12. (2009 - economics - opium income and the Taliban) "The Taliban’s principal and most lucrative source of income in Afghanistan is its control of the opium trade. The Taliban have long profited off of the ten percent ushr tax levied on opium farmers, an additional tax on the traffickers, and a per-kilogram transit tariff charged to the truckers who transport the product.¹⁵² In recent years, however, they have been “taking a page from the warlords’ playbook,” and regional and local Taliban commanders have been demanding “protection money from the drug traffickers who smuggle goods through their territory.”¹⁵³ A 2007 analysis by the Jamestown Foundation described “arrangements whereby drug traffickers provide money, vehicles and subsistence to Taliban units in return for protection.”¹⁵⁴ In addition, at even higher Taliban command levels, “senior leadership in Quetta are paid regular installments from narcotics kingpins as a general fee for operating in Taliban controlled areas.”¹⁵⁵ Through these various forms of taxation and extortion, the Taliban have been estimated to earn nearly $300 million a year from the opium trade.¹⁵⁶"

    Source: 

    "Warlord, Inc. Extortion and Corruption Along the U.S. Supply Chain in Afghanistan," Report of the Majority Staff, Rep. John F. Tierney, Chair, Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs, Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, U.S. House of Representatives (Washington, DC: June 2010), p. 39.
    http://www.scribd.com/doc/33430036/Warlords-Inc-Report-A-Congressional-R...
    http://www.cbsnews.com/htdocs/pdf/HNT_Report.pdf



13. (2009 - economics - money laundering and the value of the global opiate market) "Of the US$ 65 billion turnover of the global market for opiates, only 5-10 per cent (US$ 3-5 billion) are estimated to be laundered by informal banking systems. The rest is laundered through legal trade activities (including smuggling of legal goods into Afghanistan) and the banking system."

    Source: 

    United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, "Addiction, Crime and Insurgency: The transnational threat of Afghan opium" (Vienna, Austria: October 2009), p. 7.
    http://www.unodc.org/documents/data-and-analysis/Afghanistan/Afghan_Opiu...



14. (2008 - economics - money laundering and gross revenue of Mexican DTOs) "Mexico also remains a hub for money laundering. It is estimated that DTOs’ [drug trafficking organizations] annual gross revenue ranges between $15-30 billion from illicit drug sales in the U.S. Most of these proceeds are returned from the U.S. primarily through bulk currency shipments and laundered through legitimate Mexican businesses."

    Source: 

    United States Department of State, Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, "International Narcotics Control Strategy Report: Volume I, Drug and Chemical Control," (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of State: March 2010), p. 432.
    http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/137411.pdf



15. Corruption - Research

    (corruption - police) The Mollen Commission was appointed to investigate corruption in the New York City Police Department. The Commission "found that police corruption, brutality, and violence were present in every high-crime precinct with an active narcotics trade that it studied, all of which have predominantly minority populations. It found disturbing patterns of police corruption and brutality, including stealing from drug dealers, engaging in unlawful searches, seizures, and car stops, dealing and using drugs, lying in order to justify unlawful searches and arrests and to forestall complaints of abuse, and indiscriminate beating of innocent and guilty alike."

    Source: 

    Cole, David, "No Equal Justice: Race and Class in the American Criminal Justice System" (New York: The New Press, 1999), pp. 23-4.
    http://www.ncjrs.gov/App/publications/Abstract.aspx?id=179184



16. (corruption in Mexico) "Mexico's police and armed services are known to be contaminated by multimillion dollar bribes from the transnational narco-trafficking business. Though the problem is not as pervasive in the military as it is in the police, it is widely considered to have attained the status of a national security threat."

    Source: 

    Gutiérrez, Miren, Transparency International, "Global Corruption Report 2001: Central America, the Caribbean and Mexico" (Berlin, Germany: Transparency International, 2001), p. 158.
    http://www.transparency.org/content/download/4289/26272/file/rr_c_am_car...



17. (corruption in specific U.S. cities) A 1998 report by the General Accounting Office cited specific examples of publicly disclosed drug-related police corruption in the following cities: Atlanta, Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, Los Angeles, Miami, New Orleans, New York, Philadelphia, Savannah, and Washington, DC.

    Source: 

    General Accounting Office, Report to the Honorable Charles B. Rangel, House of Representatives, "Law Enforcement: Information on Drug-Related Police Corruption" (Washington, DC: USGPO, May 1998), p. 36-37.
    http://www.ethicsinstitute.com/pdf/Drug%20Corruption%20Report.pdf

Economics

1. (economics - defining five basic regulation models)
   Prescription
   "The prescription model is the most tightly controlled and enforced drug supply model currently in operation. Under this model, drugs are prescribed to a named user by a qualified and licensed medical practitioner. They are dispensed by a licensed practitioner or pharmacist from a licensed pharmacy or other designated outlet."

   Pharmacy model
   "The pharmacy model, whilst still working within a clearly defined medical framework, is less restrictive and controlling than the prescription model. Pharmacists are trained and licensed to dispense prescriptions, although they cannot write them. They can also sell certain generally lower risk medical drugs from behind the counter."

   Licensed sales
   "Current best practice in licensed sales of alcohol and tobacco offers a less restrictive, more flexible infrastructure for the licensed sales of certain lower risk non-medical drugs (see: 5.1 Alcohol, page 100, and 5.2 Tobacco, page 105). Such a system would put various combinations of regulatory controls in place to manage the vendor, the supply outlet, the product and the purchaser, as appropriate."

   Licensed premises
   "Public houses and bars serving alcohol offer the most common example of premises licensed for sale and consumption. Under this long established system, various controls exist over the venue and (in particular) the licensee."

   Unlicensed sales
   "Certain psychoactive substances deemed sufficiently low risk, such as coffee, traditional use of coca tea and some low strength painkillers, are subject to little or no licensing. Here, regulation focuses on standard product descriptions and labelling."

   Source: 

   Transform Drug Policy Foundation, "After the War on Drugs: Blueprint for Regulation," (Bristol, United Kingdom: September 2009)pp. 20, 23, 24-27.
   http://www.tdpf.org.uk/Transform_Drugs_Blueprint.pdf



2. (marijuana - effects of prohibition) "Prohibition has two effects: on one hand it raises supplier costs, disrupts market functioning and prevents open promotion of the product; on the other, it sacrifices the authorities’ ability to tax transactions and regulate operation of the market, product characteristics and promotional activity of suppliers. The cannabis prevalence rates presented in Figure 1 show clearly that prohibition has failed to prevent widespread use of the drug and leaves open the possibility that it might be easier to control the harmful use of cannabis by regulation of a legal market than to control illicit consumption under prohibition. The contrast between the general welcome for tobacco regulation (including bans on smoking in public places) and the deep suspicion of prohibition policy on cannabis is striking and suggests that a middle course of legalised but limited consumption may find a public consensus."

   Source: 

   "Pudney, Stephen, "Drugs Policy – What Should We Do About Cannabis?" Centre for Economic Policy Research (London, United Kingdom: April 2009), p. 23.
   http://www.cepr.org/meets/wkcn/9/976/papers/pudney.pdf



3. (economics - inconsistencies in drug data) "Existing estimates about drug production and consumption are cryptic, inconsistent, and often impossible to verify. ... many of the most-quoted estimates are not documented in a manner that allows others to assess their credibility, let alone replicate them. The large year-to-year changes in official estimates of consumption and particularly of production reduce their credibility, given the stable data on marijuana use in the U.S. population over the past decade.

   "While a number of estimates are described as being “intelligence based” or are released by intelligence agencies, this does not mean we should automatically give them high credibility. This paper identifies a number of these estimates from national and international sources that are simply implausible. Drug-market estimation is a field plagued by a lack of data and heavily dependent on assumptions; thus, estimates from both intelligence and nonintelligence agencies need to be scrutinized. Policymakers would be well served by preventing the publication of figures without peer review. If the truth is that these figures are estimated imprecisely, that fact should be noted."

   Source: 

   Kilmer, Beau; Caulkins, Jonathan P.; Bond, Brittany M.; and Reuter, Peter H., "Reducing Drug Trafficking Revenues and Violence in Mexico: Would Legalizing Marijuana in California Help?" International Programs and Drug Policy Research Center (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, October 2010), p. 44.
   http://www.rand.org/pubs/occasional_papers/2010/RAND_OP325.pdf



4. Economics - Data - Global

   (2011 - economics - opium prices in Afghanistan) "In 2011, opium prices had reached high levels as a result of the unusually low opium production in 2010, when major cultivation areas were affected by plant diseases.

   "Results from the 2009 opium survey indicated that the low opium price level in that year discouraged farmers from planting opium. However, since then, opium prices have tripled. The high sale price of opium in combination with lower wheat prices may have encouraged famers to resume opium cultivation. The high level of opium prices in 2011 continues to provide a strong incentive to plant opium in the upcoming poppy season."

   Source: 

   "Afghanistan Opium Survey 2011," United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (Vienna, Austria: United Nations, October 2011), p. 19.
   http://www.unodc.org/documents/crop-monitoring/Afghanistan/Executive_Sum...



5. (2011 - economics - opium production in Afghanistan) "In 2011, the estimated potential opium production amounted to 5,800 mt, an increase by 61% over 2010. As opium cultivation remained relatively stable between 2009 and 2011, the differences in opium production in those years were due to changes in per-hectare opium yield. 2009 was a year with high opium yields (56.1 kg/ha), while in 2010, major opium cultivation areas were affected by plant diseases, which led to a strong yield reduction (29.2 kg/ha). In 2011, opium yields were back to “normal” levels of 44.5 kg/ha. In 2011, the Southern region continued to produce most opium in Afghanistan, representing 85% of national production, followed by the Western region (12%)."

   Source: 

   "Afghanistan Opium Survey 2011," United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (Vienna, Austria: United Nations, October 2011), p. 13.
   http://www.unodc.org/documents/crop-monitoring/Afghanistan/Executive_Sum...



6. (2009 - economics - opium income and the Taliban) "The Taliban’s principal and most lucrative source of income in Afghanistan is its control of the opium trade. The Taliban have long profited off of the ten percent ushr tax levied on opium farmers, an additional tax on the traffickers, and a per-kilogram transit tariff charged to the truckers who transport the product.¹⁵² In recent years, however, they have been “taking a page from the warlords’ playbook,” and regional and local Taliban commanders have been demanding “protection money from the drug traffickers who smuggle goods through their territory.”¹⁵³ A 2007 analysis by the Jamestown Foundation described “arrangements whereby drug traffickers provide money, vehicles and subsistence to Taliban units in return for protection.”¹⁵⁴ In addition, at even higher Taliban command levels, “senior leadership in Quetta are paid regular installments from narcotics kingpins as a general fee for operating in Taliban controlled areas.”¹⁵⁵ Through these various forms of taxation and extortion, the Taliban have been estimated to earn nearly $300 million a year from the opium trade.¹⁵⁶"

   Source: 

   "Warlord, Inc. Extortion and Corruption Along the U.S. Supply Chain in Afghanistan," Report of the Majority Staff, Rep. John F. Tierney, Chair, Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs, Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, U.S. House of Representatives (Washington, DC: June 2010), p. 39.
   http://www.scribd.com/doc/33430036/Warlords-Inc-Report-A-Congressional-R...
   http://www.cbsnews.com/htdocs/pdf/HNT_Report.pdf



7. (2009 - economics - value of global opiate market) "At retail level, the total value of the heroin market is substantial at an estimated US$55 billion. The size of the annual opium market is a more ‘modest’ US$7-10 billion. Consequently, the combined total opiates (heroin/opium) market could be worth up to US$65 billion per year. This amount is higher than the GDPs of many countries. In economic terms, nearly half of the overall opiate market value is accounted for by Europe (some US$20 billion) and the Russian Federation (US$13 billion). Other lucrative markets include China (US$9 billion) and the United States and Canada (US$8 billion)."

   Source: 

   UNODC, World Drug Report 2010 (United Nations Publication, Sales No. E.10.XI.13), p. 42.
   http://www.unodc.org/documents/wdr/WDR_2010/World_Drug_Report_2010_lo-re...



8. (2005-2009 - economics - cost of U.S counternarcotics programs in Afghanistan) "The U.S. Government has been involved in counternarcotics in Afghanistan for over 20 years through various agreements to suppress the production, distribution, and use of illicit drugs and has spent approximately $2 billion on counternarcotics programs in the last 5 years."

   Source: 

   United States Department of State and the Broadcasting Board of Governors Office of Inspector General, Middle East Regional Office, "Status of the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs Counternarcotics Programs in Afghanistan Performance Audit," Report Number MERO-A-10-02 (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of State: December 2009), p. 3.
   http://oig.state.gov/documents/organization/134183.pdf



9. (2009 - economics - money laundering and the value of the global opiate market) "Of the US$ 65 billion turnover of the global market for opiates, only 5-10 per cent (US$ 3-5 billion) are estimated to be laundered by informal banking systems. The rest is laundered through legal trade activities (including smuggling of legal goods into Afghanistan) and the banking system."

   Source: 

   United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, "Addiction, Crime and Insurgency: The transnational threat of Afghan opium" (Vienna, Austria: October 2009), p. 7.
   http://www.unodc.org/documents/data-and-analysis/Afghanistan/Afghan_Opiu...



10. (2008 - economics - money laundering and gross revenue of Mexican DTOs) "Mexico also remains a hub for money laundering. It is estimated that DTOs’ [drug trafficking organizations] annual gross revenue ranges between $15-30 billion from illicit drug sales in the U.S. Most of these proceeds are returned from the U.S. primarily through bulk currency shipments and laundered through legitimate Mexican businesses."

    Source: 

    United States Department of State, Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, "International Narcotics Control Strategy Report: Volume I, Drug and Chemical Control," (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of State: March 2010), p. 432.
    http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/137411.pdf



11. (2008 - opium revenue in Afghanistan) "When the Taliban were in power (in the late 1990s) they extracted US$ 75-100 million a year from taxing opium. In the 2005-2008 period the cumulative revenue from opiate farming and trade accruing to Taliban insurgents is estimated at US$ 350-650 million, or an annual average of US$ 90-160 million in Afghanistan alone. This estimate does not include insurgents’ potential revenues from other drug-related activities (labs, imports of precursors) in Afghanistan and from the US$1 billion opiate trade in Pakistan."

    Source: 

    United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, "Addiction, Crime and Insurgency: The transnational threat of Afghan opium" (Vienna, Austria: October 2009), p. 7.
    http://www.unodc.org/documents/data-and-analysis/Afghanistan/Afghan_Opiu...



12. (2008 - global opium market and consumption) "The main opiate consumer market is Europe (about 19 per cent of global consumption, with a market value of US$ 20 billion), the Russian Federation (15 per cent), the Islamic Republic of Iran (15 per cent), China (12 per cent), India (7 per cent), Pakistan (6 per cent), Africa (6 per cent) and the Americas (6 per cent)."

    Source: 

    United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, "Addiction, Crime and Insurgency: The transnational threat of Afghan opium" (Vienna, Austria: October 2009), p. 7.
    http://www.unodc.org/documents/data-and-analysis/Afghanistan/Afghan_Opiu...



13. (2008 - drug-related public expenditures in the European Union) "The new estimate of drug-related public expenditure in Europe is EUR 34 billion (95% confidence interval, EUR 28–40 billion), which is equivalent to 0.3% of the combined gross domestic product of all EU Member States. This suggests that State expenditure on the drug problem costs the average EU citizen EUR 60 a year."

    Source: 

    Annual Report 2008: The State of the Drugs Problem in Europe," European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, 2008), p. 21.
    http://www.emcdda.europa.eu/themes/drug-situation/policy



14. (2007 - price of heroin) In 2007, a kilogram of heroin no. 3 typically sold for an average wholesale price of $2,520 in Pakistan; the average 2005 per-kilogram wholesale price of heroin no. 4 in that country equaled approximately $4,159. The 2007 wholesale price for a kilogram of heroin in Afghanistan ranged around $2,405. In Colombia, a kilogram of heroin no. 4 typically sold for $9,992 wholesale in 2006. In the United States in 2007, a kilogram of heroin no. 4 cost an average of $71,200 wholesale.

    Source: 

    United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2009, Statistical Annex: Prices, (Vienna, Austria: UNODC, 2009), pp. 217-218.
    http://www.unodc.org/documents/wdr/WDR_2009/WDR2009_eng_web.pdf



15. (2006 - Canadian dollar cost of substance abuse) "In 2006 a team of researchers published estimates of the social costs of substance abuse in Canada across several domains based on 2002 data (Rehm et al., 2006). Total costs of substance abuse for all substances (including tobacco) were estimated to be $39.8 billion in 2002, which translates into $1,267 per capita. Of this, approximately 39% are direct costs to the economy associated with health care, enforcement, prevention/research and “other costs”⁶, and 61% are indirect costs associated mainly with productivity losses resulting from premature death and disability.

    "Important findings ... include the fact that (1) total direct social costs associated with alcohol ($7,427.5 million) are more than double those for all illicit drugs combined ($3,565.5 million); (2) direct alcohol-related health care costs ($3,306.2 million) are nearly three times as high as for all illicit drugs, excluding cannabis ($1,061.6 million), and over 45 times higher than the direct health care costs of cannabis ($73 million); and (3) annual direct costs for health care ($4,440.7 million) are 31 times higher, and annual direct costs for enforcement ($5,407.7 million) are 36 times higher than annual costs for prevention and research ($147.6 million)."

    Source: 

    Thomas, Gerald and Davis, Christopher G., Comparing the Perceived Seriousness and Actual Costs of Substance Abuse in Canada: Analysis drawn from the 2004 Canadian Addiction Survey," Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse (Ottawa, ON: Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse, March 2007), pp. 2-4.
    http://www.ccsa.ca/2007%20CCSA%20Documents/ccsa-011350-2007.pdf



16. (2000-2005 - U.S. counternarcotics support costs) "However, during fiscal years 2000-2005, the United States provided about $6.2 billion to support counternarcotics and related programs in the source and transit zones (see table 1).¹² In the source zone, U.S. assistance supports eradication and interdiction efforts and related programs for alternative development and judicial reform, primarily in Bolivia, Colombia, and Peru. In the transit zone, the United States provided about $365 million in assistance—primarily to El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, and Mexico —to support interdiction and other law enforcement programs."

    "For fiscal year 2006, the Administration has requested an additional $735 million for countries in the source zone and $77 million for countries in the transit zone."

    "From fiscal year 2000 through 2005, the United States provided about $365 million in assistance to countries in the transit zone. Of this, Mexico received approximately $115 million to support its efforts to eradicate opium poppy and marijuana, and improve surveillance and intelligence capabilities."

    Source: 

    "Drug Control: Agencies Need to Plan for Likely Decline in Drug Interdiction Assets, and Develop Better Performance Measures for Transit Zone Operations," Government Accountability Office (Washington, DC: USGAO, Nov. 2005), GAO-06-200, pp. 10 and 23.
    http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d06200.pdf



17. (2004 - economics - price of cocaine) In 2004, a kilogram of cocaine base in Colombia typically sold for $810 and a kilogram of cocaine typically sold for $1,713. In Peru in 2004, a kilogram of cocaine base typically sold for $700 and a kilogram of cocaine typically sold for $1,000. In Mexico in 2004, a kilogram of cocaine typically sold for $7,880. In the United States in 2001, a kilogram of cocaine typically sold for $23,500.

    Source: 

    United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2006 Volume 2: Statistics (Vienna, Austria: UNODC, 2006), pp. 369-370.
    http://www.unodc.org/pdf/WDR_2006/wdr2006_volume2.pdf



18. (2003 - value of global retail cannabis market in Euros) "The UNODC (2005) estimates that the world retail market for cannabis was about €125 Billion⁴ circa 2003; more than the retail markets for cocaine and opiates combined. The US is believed to be the largest contributor to this estimate, but the exact size of that market is far from settled. Indeed, some of the estimates of the US market vary by a factor of 10.

    "The UNODC’s macro estimates indicate that North America and Western/Central Europe account for 45% and 28% of the world cannabis market, respectively. The UNODC’s input-output model suggests that each past year user in North America consumed 165 grams of cannabis herb at almost €10 per gram. With approximately 25 million past-year users in the US during this time, the UNODC calculations imply that retail cannabis expenditures in the US exceeded €40 billion. This is more than four times the retail estimate generated by the White House’s Office of National Drug Control Policy for 2000." [all monetary values are in €2005]

    Source: 

    Beau Kilmer, Rosalie Liccardo Pacula, "Estimating the size of the global drug market: A demand-side approach," Prepared for the Euopean Commission (The RAND Corporation, 2009) p. 8.
    http://www.rand.org/pubs/technical_reports/2009/RAND_TR711.pdf



19. (2003 - size of global illicit drug market) "If compared to global licit exports (US$7,503 bn in 2003) or compared to global GDP (US$35,765 bn in 2003) the estimated size [of] the global illicit drug market may not appear to be particularly high (0.9% of global GDP at retail level or 1.3% of global exports measures at wholesale level).

    "Nonetheless, the size of the global illicit drug market is substantial. The value, measured at retail prices, is higher than the GDP of 88% of the countries in the world (163 out of 184 for which the World Bank has GDP data) and equivalent to about three quarters of Sub-Saharan Africa's combined GDP (US$439 bn in 2003). The sale of drugs, measured at wholesale prices, was equivalent to 12% of global export of chemicals (US$794 bn), 14% of global agricultural exports (US$674 bn) and exceeded global exports of ores and other minerals (US$79 bn) in 2003. Such sales of drugs were also higher than the combined total licit agricultural exports from Latin America (US$75 bn) and the Middle East (US$10 bn) in 2003."

    Source: 

    United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), World Drug Report 2005 (Vienna, Austria: UNODC, June 2005), p. 127.
    http://www.unodc.org/pdf/WDR_2005/volume_1_web.pdf



20. (2003 - value of global illicit drug market in Euros) According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, "[T]he value of the global illicit drug market for the year 2003 was estimated at US$13 bn [billion] at the production level, at $94 bn at the wholesale level (taking seizures into account), and at US$322bn based on retail prices and taking seizures and other losses into account. This indicates that despite seizures and losses, the value of the drugs increase substantially as they move from producer to consumer."

    Source: 

    United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), World Drug Report 2005 (Vienna, Austria: UNODC, June 2005), p. 127.
    http://www.unodc.org/pdf/WDR_2005/volume_1_web.pdf



21. (1999 - estimated size of the global illegal drug market) "It is also worth noting that by 1999, the UNDCP had not attempted to follow up its efforts to estimate the size of the world illegal drug market. That year, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) [an inter-governmental body focusing on anti-money laundering activities and legislation] decided to begin work to assess the size of the world illegal economy and found it convenient to start with an estimate of the illegal drug market, a task that was considered easier than estimating other illegal activities, given the large work on drugs already available. FATF hired Peter Reuter, a well-known economist who has done extensive work on illegal drug markets, and produced an estimate. This job had the full cooperation of the UNDCP, which opened its data bank to the researcher.

    "The resulting study is probably the most serious attempt to ascertain the size of the world illegal drug market and resulted in an estimated range between $45 and $280 billion."

    Source: 

    Francisco E. Thoumi, "Let’s All Guess the Size of the Illegal Drugs Industry!" Transnational Institute (Amsterdam, The Netherlands: December 2003), p. 7.
    http://www.tni.org//archives/crime-docs/numbers.pdf



22. (1991-2000 - value of illegal drug exports in the Caribbean) "The value of illegal drug exports from the Caribbean during the past two decades has fallen into two very well differentiated periods. The first period, from 1981 to 1990, was an epoch of impressive depression in the total value of the Caribbean drugs exports -- from an income over US$20bn at its peak in 1983 to US$5bn in 1991. Since 1991, the value of Caribbean exports of illegal drugs has stabilised around US$5bn."

    Source: 

    "The Value Of Illegal Drug Exports Transiting The Caribbean - 1981-2000," United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Caribbean Regional Office, February 2004, p. 39.



23. (2008 - economics - expenditure on drug war in North America over 40 years) "Despite more than an estimated $2.5 trillion having been spent on the “war on drugs” in North America during the last 40 years, cannabis is as readily available today as at any time in our history."

    Source: 

    "Breaking the Silence: Cannabis prohibition, organized crime and gang violence in British Columbia," Stop the Violence BC Coalition (Vancouver, British Columbia: October 2011), p. 1.
    http://stoptheviolencebc.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/Report1.pdf



24. Economics - Data - United States

    (2010 - U.S. drug control budget) "For FY 2011, $85,500,000 is requested to support the DFC Program [Drug Free Communities]. Of this amount, $76,660,000 will fund grants made directly to nearly 620 community-based coalitions focusing on preventing and reducing youth substance abuse throughout the United States. The remaining amount will be divided with $2,000,000 to be used to provide a directed grant award to the National Anti-Drug Coalition Institute (Institute). The Institute is the primary source of training and technical assistance to DFC coalitions and coalitions working toward submitting a successful DFC application. The remaining $6,840,000 will fund program support costs, such as program staff, daily oversight of grants and the DFC National Cross-Site Evaluation."

    Source: 

    Executive Office of the President, Office of National Drug Control Policy, "Office of National Drug Control Policy: Fiscal Year 2011 Budget," (Washington, DC: 2010), p. 48.
    http://www.whitehousedrugpolicy.gov/policy/congress_budget_submission.pd...



25. (2010 - savings and tax revenue from legalizing drugs) "This report estimates that legalizing drugs would save roughly $41.3 billion per year in government expenditure on enforcement of prohibition. Of these savings, $25.7 billion would accrue to state and local governments, while $15.6 billion would accrue to the federal government. Approximately $8.7 billion of the savings would result from legalization of marijuana and $32.6 billion from legalization of other drugs.

    "The report also estimates that drug legalization would yield tax revenue of $46.7 billion annually, assuming legal drugs were taxed at rates comparable to those on alcohol and tobacco. Approximately $8.7 billion of this revenue would result from legalization of marijuana and $38.0 billion from legalization of other drugs."

    Source: 

    Miron, Jeffey A., and Waldock, Katherine, "The Budgetary Impact of Ending Drug Prohibition," The Cato Institute (Washington, DC: Cato Institute, 2010).
    http://www.cato.org/pubs/wtpapers/DrugProhibitionWP.pdf



26. (2010 - marijuana from Mexico)
    "• Mexican DTOs’ gross revenues from moving marijuana across the border into the United States and selling it to wholesalers is likely less than $2 billion, and our preferred estimate is closer to $1.5 billion. This figure does not include revenue from DTO production and distribution in the United States, which is extremely difficult to estimate with existing data.

    "• The ubiquitous claim that 60 percent of Mexican DTO export revenues come from U.S. marijuana consumption (Fainaru and Booth, 2009; Yes on 19, undated) should not be taken seriously. No publicly available source verifies or explains this figure and subsequent analyses revealed great uncertainty about the estimate (GAO, 2007). Our analysis— though preliminary on this point—suggests that 15–26 percent is a more credible range of the share of drug export revenues attributable to marijuna."

    Source: 

    Kilmer, Beau; Caulkins, Jonathan P.; Bond, Brittany M.; and Reuter, Peter H., "Reducing Drug Trafficking Revenues and Violence in Mexico: Would Legalizing Marijuana in California Help?" International Programs and Drug Policy Research Center (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, October 2010), p. 3.
    http://www.rand.org/pubs/occasional_papers/2010/RAND_OP325.pdf



27. (2010 - U.S. drug control budget for 2011) "For the period October 1, 2010 through September 30, 2011, ONDCP is requesting $401,446,000 and 99 full-time equivalents (FTE). The FY 2011 budget request reflects three appropriations: the Salaries and Expenses (S&E); Other Federal Drug Control Programs; and, High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas (HIDTA).

    "The FY 2011 request for S&E is $26,196,000 and 98 FTE. The budget request includes $24,961,000 for operational expenses and $1,235,000 for Policy Research.

    "The FY 2011 request for the Other Federal Drug Control Programs is $165,300,000 and 1 FTE. This request includes funds for National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign; Drug-Free Communities Program; Performance Measures Development; Anti-Doping Activities; the World Anti-Doping Agency dues; National Drug Court Institute; and, National Alliance for Model State Drug Laws.

    "The FY 2011 request for HIDTA is $209,950,000. This request includes $207,250,000 for grants and Federal transfers and up to $2,700,000 for HIDTA auditing services and associated activities."

    Source: 

    Executive Office of the President, Office of National Drug Control Policy, "Office of National Drug Control Policy: Fiscal Year 2011 Budget," (Washington, DC: 2010), p. 1.
    http://www.whitehousedrugpolicy.gov/policy/congress_budget_submission.pd...



28. (2011 - U.S. drug control expenditures by function))

    Federal Drug Control Spending by Function
    Function	FY 2009 Final	FY 2010 Enacted	FY 2011 Request
    Treatment	3,561.9	3,745.5	3,882.5
    Percent	23.3%	24.9%	25.0%
    Prevention	1,854.7	1,514.3	1,717.7
    Percent	12.1%	10.1%	11.0%
    Domestic Law Enforcement	3,869.4	3,843.5	3,917.3
    Percent	25.3%	25.6%	25.2%
    Interdiction	3,910.2	3,640.1	3,727.0
    Percent	25.6%	24.2%	24.0%
    International	2,082.2	2,288.0	2,308.1
    Percent	13.6%	15.2%	14.8%
    Total	$15,278.4	$15,031.5	$15,552.5

    Source: 

    Office of National Drug Control Policy, "National Drug Control Strategy: FY2010 Budget Summary," (Washington, DC: 2009), p. 15.
    http://www.whitehousedrugpolicy.gov/publications/policy/11budget/fy11bud...



29. (2009 - proposed U.S. drug control budget for drug courts) "The FY 2009 resources of $1.250 million will support NDCI’s [National Drug Court Institute] efforts to improve and expand drug courts through its research, training, and technical assistance programs. NDCI will conduct research and produce reports on successful methods of financing and sustaining drug courts. The program will also provide technical assistance to court systems wishing to adopt these methods. NDCI will use resources to continue to develop and encourage standard drug court data collection practices, which allow for comparisons across drug court systems."

    Source: 

    Office of National Drug Control Policy, "National Drug Control Strategy: FY2010 Budget Summary," (Washington, DC: 2009), p. 138.
    http://www.whitehousedrugpolicy.gov/publications/policy/10budget/ondcp.p...



30. (2008 - costs for federal wiretaps) "The average cost of intercept devices installed in 2008 was $47,624, down 2 percent from the average cost in 2007. For federal wiretaps for which expenses were reported in 2008, the average cost was $70,536, a 7 percent increase from the average cost in 2007. The average cost of a state wiretap declined 6 percent to $41,154 in 2008."

    Applying the average cost of $70,536 for installing federal wiretapping devices and $41,154 for installing state devices to the respective 386 federal and 1,505 state wiretaps in 2008 -- and noting that 84% of wiretaps involve drug investigations -- brings the estimated 2008 spending for the installation of wiretap device for drug investigations to $22.8 million by the federal government and $52 million by the states. These costs exclude manpower and prosecution.

    Source: 

    Administrative Office of the United States Courts, 2008 Wiretap Report (Washington, DC: USGPO, April 2007), pp. 7 and 11.
    http://www.uscourts.gov/wiretap08/2008WTText.pdf



31. (2008 - savings from legalizing drugs in the U.S.) "The report estimates that legalizing drugs would save roughly $48.7 billion per year in government expenditure on enforcement of prohibition. $33.1 billion of this savings would accrue to state and local governments, while $15.6 billion would accrue to the federal government. Approximately $13.7 billion of the savings would results from legalization of marijuana, $22.3 billion from legalization of cocaine and heroin, and $12.8 from legalization of other drugs."

    Source: 

    Miron, Jeffey A., PhD, "The Budgetary Implications of Drug Prohibition," (February, 2010), p. 1.
    http://www.economics.harvard.edu/faculty/miron/files/budget%202010%20Fin...



32. (2008 - total annual costs of drug abuse) "Each year, drug-related deaths number in the thousands, and treatment admissions and emergency department (ED)visits both exceed a million. These and other consequences of drug abuse, including lost productivity associated with abuse, the impact on the criminal justice system, and the environmental impact that results from the production of illicit drugs, are estimated at nearly $215 billion³ annually."

    Source: 

    National Drug Intelligence Center, "National Drug Threat Assessment 2010," (Johnstown, PA: February 2010), p. 1.
    http://www.justice.gov/ndic/pubs38/38661/38661p.pdf



33. (2008 - cost of narcotics trade) "The narcotics trade has also significantly impeded fiscal growth and stability by diverting scarce resources away from more-productive uses. Between 1981 and 2008, federal, state, and local governments are estimated to have spent at least $600 billion (adjusted for inflation) on drug interdiction and related law enforcement efforts; factoring in costs associated with treatment and rehabilitation, the overall total rises to around $800 billion.³⁴ If one were to also add in “invisible” losses brought about by curtailed job opportunities and reduced workplace productivity, the true cost would be far higher."

    Source: 

    Chalk, Peter, "The Latin American Drug Trade: Scope, Dimensions, Impact, and Response," RAND Corporation for the the United States Air Force (Santa Monica, CA: 2011), p. 47.
    http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/monographs/2011/RAND_MG1076.pd...



34. (2007 - cost of drug diversion) "...the estimated cost of CPD diversion and abuse to public and private medical insurers is $72.5 billion a year,³ much of which is passed to consumers through higher health insurance premiums. Additionally, the abuse of prescription opioids is burdening the budgets of substance abuse treatment providers, particularly as prescription opioid abuse might be fueling heroin abuse rates in some areas of the United States."

    Source: 

    National Drug Intelligence Center, Drug Enforcement Administration, "National Prescription Drug Threat Assessment," (Washington DC, April 2009), p. V.
    http://www.justice.gov/ndic/pubs33/33775/33775p.pdf



35. (2007 - cost of law enforcement aircraft and use for counternarcotics) "Aviation units (190) reporting actual expenditures for 2007 spent approximately $283 million to purchase, lease or finance, maintain, and fuel their aircraft (table 4). Total expenditures for all 201 aviation units were estimated at $301 million in 2007."

    Since 89% of all aviation units participate in "Counternarcotics operations," total unit spending attributable this activity would approximate $268 million.

    Source: 

    Langston, Lynn, "Aviation Units in Large Enforcement Agencies, 2007" (Washington, DC: USDOJ, Bureau of Justice Statistics, July 2009), NCJ 226672, pp. 4 and 9.
    http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/pub/pdf/aullea07.pdf



36. (2006 - prescription drug diversion and fraud) "According to law enforcement reporting, some individuals and criminal groups divert CPDs [controlled prescription drugs] through doctor-shopping and use insurance fraud to fund their schemes. In fact, Aetna, Inc. reports that nearly half of its 1,065 member fraud cases in 2006 (the latest year for which data are available) involved prescription benefits, and most were related to doctor-shopping, according to the Coalition Against Insurance Fraud (CAIF). CAIF further reports that diversion of CPDs collectively costs insurance companies up to $72.5 billion annually, nearly two-thirds of which is paid by public insurers. Individual insurance plans lose an estimated $9 million to $850 million annually, depending on each plan’s size; much of that cost is passed on to consumers through higher annual premiums."

    Source: 

    National Drug Intelligence Center, Drug Enforcement Administration, "National Prescription Drug Threat Assessment," (Washington DC, April 2009), p. 20.
    http://www.justice.gov/ndic/pubs33/33775/33775p.pdf



37. (2006 - retail value of hemp industry) "Retail sales of imported hemp products exceeded $70 million in the United States in 2006.⁶² Given hemp’s wide-ranging utility, supporters of domestic cultivation estimate that it would create a $300 million dollar industry.⁶³"

    Source: 

    Kolosov, Christine A., "Evaluating the Public Interest: Regulation of Industrial Hemp under the Controlled Substances Act," UCLA Law Review (Los Angeles, CA: UCLA School of Law, 2009), p. 244.
    http://uclalawreview.org/pdf/57-1-5.pdf



38. (2005 - federal, state and local expenditures on substance abuse) "In 2005, federal, state and local governments spent at least $467.7 billion on substance abuse and addiction."

    "Federal and state* governments spent $3.3 trillion in 2005 to operate government and provide public services such as education, health care, income assistance, child welfare, mental health, law enforcement and justice services, transportation and highway safety. Hidden in this spending was a stunning $373.9 billion--11.2 percent--that was spent on tobacco, alcohol and other drug abuse and addiction. A conservative estimate of local government spending on substance abuse and addiction in 2005 is $93.8 billion.

    "The vast majority of federal and state substance related spending--95.6 percent or $357.4 billion--went to carry the burden to government programs of our failure to prevent and treat the problem while only 1.9 percent was spent on preventing or treating addiction. Another 0.4 percent was spent on research and the remaining two percent was spent on alcohol and tobacco tax collection, regulation and operation of state liquor stores (1.4 percent) federal drug interdiction (0.7 percent). For every dollar the federal and state governments spent on prevention and treatment, they spent $59.83 shoveling up the consequences.

    "A staggering 71.1 percent of total federal and state spending on the burden of addiction is in two areas: health and justice. Almost three fifths (58.0 percent) of federal and state spending on the burden of substance abuse and addiction (74.1 percent of the federal burden) is in the area of health care where untreated addiction causes or contributes to over 70 other diseases requiring hospitalization. The second largest area of substance-related federal and state burden spending is the justice system (13.1 percent)."

    Source: 

    National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University, "Shoveling Up II: The Impact of Substance Abuse on State Budgets" (New York, NY: CASA, May 2009), p. 2.
    http://www.casacolumbia.org/absolutenm/articlefiles/380-ShovelingUpII.pd...



39. (2003 - arrests, cases, inmates, and criminal justice employees) "The increase in justice expenditures over nearly 20 years reflects the expansion of the Nation's justice system. For example, in 1982 the justice system employed approximately 1.27 million persons; in 2003 it reached over 2.3 million.

    "Police protection
    "One indicator of police workload, the FBI's arrest estimates for State and local police agencies, grew from 12 million in 1982 to an estimated 13.6 million in 2003. The number of employees in police protection increased from approximately 724,000 to over 1.1 million.

    "Judicial and legal
    "The judicial and legal workload, including civil and criminal cases, prosecutor functions, and public defender services, also expanded during this period. Cases of all kinds (criminal, civil, domestic, juvenile, and traffic) filed in the nearly 16,000 general and limited jurisdiction State courts went from about 86 million to 100 million in the 16-year period, 1987-2003. The total of judicial and legal employees grew about 101% to over 494,000 persons in 2003.

    "Corrections
    "The total number of State and Federal inmates grew from 403,000 in 1982 to over 1.4 million in 2003. The number of local jail inmates more than tripled from approximately 207,000 in 1982 to over 691,000 in 2003. Adults on probation increased from over 1.4 million to about 4.1 million persons. Overall, corrections employment more than doubled from nearly 300,000 to over 748,000 during this same period."

    Source: 

    Hughes, Kristen A., "Justice Expenditure and Employment in the United States, 2003" (Washington, DC: US Dept. of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, April 2006), NCJ212260, p. 7.
    http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/pub/pdf/jeeus03.pdf



40. (2003 - funding of pharmaceutical drug development in the U.S.) "Nonetheless, one must wonder why drug development has not proceeded far more rapidly in the wake of dramatic breakthroughs in applied molecular biology in the past two decades or so. We cannot blame inadequate resources. Moses, et al. (2005) report that between 1994 and 2003, annual biomedical research funding in the United States doubled in real terms, reaching $94.3 billion. Private industry (pharmaceutical and biotechnology firms) accounted for about 57% of that, and NIH, 28%. Industry funding of clinical trials more than tripled in real terms to $14.2 billion in 2003. At the same time, however, the costs of bringing new drugs to market have been steadily increasing at rates well above inflation even as technological progress has reduced all manner of peripheral costs."

    Source: 

    Calfee, John E., "Innovative Drug Development in the Context of FDA Regulation," American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research (Washington, DC: February 7, 2006), p. 5.
    http://www.aei.org/docLib/20060208_FDAofdrugdevelopment.pdf



41. (2003 - expenditures for criminal justice system) "In 2003 the United States spent a record $185 billion for police protection, corrections, and judicial and legal activities. Expenditures for operating the Nation's justice system increased from almost $36 billion in 1982 to over $185 billion in 2003, an increase of 418%"

    Source: 

    Hughes, Kristen A., "Justice Expenditure and Employment in the United States, 2003" (Washington, DC: US Dept. of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, April 2006), NCJ212260, p. 2.
    http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/pub/pdf/jeeus03.pdf



42. (1981-2003 - historical prices of illicit drugs) "In summary, prices for powder cocaine, crack, and heroin declined sharply in the 1980s and have declined more gradually since then, with periodic interruptions by modest price spikes that have usually persisted for a year or less. For d-methamphetamine, the pattern is broadly similar, but the price spikes appear to be larger and longer-lasting, particularly for 1989–1991. Marijuana prices have followed a very different pattern, increasing from 1981 to 1991, then declining through 2000 and increasing over the past three years."

    Source: 

    Office of National Drug Control Policy, "The Price and Purity of Illicit Drugs: 1981 Through the Second Quarter of 2003" (Washington DC: Executive Office of the President, November 2004), Publication Number NCJ 207768, p. vii.
    http://www.ncjrs.gov/ondcppubs/publications/pdf/price_purity.pdf



43. (2001 - cost to develop one new pharmaceutical drug) "According to the Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development, the average cost to develop a new molecular entity is $802 million.³ The number of drugs available per condition bears out the claim that drug development costs are large, relative to market size, for many conditions."

    Source: 

    Lichtenberg, Frank R. and Waldfogel, Joel, "Does Misery Love Company? Evidence form Pharmaceutical Markets Before and After the Orphan Drug Act" Michigan Telecommunications and Technology Law Review (Ann Arbor, MI: Spring 2009), p. 336.
    http://www.mttlr.org/volfifteen/lichtenberg&waldfogel.pdf



44. (1999 - U.S. drug control expenditures in 1990s) "The most recent figures available from the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) indicate that, in 1999, federal expenditures on control of illegal drugs surpassed $17 billion; combined expenditures by federal, state, and local governments exceeded $30 billion. What is more, the nation's so-called 'drug war' is a protracted one. The country has spent roughly this amount annually throughout the 1990s."

    Source: 

    National Research Council, National Academy of Sciences, "Informing America's Policy on Illegal Drugs: What We Don't Know Keeps Hurting Us" (Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 2001), p. 1.
    http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=10021&page=1



45. (1999 - annual costs of substance abuse) "Studies have shown the annual cost of substance abuse to the Nation to be $510.8 billion in 1999 (Harwood, 2000). More specifically,

    "• Alcohol abuse cost the Nation $191.6 billion;
    "• Tobacco use cost the Nation $167.8 billion;
    "• Drug abuse cost the Nation $151.4 billion.

    "Substance abuse clearly is among the most costly health problems in the United States. Among national estimates of the costs of illness for 33 diseases and conditions, alcohol ranked second, tobacco ranked sixth, and drug disorders ranked seventh (National Institutes of Health [NIH], 2000)."

    Source: 

    Miller, T. and Hendrie, D. Substance Abuse Prevention Dollars and Cents: A Cost-Benefit Analysis, DHHS Pub. No. (SMA) 07-4298. Rockville, MD: Center for Substance Abuse Prevention, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, 2009, p. 4.
    http://download.ncadi.samhsa.gov/prevline/pdfs/SMA07-4298.pdf



46. (1998 - revenue from alcohol and tobacco vs. expenditures for substance abuse) "The final component of state substance abuse spending is the $433 million states spent in 1998 to regulate the sale of alcohol and tobacco and to collect alcohol and tobacco taxes (Table 5.1) Tax rates vary significantly from state to state and revenues generally are not dedicated to prevent, treat or cope with the burden substance abuse and addiction places on many state programs.

    "In 1998, states collected $4.0 billion in alcohol and $7.4 billion in tobacco taxes for a total of $11.4 billion. For every dollar of such tax revenues, states spent $7.13 on substance abuse and addiction -- $6.83 to shoulder the burden on public programs, $0.26 for prevention and treatment, and $0.04 to collect alcohol and tobacco taxes and run licensing boards."

    Source: 

    National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University, Shoveling Up: The Impact of Substance Abuse on State Budgets (New York, NY: CASA, Jan. 2001), p. 27.
    http://www.casacolumbia.org/absolutenm/articlefiles/379-Shoveling%20Up.p...



47. (1998 - itemized expenditures on substance abuse) "The justice system spends $433 million on treatment: $149 million for state prison inmates; $103 million for those on probation and parole; $133 million for juvenile offenders; $46 million to help localities treat offenders; $1 million on drug courts. Treatment provided by mental health institutions for co-morbid patients totals $241 million. The remaining $492 million is for the substance abuse portion of state employee assistance programs ($97 million), treatment programs for adults involved in child welfare services ($4.5 million) and capital spending for the construction of treatment facilities ($391 million). (Figure 4.B)"

    Source: 

    National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University, Shoveling Up: The Impact of Substance Abuse on State Budgets (New York, NY: CASA, Jan. 2001), p. 24.
    http://www.casacolumbia.org/absolutenm/articlefiles/379-Shoveling%20Up.p...



48. (1998 - expenditures on adverse drug reactions) "In our study, the total cost for patients with an ADR [adverse drug reaction] increased an average of $2401/patient (19.86% increase), or an additional $339,496,598 for all study patients. Extrapolating this finding to the entire Medicare population resulted in $516,034,829 in costs associated with ADRs. In a recent single-site study of ADEs [adverse drug events] from the same time frame, ADE occurrence resulted in an additional $3344/hospital stay.^[10] Thus, an ADE costs about one third more than an ADR.

    "Drug costs for patients with an ADR increased an average of $175/patient (9.15% increase), or an additional $24,744,650 for all study patients. Extrapolating this finding to the entire Medicare population resulted in additional drug costs of $37,611,868 associated with ADRs. Laboratory costs for patients with an ADR increased an average of $44/patient (2.82% increase), or an additional $6,221,512 for all study patients. Extrapolating this finding to the entire Medicare population resulted in $9,456,698 in costs associated with ADRs.

    "For the 12,261,737 Medicare patients admitted to U.S. hospitals, ADRs were projected to cause the following increases: 2976 deaths, 118,200 patient-days, $516,034,829 in total costs, $37,611,868 in drug charges, and $9,456,698 in laboratory charges. The incentives for health care professionals to develop better systems and increase personnel awareness regarding ADRs are compelling.

    "Assuming that up to 50% of the 74,380 ADRs and 986 deaths reported in our study were avoidable, these findings have significant medical and legal implications.^[10] Fatal ADEs that resulted in legal judgments or settlements cost an additional $1.1 million/death.^[20] In one report, ADEs that caused permanent disability and resulted in legal judgments or settlements cost an additional $4.3 million/patient.^[21] Also, 13% of patients who experienced an ADE that led to litigation received average settlements and judgments of $3.1 million/patient.^[22]

    Applying the 13% figure to the 22.35 ± 33.41 patients/hospital/year who experienced an ADR (50% of ADRs potentially avoidable)^[10] resulted in litigation for 2.91 patients/hospital/year, or $9,007,050/hospital/year in legal settlements and judgments. Extrapolating to the 3328 hospitals in our study resulted in $29,975,462,400/year allocated to settlements and judgments associated with ADRs. These figures probably are conservative, since the data were self-reported and likely undercount significantly the number of ADRs occurring in U.S. hospitals. Clearly, reducing ADRs would result in significant savings beyond the costs to individual patients and the Medicare system."

    Source: 

    C. A. Bond, PharmD, FASHP, FCCP and Cynthia L. Raehl, PharmD, FASHP, FCCP, "Adverse Drug Reactions in United States Hospitals," Pharmacotherapy, 2006;26(5):601-608.
    http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/531809_4



49. (1992 - costs reductions and savings from treatment) A study by the RAND Corporation found, "the savings of treatment programs are larger than the control costs; we estimate that the costs of crime and lost productivity are reduced by $7.46 for every dollar spend on treatment."

    Source: 

    Rydell, C.P. & Everingham, S.S., Controlling Cocaine, Prepared for the Office of National Drug Control Policy and the United States Army (Santa Monica, CA: Drug Policy Research Center, RAND Corporation, 1994), p. xvi.
    http://www.rand.org/pubs/monograph_reports/2006/RAND_MR331.pdf



50. Economics - Data - State and Local

    (2009 - estimated annual state tax revenue from passage of California AB 390) "Based on the estimated 16 million ounces of annual consumption [of marijuana] in California and several assumptions (which are summarized in the Qualifying Remarks section), the revenue effect of the bill [California AB 390] is an estimated total annual revenue gain of $1.4 billion, as follows:

    • $990 million from the proposed $50 per ounce levy on retail sales of marijuana
    • $392 million in sales tax revenues"

    Source: 

    Waltz, Debra A., "State Board of Equalization Staff Legislative Bill Analysis," California State Board of Equalization, California Assembly, Bill No: AB 390 (July 2009), p. 6.
    http://www.boe.ca.gov/legdiv/pdf/ab0390-1dw.pdf



51. (2008 - estimated state spending on corrections) "State spending for corrections totaled $52 billion in fiscal 2008, a 6.5 percent increase compared to the previous year. State spending on corrections in fiscal 2009 is estimated to total $53 billion, a 1.8 percent increase from fiscal 2008."

    "In fiscal 2008, corrections spending represented 3.5 percent of total state spending and 7 percent of general fund spending. General fund dollars are used primarily to fund state corrections spending and account for $47.7 billion, or 91.8 percent, of all fiscal 2008 state corrections spending. State funds (general funds and other state funds combined, but excluding bonds) accounted for 96.6 percent of total state corrections spending in fiscal 2008. Bonds accounted for 1.8 percent and federal funds accounted for 1.6 percent. In fiscal 2009, state funds are estimated to remain by far the largest source of total state correction spending at 95.7 percent. However, the growth rate of state funds in fiscal 2009 is much smaller than the growth rate of federal funds, with state funds growing 0.9 percent and federal funds growing 18.5 percent. Part of this is attributable to the increased federal funds included in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA)."

    Source: 

    National Association of State Budget Officers (NASBO), "State Expenditure Report 2008," (Washington, DC: NASBO, Decemberl 2009), p. 54.
    http://www.nasbo.org/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=%2fZWfTvJG8j0%3d&tabid=10...



52. (2008 - costs of juvenile justice system) "Approximately 93,000 young people are held in juvenile justice facilities across the United States.¹ Seventy percent of these youth are held in state-funded, post adjudication, residential facilities, at an average cost of $240.99 per day per youth.²" (Total cost = $22.4 million per day or $8.1 billion per year)

    Source: 

    Justice Policy Institute, "The Costs of Confinement: Why Good Juvenile Justice Policies Make Good Fiscal Sense," (Washington, DC: May 2009), p. 1.
    http://www.justicepolicy.org/images/upload/09_05_REP_CostsOfConfinement_...



53. (2007 - state spending on corrections) "Collectively, correctional agencies now consume 6.8 percent of state general funds, 2007 data show.²⁴ That means one in every 15 dollars in the states’ main pool of discretionary money goes to corrections. Considering all types of funds, corrections had the second fastest rate of growth in FY 2006. With a 9.2 percent jump, it trailed transportation but outpaced increases in spending on education and Medicaid."

    Source: 

    Pew Center on the States, "One in 100: Behind Bars in America 2008," (Washington, DC: The Pew Charitable Trusts, February 2008), p. 14.
    http://www.pewcenteronthestates.org/uploadedFiles/8015PCTS_Prison08_FINA...



54. (2008 - marijuana arrests and costs in Rhode Island) "In 2007, there were 1,922 arrests for first-time marijuana possession in Rhode Island. In 2008, there were 584 incidents of incarceration for marijuana possession.¹ Ending prohibition and eliminating these arrests would save the state approximately $12.7 million in criminal justice costs."

    Source: 

    Opendoors, "The Criminal Justice Costs of Marijuana Prohibition in Rhode Island," (Providence, RI: March 2010), p. 1.
    http://www.opendoorsri.org/marijuanapolicy



55. (2007 - corrections cost per state prison inmate) According to the American Corrections Association, the average daily cost per state prison inmate per day in the US is $67.55. State prisons held 253,300 inmates for drug offenses in 2007. That means states spent approximately $17,110,415 per day to imprison drug offenders, or $6,245,301,475 per year.

    Source: 

    American Correctional Association, 2006 Directory of Adult and Juvenile Correctional Departments, Institutions, Agencies and Probation and Parole Authorities, 67th Edition (Alexandria, VA: ACA, 2006), p. 16; Sabol, William J., PhD, and West, Heather C., Bureau of Justice Statistics, Prisoners in 2007 (Washington, DC: US Department of Justice, December 2008), NCJ224280, p. 21, Appendix Table 10.
    http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/pub/pdf/p07.pdf



56. (2003 - spending on prisons vs. education) "In 2003, 7.2% of total State and local expenditures was for justice activities – 3% for police protection, 2.6% for corrections, and 1.5% for judicial and legal services (figure 3).

    "By comparison, 29% of State and local government spending went to education, 14% to public welfare, 7% to health and hospitals, and 4% to interest on debt."

    Source: 

    Hughes, Kristen A., "Justice Expenditure and Employment in the United States, 2003" (Washington, DC: US Dept. of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, April 2006), NCJ212260, p. 4.
    http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/pub/pdf/jeeus03.pdf



57. (2003 - percentage of total criminal justice expenditure)
    "• Overall, local police spending represented 45% of the Nation's total justice expenditure, and State corrections accounted for the second largest portion, 33%.
    "• Police protection is primarily a local responsibility; accordingly, local governments spent 69% of the total police protection expenditure in the country in 2003.
    "• Corrections is primarily a State responsibility; as such State governments accounted for 64% of the Nation's corrections expenditure.
    "• Judicial and legal services in the United States were funded primarily by local (43%) and State (38%) governments."

    Source: 

    Hughes, Kristen A., "Justice Expenditure and Employment in the United States, 2003" (Washington, DC: US Dept. of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, April 2006), NCJ212260, p. 4.
    http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/pub/pdf/jeeus03.pdf



58. (2001 - state prison costs) "Correctional authorities spent $38.2 billion to maintain the Nation’s State correctional systems in fiscal year 2001, including $29.5 billion specifically for adult correctional facilities. Day-to-day operating expenses totaled $28.4 billion, and capital outlays for land, new building, and renovations, $1.1 billion.

    "The average annual operating cost per State inmate in 2001 was $22,650, or $62.05 per day. Among facilities operated by the Federal Bureau of Prisons, it was $22,632 per inmate, or $62.01 per day."

    In constant dollars, expenditures for "Total State Corrections" were about 2.5 times higher in 2001 than they were in 1986, with the cost per state resident going from $65 in 1986 to $134 in 2001.

    Source: 

    Stephan, James J., "State Prison Expenditures, 2001," Bureau of Justice Statistics (Washington, DC: US Department of Justice, June, 2004), p. 1.
    http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/pub/pdf/spe01.pdf



59. (cost effectiveness of substance abuse treatment) "Substance abuse treatment is more cost-effective than prison or other punitive measures. The Washington State Institute for Public Policy (WSIPP) found that drug treatment conducted within the community is extremely beneficial in terms of cost, especially compared to prison. Every dollar spent on drug treatment in the community is estimated to return $18.52 in benefits to society."

    Source: 

    Justice Policy Institute, "Substance Abuse Treatment and Public Safety," (Washington, DC: January 2008), p. 2.
    http://www.justicepolicy.org/images/upload/08_01_REP_DrugTx_AC-PS.pdf



60. (2000 - cost/benefit of adult offender drug treatment programs) "The legislature directed the Washington State Institute for Public Policy (Institute) to evaluate the costs and benefits of certain juvenile and adult criminal justice policies, violence prevention programs, and other efforts to decrease particular “at-risk” behaviors of youth."

    With regard to adult offender drug treatment programs, it found, "Generally, drug treatment for adult offenders works to lower criminal recidivism rates. The degree to which recidivism is reduced is not large—single digit, not double digit, percentage reductions in recidivism rates should be expected. Nonetheless, with treatment typically costing about $2,500 per participant, the net economics of drug treatment appear positive, on average. The programs roughly break even from a taxpayer-only perspective and, including the benefits crime victims receive when recidivism rates are reduced, the programs typically produce about three dollars in benefits per dollar of cost."

    These specific drug treatment programs yield the following benefit-to-cost ratios:

    Benefit to Cost Ratios of Adult Drug Treatment Programs
    In-Prison Therapeutic Community, Without Community Aftercare:	$1.91 benefit to $1.00 of cost
    In-Prison Therapeutic Community, With Community Aftercare:	$2.69 benefit to $1.00 of cost
    Non-Prison Therapeutic Community:	$8.87 benefit to $1.00 of cost
    In-Prison Non-residential Substance Abuse Treatment:	$6.17 benefit to $1.00 of cost
    Drug Courts	$2.83 benefit to $1.00 of cost
    Case Management Substance Abuse Programs:	$1.56 benefit to $1.00 of cost
    Community-Based Substance Abuse Treatment:	$3.30 benefit to $1.00 of cost
    Drug Treatment Programs in Jails	$3.87 benefit to $1.00 of cost

    Source: 

    Aos, Steve; Phipps, Polly; Barnoski, Robert; Lieb, Roxanne, "The Comparative Costs and Benefits of Programs to Reduce Crime," Washington State Institute for Public Policy (Olympia, WA: May 2001), pp. 1, 23-26.
    http://www.wsipp.wa.gov/rptfiles/costbenefit.pdf



61. (1998 - state expenditures on drug treatment and enforcement) "Of the $3 billion states spend on prevention, treatment and research, $920 million (30.7 percent) is spent by state health agencies; $843 million (27.9 percent) by state alcohol and drug abuse offices; $433 million (14.3 percent) by the justice system."

    Source: 

    National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University, Shoveling Up: The Impact of Substance Abuse on State Budgets (New York, NY: CASA, Jan. 2001), p. 22.
    http://www.casacolumbia.org/absolutenm/articlefiles/379-Shoveling%20Up.p...



62. (1998 - state spending on substance abuse treatment) "States report spending $2.5 billion a year on treatment. States did not distinguish whether the treatment was for alcohol, illicit drug abuse or nicotine addiction. Of the $2.5 billion total, $695 million is spent through the departments of health and $633 million through the state substance abuse agencies. We believe that virtually all of these funds are spent on alcohol and illegal drug treatment."

    Source: 

    National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University, Shoveling Up: The Impact of Substance Abuse on State Budgets (New York, NY: CASA, Jan. 2001), p. 24.
    http://www.casacolumbia.org/absolutenm/articlefiles/379-Shoveling%20Up.p...



63. (1998 - state spending on substance abuse) In January 2001, the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University published an analysis of costs to states from tobacco, alcohol and other drug addiction. According to the report,

    "CASA's analysis revealed a few cost categories where only a single category of substances is implicated. (Figure 2.B) For instance, CASA identified $1.1 billion in state spending linked to illicit drug use only: $574 million for public safety costs for drug enforcement programs; $114 million for drug courts; and $412 million linked to illegal drugs in state spending on Medicaid.

    "CASA estimates that $7.4 billion in state spending is linked exclusively to tobacco through state Medicaid spending.

    "The single drug linked to the largest percentage of state costs is alcohol. We were able to identify $9.2 billion in state spending linked to only to alcohol in addition to the costs associated with abuse of both alcohol and illegal drugs: $915 million on highway safety and local law enforcement associated with drunk driving; $837 million in state costs for the developmentally disabled as a result of fetal alcohol syndrome; and, $7.4 billion in state Medicaid costs."

    Source: 

    National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University, Shoveling Up: The Impact of Substance Abuse on State Budgets (New York, NY: CASA, Jan. 2001), p. 11.
    http://www.casacolumbia.org/absolutenm/articlefiles/379-Shoveling%20Up.p...



64. (1998 - state spending on substance abuse) "State spending for substance abuse in the justice system amounts to over one-third (39.4 percent) of the $77.9 billion states spend on the burden of substance abuse to state programs – 10 times the amount states spend on all substance abuse prevention, treatment and research."

    Source: 

    National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University, Shoveling Up: The Impact of Substance Abuse on State Budgets (New York, NY: CASA, Jan. 2001), p. 15.
    http://www.casacolumbia.org/absolutenm/articlefiles/379-Shoveling%20Up.p...



65. (1998) "Of the $81.3 billion states spent on substance abuse in 1998, $77.9 billion were spent shoveling the wreckage of this enormous health and social problem. These clean-up costs equal 12.6 percent of the total $620 billion in state spending for 1998. (Table 3.1)

    "Almost ninety-six (95.8) cents of every state dollar spent on substance abuse goes to carry its burden in state programs such as criminal justice, school aid, Medicaid, child welfare, developmental disabilities and mental illness because of our failure to prevent substance abuse and treat those who are abusers and addicts."

    Source: 

    National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University, Shoveling Up: The Impact of Substance Abuse on State Budgets (New York, NY: CASA, Jan. 2001), p. 13.
    http://www.casacolumbia.org/absolutenm/articlefiles/379-Shoveling%20Up.p...



66. (1998 - spending on substance abuse prevention) "Only $513.3 million in state funds is spent nationwide on substance abuse prevention. This includes $223 million through the department of health, $210 million through the department of substance abuse and $80 million in prevention in elementary and secondary education. Most spending for prevention through the schools is federally funded and that amount is not included here."

    Source: 

    National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University, Shoveling Up: The Impact of Substance Abuse on State Budgets (New York, NY: CASA, Jan. 2001), p. 22.
    http://www.casacolumbia.org/absolutenm/articlefiles/379-Shoveling%20Up.p...



67. (1998 - state spending on incarceration) "States spent $29.8 billion in 1998 for adult corrections including incarceration, probation and parole. Eighty-one percent of this amount ($24.1 billion) was spent on substance-involved offenders. Of the $24.1 billion, $21.4 billion went to run and build prisons to house substance-involved offenders, $1.1 billion for parole and $695 million for probation for substance-involved offenders. An additional $899 million was spent on state aid to localities for substance-involved offenders."

    Source: 

    National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University, "Shoveling Up II: The Impact of Substance Abuse on State Budgets" (New York, NY: CASA, January 2001), p. 15.
    http://www.casacolumbia.org/absolutenm/articlefiles/379-Shoveling%20Up.p...



68. (1992 - cost of substance abuse treatment vs. enforcement) "Domestic enforcement costs 4 times as much as treatment for a given amount of user reduction, 7 times as much for consumption reduction, and 15 times as much for societal cost reduction."

    Source: 

    Rydell, C.P. & Everingham, S.S., Controlling Cocaine, Prepared for the Office of National Drug Control Policy and the United States Army (Santa Monica, CA: Drug Policy Research Center, RAND Corporation, 1994), p. xvi.
    http://www.rand.org/pubs/monograph_reports/2006/RAND_MR331.pdf



69. Economics - Research

    (drug use and the labor supply) According to a study funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and published by the Southern Economic Journal in 2001, "Nonchronic drug use was not statistically related to either of the labor supply measures, indicating that light or casual drug use did not lead to negative effects on the labor supply."

    Source: 

    French, Michael T., M. Christopher Roebuck, and Pierre Kebreau Alexandre, "Illicit Drug Use, Employment, and Labor Force Participation," Southern Economic Journal (Southern Economic Association: Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, OK, 2001), 68(2), p. 366.



70. (drug dealing and the local community) "... some of the drug-dealing markets were very much part of the local community – involving people who had lived within the local community for many years. Other drug markets in other areas involved individuals who had no connection to the wider community and whose activities were seen as threatening the local area. While May and colleagues point to the various negative impacts of local drug-selling activities on the wider community, they also point out that such markets could be seen as having a positive impact on the surrounding community. For example, the presence of a drug-dealing market could mean the influx of substantial cash that would otherwise not occur as local drug dealers spent the money earned from their drug-selling activities. Similarly, it was claimed by some of those interviewed that the presence of a drug-dealing market could result in lower levels of other crimes as the drug sellers themselves sought to reduce the activities of other criminals that might attract unwanted police attention. Finally, the presence of a drug market could sustain a thriving market in stolen goods being transacted as a way of supporting a drug habit, one of the results of this being that local people had access to a level of consumer products at reduced prices that they might otherwise never be able to afford."

    Source: 

    Lloyd, Charlie and McKeganey, Neil, "Drugs Research: An overview of evidence and questions for policy," Joseph Rowntree Foundation (London, United Kingdom: June 2010), p. 43.
    http://www.jrf.org.uk/sites/files/jrf/drugs-research-overview-full.pdf



71. (drug use in low income areas) "Although residents of disadvantaged neighborhoods, neighborhoods with high concentrations of minorities, and neighborhoods with high population densities reported much higher levels of visible drug sales, they reported only slightly higher levels of drug use, along with somewhat higher levels of drug dependency. This finding indicates that conflating drug sales with use, so that poor and minority areas are assumed to be the focus of the problem of drug use, is plainly wrong. The finding is based on the data collected across 41 sites, including city and suburban (but not rural) areas in all regions."

    Source: 

    Saxe, Leonard, PhD, Charles Kadushin, PhD, Andrew Beveridge, PhD, et al., "The Visibility of Illicit Drugs: Implications for Community-Based Drug Control Strategies," American Journal of Public Health (Washington, DC: American Public Health Association, Dec. 2001), Vol. 91, No. 12, p. 1991.
    http://ajph.aphapublications.org/cgi/reprint/91/12/1987.pdf



72. "The long-run elasticities provide a basis for estimating potential benefits from changing the current policy mix away from enforcement and interdiction and towards education and treatment. Applying the estimated coefficients, a 10 percent reduction in expenditures on enforcement (about 1 billion dollars by the late 1990s) would be associated with a long-run reduction of over 20% in both the number of deaths and the age-adjusted death rate. This would imply that close to 3,000 deaths a year might be avoided with a shift away from enforcement approaches to drug control. Adding the billion dollars to education and treatment would represent an 18% increase in 1998. The estimated elasticity of 1.59 implies a reduction of close to 5,000 drug-induced deaths per year as a result. Thus, the underlying estimates suggest that very substantial improvements in public health may be achieved by emphasizing education and treatment over enforcement and interdiction."

    Source: 

    Shepard, Edward & Paul R. Blackley, "US Drug Control Policies: Federal Spending on Law Enforcement Versus Treatment in Public Health Outcomes," Journal of Drug Issues, Vol. 34, No. 4, Fall 2004, pp. 781-782.



73. (drug use in low income areas) "Although serious drug use is slightly more prevalent in poor minority neighborhoods than elsewhere, the major problem for disadvantaged neighborhoods is drug distribution. These communities are victims not only of their own drug abuse but also of a criminal drug market that serves the entire society. The market establishes itself in disadvantaged communities in part because of the low social capital in these neighborhoods. The drug economy further erodes that social capital."

    Source: 

    Saxe, Leonard, PhD, Charles Kadushin, PhD, Andrew Beveridge, PhD, et al., "The Visibility of Illicit Drugs: Implications for Community-Based Drug Control Strategies," American Journal of Public Health (Washington, DC: American Public Health Association, Dec. 2001), Vol. 91, No. 12, p. 1992.
    http://ajph.aphapublications.org/cgi/reprint/91/12/1987.pdf



74. (drug dealing and employment) The average "dealer" holds a low-wage job and sells part-time to obtain drugs for his or her own use. "Earnings for drug selling were positively correlated (though weakly) with legitimate earnings. Drug selling seemed to be a complement to, rather than a substitute for, legitimate employment."

    Source: 

    Reuter, P., MacCoun, R., & Murphy, P., Money from Crime: A Study of the Economics of Drug Dealing in Washington DC (Santa Monica, CA: The RAND Corporation, 1990), pp. 49-50.
    http://www.rand.org/pubs/reports/2005/R3894.pdf



75. (economic incentive of prisons) "The economic benefits of new prisons may come from the flow of additional state and federal dollars. In the decennial census, prisoners are counted where they are incarcerated, and many federal and state funding streams are tied to census population counts. According to the U.S. General Accounting Office (2003), the federal government distributes over $140 billion in grant money to state and local governments through formula-based grants. Formula grant money is in part based on census data and covers programs such as Medicaid, Foster Care, Adoption Assistance, and Social Services Block Grant (U.S. General Accounting Office 2003). Within a state, funding for community health services, road construction and repair, public housing, local law enforcement, and public libraries are all driven by population counts from the census."

    Source: 

    Lawrence, Sarah and Jeremy Travis, "The New Landscape of Imprisonment: Mapping America's Prison Expansion" (Washington, DC: Urban Institute, April 2004), p. 3.
    http://www.urban.org/UploadedPDF/410994_mapping_prisons.pdf



76. (limited economic benefits of prison construction) "The few studies on the local economic impacts of prisons to date have not found significant positive impacts. For example, a study by the Sentencing Project challenges the notion that a new prison brings economic benefits to smaller communities. Using 25 years of data from New York State rural counties, the authors looked at employment rates and per capita income and found 'no significant difference or discernible pattern of economic trends' between counties that were home to a prison and counties that were not home to a prison (King, Mauer, and Huling 2003). According to a recent study by Iowa State University, many towns that made sizeable investments in prisons did not reap the economic gains that were predicted (Besser 2003). Another analysis in Texas found no impacts as measured by consumer spending in nearly three-fourths of the areas examined (Chuang 1998)."

    Source: 

    Lawrence, Sarah and Jeremy Travis, "The New Landscape of Imprisonment: Mapping America's Prison Expansion" (Washington, DC: Urban Institute, April 2004), p. 3.
    http://www.urban.org/UploadedPDF/410994_mapping_prisons.pdf



77. (termination of state addiction disability payments) Research assessing the impact of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA) found that the termination of addiction disability payments has had a negative effect.

    According to the study, "While the aim of SSI addiction disability termination was, for conservatives, to force individuals to take greater responsibility in their lives and to decrease dependence on governmentally funded programs, this goal appears nearly impossible to achieve given the lack of resources had by this under-skilled and poor population. Nor did the policy change necessarily decrease their risk of continued involvement in drugs and crime. We estimate that losing a stable housing situation has placed respondents at greater risk for continued drug and alcohol use, something not considered by extant etiological work on individual substance abuse. These consequences could mean a greater dependence of this population on state and federally funded programs."

    Source: 

    Anderson, Tammy L., Caitlin Shannon, Igor Schyb, and Paul Goldstein, "Welfare Reform and Housing: Assessing the Impact to Substance Abusers," Journal of Drug Issues (Tallahassee, FL: Florida State University, Winter 2002), Vol. 32, No. 1, p. 290.
    http://www.udel.edu/soc/tammya/pdfs/Welfare%20Reform%20and%20Housing,%20...



78. (termination of state addiction disability payments) "First, PRWORA of 1996 has destabilized the housing situations of the respondents and has placed them at greater risk for various types of housing problems and homelessness. Second, these housing complications have exacerbated numerous social problems (drug and alcohol abuse, crime, and victimization). It is important to consider, however, that changes in the housing market, decreased housing subsidies, and individual characteristics and behaviors also played a role in these negative outcomes.

    "More specifically, we found considerable housing dependency, at some level, for all respondents, albeit most often among those who currently had no SSI benefits. Problematic dependence on family, friends, and significant others (doubling up or sharing housing with other adults) was most common, followed by dependence on state-funded program. Independent living (e.g., having one's own place and paying one's own rent), which we would hope for most by middle-age, was an uncommon occurrence."

    Source: 

    Anderson, Tammy L., Caitlin Shannon, Igor Schyb, and Paul Goldstein, "Welfare Reform and Housing: Assessing the Impact to Substance Abusers," Journal of Drug Issues (Tallahassee, FL: Florida State University, Winter 2002), Vol. 32, No. 1, pp. 288-289.
    http://www.udel.edu/soc/tammya/pdfs/Welfare%20Reform%20and%20Housing,%20...



79. (termination of government benefits and risk of drug use) "A qualitative analysis, featuring in-depth interviews with 101, nonrandomly selected former recipients revealed that disability benefits promoted housing autonomy, successful cohabitation, and overall housing stability. The termination of benefits, at a time of diminishing social services (e.g., cash and housing assistance) and a housing market explosion, increased various types of homelessness for respondents and dependency on family and friends. Such negative living outcomes, in turn, further escalated the risk of drug and alcohol use, criminal participation, and victimization."

    Source: 

    Anderson, Tammy L., Caitlin Shannon, Igor Schyb, and Paul Goldstein, "Welfare Reform and Housing: Assessing the Impact to Substance Abusers," Journal of Drug Issues (Tallahassee, FL: Florida State University, Winter 2002), Vol. 32, No. 1, p. 265.
    http://www.udel.edu/soc/tammya/pdfs/Welfare%20Reform%20and%20Housing,%20...



80. (drug sales in impoverished neighborhoods) In a report funded by the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute, researchers concluded that "drug sales in poor neighborhoods are part of a growing informal economy which has expanded and innovatively organized in response to the loss of good jobs." The report characterizes drug dealing as "fundamentally a lower class response [to the information economy] by men and women with little formal education and few formal skills," and the report notes "If the jobs won't be created by either the public or private sector, then poor people will have to create the jobs themselves."

    Source: 

    Hagedorn, John M., Ph.D., The Business of Drug Dealing in Milwaukee (Milwaukee, WI: Wisconsin Policy Research Institute, 1998), p. 3.
    http://www.csdp.org/research/drugdeal.pdf



81. (2008 - Youth Ant-Drug Media Campaign - incremental value) "The [Youth Anti-Drug Media] Campaign’s Media Match program has generated more than $1.22 billion in incremental media value for the Media Campaign since its inception. During FY 2008, the advertising contractor was able to negotiate more than the one-for-one match requirement. Interactive and Radio media placements generated the greatest additional impact for the Campaign by providing more than 10% above the match requirement."

    Source: 

    Office of National Drug Control Policy, "National Drug Control Strategy: FY2010 Budget Summary," (Washington, DC: 2009), p. 141.
    http://www.whitehousedrugpolicy.gov/publications/policy/10budget/ondcp.p...



82. (2008, 2009, 2010 - Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign - annual budget) The 2008, 2009, and 2010 budgets for the National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign were respectively $60 million (Final), $70 million (Enacted), and $70 million (Requested). For all years since inception, Congressional appropriations for campaign total more than $1.7 billion.

    Source: 

    Office of National Drug Control Policy, "National Drug Control Strategy: FY2010 Budget Summary," (Washington, DC: 2009), p. 137.
    http://www.whitehousedrugpolicy.gov/publications/policy/10budget/ondcp.p...

    General Accountability Office. "ONDCP Media Campaign - National Evaluation Did Not Find That the Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign Was Effective in Reducing Youth Drug Use," (Washington, DC: report to the Chairman and Ranking Member, Subcommittee on Transportation, Treasury, the Judiciary, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies, Committee on Appropriations, U.S. Senate, August 2006), GAO-06-818, p. 10.
    http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d06818.pdf




83. (2006 - Youth Ant-Drug Media Campaign - funding) "As part of the Treasury and General Government Appropriation Act of 1998,⁷the Drug Free Media Campaign Act of 1998 required, among other things, the Office of National Drug Control Policy to conduct a national media campaign for the purpose of reducing and preventing drug abuse among young people in the United States.⁸"

    "From fiscal year 1998 through fiscal year 2004, Congress appropriated $1.225 billion to support the campaign (table 1)"

    "For fiscal year 2007, the President’s budget requested $120 million for campaign activities. The 2007 request represents an increase of $21 million above the fiscal year 2006 budget authority."

    Source: 

    General Accountability Office. "ONDCP Media Campaign - National Evaluation Did Not Find That the Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign Was Effective in Reducing Youth Drug Use," (Washington, DC: report to the Chairman and Ranking Member, Subcommittee on Transportation, Treasury, the Judiciary, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies, Committee on Appropriations, U.S. Senate, August 2006), GAO-06-818, p. 8, p. 9., and p 10.
    http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d06818.pdf

Drug Interdiction

1. (Interdiction - HIDTA definition) "The HIDTA [High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area] program, originally authorized by the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988 (P.L. 100-690),¹⁵⁵ provides assistance to federal, state, and local law enforcement operating in areas deemed as the most-impacted by drug trafficking. Each HIDTA is governed by a separate executive board comprised of about eight federal agencies and eight state or local agencies. The program’s main goals are to

   • assess regional drug threats;
   • develop strategies focusing efforts on combating drug trafficking threats;
   • create and fund initiatives to improve these strategies;
   • facilitate coordination between federal, state, and local efforts; and
   • produce efficient drug control efforts to reduce/eliminate the impact of drug trafficking.¹⁵⁶

   "The Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) has the authority to designate areas within the United States and its territories that are centers of illegal drug production, manufacturing, importation, or distribution as HIDTAs—of which there are currently 28."

   Source: 

   Finklea, Kristin M., "The Interplay of Borders, Turf, Cyberspace, and Jurisdiction: Issues Confronting U.S. Law Enforcement," Congressional Research Service (Washington, DC: Library of Congress, July 19, 2011), p. 30.
   http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R41927.pdf



2. (interdiction - drug enforcement agencies) "Drug-related activities in the United States span a number of agencies. In addition to the DoD [Department of Defense] activities focused on drug trafficking discussed previously, a range of programs involving intelligence collection, analysis, and sharing are in place at a number of levels. The central actor in counternarcotics and, therefore, domestic intelligence activities in this area is the DEA [Drug Enforcement Administration]. The agency’s Intelligence Division manages a number of offices and programs that interface both with other agencies in the intelligence community (e.g., the division’s National Security Intelligence Section) and operations to support state and local law enforcement activities (such as Operation Pipeline, which provides training, communication, and analytic support to local law enforcement targeting private motor vehicles involved in drug trafficking, and Operation Convoy, its commercial vehicle counterpart). The Intelligence Division manages information fusion centers. For example, the El Paso Intelligence Center (EPIC) is the major hub for collecting, analyzing, and disseminating drug related intelligence for all levels of law enforcement and government. It covers drug, alien, and weapon smuggling, as well as terrorism-related smuggling. To support state and local operations, the DEA has organized Mobile Enforcement Teams (METs) to assist state and local law enforcement facing particularly difficult drug-enforcement challenges. When requested by state and local law enforcement, the DEA will send a team to assist in investigation, intelligence collection and analysis, arrests, and prosecution."

   Source: 

   Jackson, Brian A.; Noricks, Darcy; and Goldsmith, Benjamin W., "Current Domestic Intelligence Efforts in the United States," RAND Corporation (Santa Monica, CA: 2009), pp. 65-66.
   http://www.rand.org/pubs/monographs/2009/RAND_MG804.pdf



3. (violence in drug law enforcement) "Based on the available English language scientific evidence, the results of this systematic review suggest that an increase in drug law enforcement interventions to disrupt drug markets is unlikely to reduce violence attributable to drug gangs. Instead, from an evidence-based public policy perspective and based on several decades of available data, the existing evidence strongly suggests that drug law enforcement contributes to gun violence and high homicide rates and that increasingly sophisticated methods of disrupting organizations involved in drug distribution could unintentionally increase violence. In this context, and since drug prohibition has not achieved its stated goal of reducing drug supply, alternative models for drug control may need to be considered if drug-related violence is to be meaningfully reduced."

   Source: 

   International Centre for Science in Drug Policy, "Effect of Drug Law Enforcement on Drug-Related Violence: Evidence from a Scientific Review," (Vancouver, British Columbia: 2010), p. 22.
   http://www.icsdp.org/docs/ICSDP-1%20-%20FINAL.pdf



4. (militarization of law enforcement) "Over the last 25 years, America has seen a disturbing militarization of its civilian law enforcement, along with a dramatic and unsettling rise in the use of paramilitary police units (most commonly called Special Weapons and Tactics, or SWAT) for routine police work. The most common use of SWAT teams today is to serve narcotics warrants, usually with forced, unannounced entry into the home.

   "These increasingly frequent raids, 40,000 per year by one estimate, are needlessly subjecting nonviolent drug offenders, bystanders, and wrongly targeted civilians to the terror of having their homes invaded while they’re sleeping, usually by teams of heavily armed paramilitary units dressed not as police officers but as soldiers. These raids bring unnecessary violence and provocation to nonviolent drug offenders, many of whom were guilty of only misdemeanors. The raids terrorize innocents when police mistakenly target the wrong residence. And they have resulted in dozens of needless deaths and injuries, not only of drug offenders, but also of police officers, children, bystanders, and innocent suspects."

   Source: 

   Balko, Rodney, "Overkill: The Rise of Paramilitary Police Raids in America," Cato Institute (Washington, DC: 2006), p. 1.
   http://www.cato.org/pubs/wtpapers/balko_whitepaper_2006.pdf



5. (human influence on drug detection dogs) "The overwhelming number of incorrect alerts [by drug and/or explosive detection dogs] identified across conditions confirms that handler beliefs affect performance. Further, the directed pattern of alerts in conditions containing a marker compared with the pattern of alerts in the condition with unmarked decoy scent suggests that human influence on handler beliefs affects alerts to a greater degree than dog influence on handler beliefs."

   "In conclusion, these findings confirm that handler beliefs affect working dog outcomes, and human indication of scent location affects distribution of alerts more than dog interest in a particular location."

   Source: 

   Lit, Lisa; Schweitzer, Julie B.; Oberbauer, Anita M., "Handler beliefs affect scent detection dog outcomes," Animal Cognition (Heidelberg, Germany: January 2011), Volume 8, Number 3, pp. 202 and 204.
   http://www.springerlink.com/content/j477277481125291/fulltext.pdf



6. (drug production and law enforcement seizures) One of the major problems with supply reduction efforts (source control, interdiction, and domestic enforcement) is that, "Free entry into the cocaine business, at all levels, allows suppliers to expand to cover the loses due to seizures.⁸ ... suppliers simply produce for the market what they would have produced anyway plus enough extra to cover anticipated government seizures."

   Source: 

   Rydell, C.P. & Everingham, S.S., Controlling Cocaine, Prepared for the Office of National Drug Control Policy and the United States Army (Santa Monica, CA: Drug Policy Research Center, RAND, 1994), p. 6.
   http://www.rand.org/pubs/monograph_reports/2006/RAND_MR331.pdf



7. (Canada - United States border) "Through successful binational fora such as the Cross-Border Crime Forum (CBCF) and Project North Star, the United States and Canada have increased intelligence-sharing and joint training opportunities for law enforcement officials. Investigative cooperation has also been expanded, through the establishment of new Integrated Border Enforcement Teams and notable enforcement initiatives such as Operation Sweet Tooth/Project O’Skillet and Operation Triple Play/Project O’Slider. The result: greater success in seizing illicit drugs crossing the U.S.-Canada border and apprehending those that traffic them.

   "Despite our best efforts, drug trafficking still occurs in significant quantities in both directions across the border. The principal illicit substances smuggled across our shared border are MDMA (Ecstasy), cocaine, and marijuana."

   Source: 

   Government of the United States and the Government of Canada, "United States - Canada Border: Drug Threat Assessment 2007" (March 2008), p. vii.
   http://www.publicsafety.gc.ca/prg/le/oc/_fl/us-canadian-report-drugs-eng...



8. Interdiction - Data

   (2010 - Weed and Seed program) "The Weed and Seed (W&S) strategy was launched more than 18 years ago by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) as a community-based, comprehensive, multiagency approach to law enforcement, crime prevention, and community revitalization in high-crime neighborhoods. Since its start in three demonstration sites, W&S initiatives have been established in hundreds of neighborhoods nationwide. In early 2010, 256 sites were active in 46 states and 2 territories. Beginning around 2007, W&S funding has been limited to 5 years for a given site, with a maximum of $1 million over that time."

   Source: 

   Trudeau, James; Barrick, Kelle; Williams, Jason, "Independent Evaluation of the National Weed and Seed Strategy," Office of Justice Programs, Community Capacity Development Office (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, September 2010), p. 2.
   http://www.weedandseed.info/docs/reports/WnS_Final_Evaluation_Report.pdf



9. (2008 - wiretapping) "The number of wiretaps reported decreased 14 percent in 2008. A total of 1,891 applications were reported as authorized in 2008, including 386 submitted to federal judges and 1,505 to state judges. No applications were denied. Compared to the number approved during 2007, the number of applications reported as approved by federal judges in 2008 fell 16 percent. The number of applications approved by state judges declined 14 percent. Wiretap applications in New York (433 applications), California (418 applications), New Jersey (175 applications), and Florida (102 applications) accounted for 75 percent of all applications approved by state judges."

   Source: 

   Administrative Office of the United States Courts, 2008 Wiretap Report (Washington, DC: USGPO, April 2007), p. 7.
   http://www.uscourts.gov/wiretap08/2008WTText.pdf



10. (2008 - cocaine value and drug trafficking cartels) "As Mexican traffickers wrested control of the most valuable portions of the trafficking chain from the Colombians, Mexico itself has become by far the most important conduit for cocaine entering the United States. Today, some 200 mt of cocaine transits Central America and Mexico annually, bringing some US$6 billion to the regional 'cartels'. As a result, those who control the portions of the Mexican border through which the bulk of the drug passes have gained wealth and power comparable to that commanded by the Colombian cartels in their heyday. These groups command manpower and weaponry sufficient to challenge the state when threatened, including access to military arms and explosives."

    Source: 

    UNODC, World Drug Report 2010 (United Nations Publication, Sales No. E.10.XI.13), p. 237.
    http://www.unodc.org/documents/wdr/WDR_2010/World_Drug_Report_2010_lo-re...



11. (2007 - law enforcement use of aircraft) "During 2007, about 1 in 5 large law enforcement agencies had a specialized aviation unit operating at least one fixed wing plane or helicopter. These 201 aviation units, located in departments of 100 or more sworn officers, employed about 3,400 persons, operated almost 900 aircraft in 46 states and the District of Columbia, and logged an estimated 363,000 flight hours.

    "Aviation units spent an estimated total of $300 million in 2007 on aircraft purchases, leasing and financing, and maintenance and fuel.

    "Among aviation units operating planes, the three most common functions performed by 80% or more of all units were pilot training (87%), surveillance (84%), and personnel transport (80%). By contrast, over 80% of aviation units using a helicopter engaged in the following seven functions: photographic flights (99%), surveillance (97%), routine patrol or patrol support (93%), fugitive searches (91%), pilot training (90%), search and rescue (90%), and drug location and interdiction (89%)."

    Source: 

    Langston, Lynn, "Aviation Units in Large Enforcement Agencies, 2007" (Washington, DC: USDOJ, Bureau of Justice Statistics, July 2009), NCJ 226672. pp. 1, 10.
    http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/pub/pdf/aullea07.pdf



12. (2007 - High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas) "For FY 2007, the most recent year for which data are available, annual reports indicate that there were almost 620 HIDTA [High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas] initiatives in the 28 HIDTAs and five Southwest Border regions. These initiatives identified more than 7,300 DTOs [drug trafficking organizations] operating in their areas: approximately 48% of the identified DTOs trafficked cocaine, about 34% trafficked marijuana, 22% methamphetamine, and 11% heroin. Most are poly-drug DTOs that traffic in more than one illegal substance."

    Source: 

    Office of National Drug Control Policy, "National Drug Control Strategy: FY2010 Budget Summary," (Washington, DC: 2009), p. 135.
    http://www.whitehousedrugpolicy.gov/publications/policy/10budget/ondcp.p...



13. (2007 - High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas) "HIDTAs [High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas] reported disrupting or dismantling 2,873 (83%) of the DTOs that they expected to disrupt or dismantle in FY 2007. More than onehalf (66%) of the disrupted and dismantled DTOs [drug trafficking organizations] were part of a multi-state or international operation. In the process, HIDTA initiatives removed drugs with a wholesale value of more than $26.6 billion from the market, and seized $673 million in cash, and $203 million in noncash assets from drug traffickers."

    Source: 

    Office of National Drug Control Policy, "National Drug Control Strategy: FY2010 Budget Summary," (Washington, DC: 2009), p. 133
    http://www.whitehousedrugpolicy.gov/publications/policy/10budget/ondcp.p...



14. (2002-2006 - global drug seizures) "The world only intercepts one fifth of the global opiate flows every year, with very mixed performances at the country level. The Islamic Republic of Iran has the highest seizures rate, at 20 per cent. Next are China (18 per cent) and Pakistan (17 per cent). In the two main source countries, Afghanistan and Myanmar, seizures represent only 2 per cent each of the world total. An equally insignificant 2 per cent is seized in South-Eastern Europe, the last segment of the Balkan route to Europe. Along the Northern route (Central Asia - Russia), the interception rate is also low (4-5 per cent)."

    Source: 

    United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, "Addiction, Crime and Insurgency: The transnational threat of Afghan opium" (Vienna, Austria: October 2009), p. 7.
    http://www.unodc.org/documents/data-and-analysis/Afghanistan/Afghan_Opiu...



15. (2006 - wiretapping) "The average cost of intercept devices installed in 2006 was $52,551, down 5 percent from the average cost in 2005. For federal wiretaps for which expenses were reported in 2006, the average cost was $67,044, a 5 percent decrease from the average cost in 2005. The average cost of a state wiretap increased 3 percent to $46,687 in 2006."

    Source: 

    Administrative Office of the United States Courts, 2006 Wiretap Report (Washington, DC: USGPO, April 2007), p. 12.
    http://www.uscourts.gov/wiretap06/2006WT.pdf



16. (2006 - global cocaine trafficking) "Mexico is the main transit country of cocaine shipments to North America. Trafficking to Mexico and further on to the United States declined, however, in 2006 and 2007. About 52% of cocaine was trafficked to Mexico by sea in 2006, another 18% by land from Central America (Guatemala and Belize) and 30% by air. These figures suggest that 2006 saw a decline in trafficking by sea and by land and – in relative terms – an increase in trafficking by air as compared to a year earlier. Aircrafts often bring cocaine into Mexico from Venezuela, Colombia and from countries in Central America, notably Guatemala.¹² Important entry points for cocaine into Mexico by sea continue to be the Pacific region and the peninsula of Yukatan on the Atlantic coast. From there, the drug is usually transported by land northwards. In volume terms, most cocaine shipments are by sea. In terms of cases, most seizures are for deliveries by land. About 90% of the cocaine is destined for the USA, 7% is destined for Europe (often by air to Spain, Belgium, Germany, France and Italy) and 3% is for local consumption.".¹³

    Source: 

    United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, "World Drug Report 2008" (United Nations: Vienna, Austria, 2008), p. 77.
    http://www.unodc.org/documents/wdr/WDR_2008/WDR_2008_eng_web.pdf



17. (2006 - global seizures of cocaine) "Globally, most cocaine is seized in the Americas (81%). South America, where most cocaine is manufactured, accounted for 45% of global seizures in 2006. North America, the world’s largest cocaine market, accounted for 24%. Central America and the Caribbean, which are major transit regions, accounted for 11 % of global seizures.

    "The only large market outside of the Americas is Europe. Seventeen per cent of global cocaine seizures were made in Europe in 2006, and 99 % of these were made in West and Central Europe.

    "The rest of the world was responsible for about 2% of global seizures and more than 90% of these were reported by countries in Africa."

    Source: 

    United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), World Drug Report 2008 (Vienna, Austria: UNODC, 2008), p. 72.
    http://www.unodc.org/documents/wdr/WDR_2008/WDR_2008_eng_web.pdf



18. (2006 - cocaine trafficking routes) "The world’s main cocaine trafficking routes continue to run from the Andean region, notably Colombia, to the United States. Frequently quoted estimates among enforcement agencies in recent years suggested that some 450 mt of cocaine (46% of production in 2006) may be destined for markets in North America⁵ (trend falling) and some 250 mt (25% of production) for markets in Europe (trend rising).⁶ Most of the remainder is seized in the coca producing countries (215 mt of cocaine base and salt in 2006, or less than 170 mt expressed in pure cocaine) or consumed in South America.⁷

    "The US ‘Interagency Assessment of Cocaine Movement’ (IACM) assumes higher shipment figures of cocaine towards North America. Estimates by the IACM suggest that between 530 and 710 mt of cocaine may have departed South America towards the United States in 2006.⁸ Out of this amount some 90% is thought to have transited the Mexico-Central America Corridor in 2006. The IACM assumes that 66% of the cocaine departing South America towards the USA in 2006 moved through the Eastern Pacific Vector, more than a year earlier (50%)."

    Source: 

    United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, "World Drug Report 2008" (United Nations: Vienna, Austria, 2008), p. 76.
    http://www.unodc.org/documents/wdr/WDR_2008/WDR_2008_eng_web.pdf



19. (2006 - global seizure of opiates) "Global opiate seizures, expressed in heroin equivalents, increased 14% to 142 mt in 2006. Opiates seizures have grown an average of 9% per year over the last decade, exceeding growth in global opium production. The global interception rate for opiates rose from 13% in 1996 to 23% in 2006."

    Source: 

    United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, "World Drug Report 2008" (United Nations: Vienna, Austria, 2008), p. 45.
    http://www.unodc.org/documents/wdr/WDR_2008/WDR_2008_eng_web.pdf



20. (2006 - cocaine trafficking and Mexico) "The US authorities estimate that around 90% of the cocaine, which entered their country in 2006, transited the Mexico-Central America corridor. The amounts of cocaine trafficked into the United States declined, however, in 2006 and this trend became more pronounced in 2007 as Mexican authorities stepped up efforts to fight the drug cartels operating on their territory, which also increased the level of cocaine related violence in Mexico. US cocaine seizures along the country’s southern border declined by 20% over the first two quarters of 2007 on a year earlier and by almost 40% in the second quarter of 2007, as compared to the second quarter of 2006. The main entry point of cocaine into the United States continues to be the common border of Mexico with southern Texas (accounting for a third of all seizures along the border with Mexico in 2006), followed by the border with southern California (18%).¹⁴"

    Source: 

    United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, "World Drug Report 2008" (United Nations: Vienna, Austria, 2008), p. 77.
    http://www.unodc.org/documents/wdr/WDR_2008/WDR_2008_eng_web.pdf



21. (2006 - cocaine interdiction and Africa) "The most striking new trend in cocaine trafficking in recent years has been the rising importance of Africa, notably of West and Central Africa, as a transit area for cocaine shipments to Europe. Seizures made in Africa rose from less than 1 mt over the 1998-2002 period to 15 mt in 2006. Most of the increase took place in 2006. The largest African cocaine seizures were reported by Nigeria, followed by Ghana, South Africa, Morocco and Cap Verde in 2006. In addition, Guinea-Bissau emerged in recent years as an important cocaine trafficking hub. Out of the 33 African countries that provided seizure statistics in 2006 to UNODC, 25 African countries, or 76%, reported seizures of cocaine, up from 34% in 1990.

    "African cocaine seizures are now equivalent to 2.1% of the global total, up from 0.3% in 2005 and 0.1% in 2000. Since law enforcement in Africa is hampered by a lack of resources and other important factors, this marked increase may not fully reflect the actual trafficking flows through the region."

    Source: 

    United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, "World Drug Report 2008" (United Nations: Vienna, Austria, 2008), pp. 78-79.
    http://www.unodc.org/documents/wdr/WDR_2008/WDR_2008_eng_web.pdf



22. (2006 - wiretapping) "Violations of drug laws and homicide/assault were the two most prevalent types of offenses investigated through communications intercepts. Racketeering was the third most frequently recorded offense category, and gambling the fourth. Table 3 indicates that 80 percent of all applications for intercepts (1,473 wiretaps) authorized in 2006 cited a drug offense as the most serious offense under investigation."

    Source: 

    Administrative Office of the United States Courts, 2006 Wiretap Report (Washington, DC: USGPO, April 2007), p. 9.
    http://www.uscourts.gov/wiretap06/2006WT.pdf



23. (2005 - payments to confidential informants) "DEA officials state that without confidential sources, the DEA could not effectively enforce the controlled substances laws of the United States. Confidential sources come from all walks of life and are significant to initiating investigations and providing information or services to facilitate arrests and seizures of drugs and cash. According to the DEA, it has approximately 4,000 active confidential sources at any one time."

    Source: 

    Office of the Inspector General, Audit Division, "Executive Summary: The Drug Enforcement Administration's Payments to Confidential Sources," (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, 2005), p. 1
    http://www.justice.gov/oig/reports/DEA/a05/final.pdf



24. (1998 - cocaine production and interception) "As far as trafficking is concerned, a comparison with the interception rate of opiates in 1998 (17%), makes the interception rate of 46% reported for cocaine for the same year appear extremely high. Assuming a similar volume of seizures in 1999, the rate would be even higher (50%). For the reasons mentioned above, there are thus some doubts about the accuracy of the total potential cocaine production reported during the past few years (765 mt in 1999)."

    Source: 

    United Nations Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention, Global Illicit Drug Trends 2000 (New York, NY: UNDCP, 2000), p. 32.
    http://www.unodc.org/pdf/report_2000-09-21_1.pdf



25. (1998 - cocaine and Colombia) In spite of US expenditures of $625 million in counter narcotics operations in Colombia between 1990 and 1998, Colombia was able to surpass Peru and Bolivia to become the world's largest coca producer. Additionally, "there has not been a net reduction in processing or exporting refined cocaine from Colombia or in cocaine availability within the United States."

    Source: 

    United States General Accounting Office, "Drug Control: Narcotics Threat from Colombia Continues to Grow: (Washington, DC: USGPO, 1999), pp. 3, 4, 6.
    http://www.gao.gov/archive/1999/ns99136.pdf



26. (2007 - price of heroin) In 2007, a kilogram of heroin no. 3 typically sold for an average wholesale price of $2,520 in Pakistan; the average 2005 per-kilogram wholesale price of heroin no. 4 in that country equaled approximately $4,159. The 2007 wholesale price for a kilogram of heroin in Afghanistan ranged around $2,405. In Colombia, a kilogram of heroin no. 4 typically sold for $9,992 wholesale in 2006. In the United States in 2007, a kilogram of heroin no. 4 cost an average of $71,200 wholesale.

    Source: 

    United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2009, Statistical Annex: Prices, (Vienna, Austria: UNODC, 2009), pp. 217-218.
    http://www.unodc.org/documents/wdr/WDR_2009/WDR2009_eng_web.pdf



27. Interdiction - Research

    (flaws in U.S.-Mexico strategies) "One flaw of current U.S.-Mexico strategy is the false presumption that international trafficking of drugs, guns, and cash can be effectively addressed through interdiction, particularly along the nearly two thousand- mile U.S.-Mexico border. After a three-decade effort to beef up security, the border is more heavily fortified than at any point since the U.S.-Mexico war of 1846–48. The United States has deployed more than twenty thousand border patrol agents and built hundreds of miles of fencing equipped with high-tech surveillance equipment, all at an annual cost of tens of billions of dollars. Although this massive security buildup at the border has yielded the highest possible operational control, the damage to Mexico’s drug cartels caused by border interdiction has been inconsequential.⁴³ Meanwhile, heightened interdiction at the border has had several unintended consequences, including added hassles and delays that obstruct billions of dollars in legitimate commerce each year, the expansion and increased sophistication of cross-border smuggling operations, and greater U.S. vulnerability to attacks and even infiltration by traffickers.⁴⁴ Further efforts to beef up the border through more patrolling and fencing will have diminishing returns, and will likely cause more economic harm than gains in security for the struggling communities of the border region.⁴⁵"

    Source: 

    Shirk, David A., "Drug War in Mexico: Confronting a Shared Threat," Council on Foreign Relations, Center for Preventive Action (Washington, DC: March 2011), p. 18.
    http://i.cfr.org/content/publications/attachments/Mexico_CSR60.pdf



28. (failure of law enforcement drug intervention) "Based on the available English language scientific evidence, the results of this systematic review suggest that an increase in drug law enforcement interventions to disrupt drug markets is unlikely to reduce drug market violence. Instead, from an evidence-based public policy perspective and based on several decades of available data, the existing scientific evidence suggests drug law enforcement contributes to gun violence and high homicide rates and that increasingly sophisticated methods of disrupting organizations involved in drug distribution could paradoxically increase violence. In this context, and since drug prohibition has not achieved its stated goals of reducing drug supply, alternative regulatory models for drug control will be required if drug market violence is to be substantially reduced."

    Source: 

    Werb, Dan; Rowell, Greg; Guyatt, Gordond; Kerr, Thomas; Montaner, Julioa; Wood, Evan, "Effect of drug law enforcement on drug market violence: A systemic review," International Journal of Drug Policy (London, United Kingdom: International Harm Reduction Association: March 2011) Vol. 22, Issue 2, p. 92.
    http://www.ihra.net/files/2011/03/25/ICSDP_Violence_and_Enforcement_Repo...



29. Interdiction - Domestic Surveillance

    (domestic surveillance - erosion of the Fourth Amendment) "In recent years – in no small part as the result of the failed “war on drugs” – Fourth Amendment principles have been steadily eroding. The circumstances under which police and other government officials may conduct warrantless searches has been rapidly expanding. The courts have allowed for increased surveillance and searches on the nation’s highways and at our “borders” (the legal definition of which actually extends hundreds of miles inland from the actual border). And despite the Constitution’s plain language covering “persons” and “effects,” the courts have increasingly allowed for warrantless searches when we are outside of our homes and “in public.” Here the courts have increasingly found we have no “reasonable expectation” of privacy and that therefore the Fourth Amendment does not apply."

    Source: 

    Stanley, Jay and Steinhardt, Barry, "Bigger Monster, Weaker Chains: The Growth of an American Surveillance Society," American Civil Liberties Union (New York, NY: January 2003), p. 16.
    http://www.aclu.org/files/FilesPDFs/aclu_report_bigger_monster_weaker_ch...



30. (The Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution) "The Fourth Amendment provides that

    ^{"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated; and no Warrants shall issue but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.}

    "In general, the amendment prohibits the government from conducting unreasonable searches or seizures of “the people” and their property, in most cases (subject to a number of exceptions) requiring a warrant supported by a particularized description of the object of the search or seizure.³⁵ The term “search” refers to a governmental infringement of an expectation of privacy that society is prepared to consider reasonable, that is, under circumstances where an individual reasonably expects that the privacy of his or her person, home, papers, or effects are protected from uninvited intrusion.³⁶ A “seizure” occurs when there is meaningful governmental interference in a property interest³⁷ or intentional detention of a person.³⁸ Searches and seizures can involve intangible as well as tangible things.³⁹

    "Government surveillance where there is no legitimate expectation of privacy does not amount to a “search” within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment and therefore carries no requirement for a warrant, probable cause, or even any semblance of reasonableness."

    Source: 

    Best, Richard A., Jr.; Elsea, Jennifer K., "Satellite Surveillance: Domestic Issues," Congressional Research Service (Washington, DC: Library of Congress, January 13, 2011), p. 12.
    http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/intel/RL34421.pdf



31. (domestic surveillance - law - thermal imaging) "In Kyllo [v United States], a federal agent used infrared thermal imaging equipment to compare the heat emanating from a triplex unit to the heat signatures of other nearby residences. Based in part on the equipment reading indicating that the defendant’s home was warmer than the others, the agent obtained a search warrant. Officers searched the home and seized marijuana plants growing inside. The government argued that the Fourth Amendment had no application, because the defendant had made no effort to conceal the heat escaping the walls of his home and had no reasonable expectation that passers-by would not take notice.

    "The Supreme Court disagreed, 5-4, holding that the use of sense-enhancing technology not in general public use, in order to reveal details about the interior of a private home that could not otherwise be ascertained without entering the home, constitutes a search. The majority placed great emphasis on the fact that the technique was aimed at a private dwelling, yet it is not clear from the decision whether (or why) the use of such technology against a barn or private office should yield a different result."

    Source: 

    Best, Richard A., Jr.; Elsea, Jennifer K., "Satellite Surveillance: Domestic Issues," Congressional Research Service (Washington, DC: Library of Congress, January 13, 2011), p. 15.
    http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/intel/RL34421.pdf



32. (domestic surveillance - law - helicopter surveillance) "The Supreme Court addressed whether an observation made from a low-flying helicopter constituted a search in Florida v. Riley,⁵⁸ a plurality concluding that it did not. At issue was the use of a police helicopter, hovering at 400 feet (an altitude prohibited for fixed-wing aircraft), to observe, through an opening in a greenhouse roof, marijuana growing inside. The plurality read [California v.] Ciraolo as establishing that so long as there was no breach of the Federal Aviation Agency (FAA) safety regulations, the property owner had no legitimate reason to expect privacy with respect to non-intimate activities undertaken in the curtilage of his home that were plainly visible from above. Five justices would have preferred to consider how often members of the public actually make low-altitude helicopter flights over populated areas in determining whether the claimed expectation of privacy was reasonable. The plurality suggested that surveillance overflights that comply with FAA regulations might nevertheless constitute searches if they were to involve “undue noise, [] wind, dust, or threat of injury” or to reveal “intimate details connected with the use of the home or curtilage.”⁹"

    Source: 

    Best, Richard A., Jr.; Elsea, Jennifer K., "Satellite Surveillance: Domestic Issues," Congressional Research Service (Washington, DC: Library of Congress, January 13, 2011), p. 15.
    http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/intel/RL34421.pdf



33. (domestic surveillance - Patriot Act) "Although the United States has a history of reactionary and repressive behavior in a crisis,²²¹ the USA PATRIOT Act (“Unifying and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism”) may prove to be the broadest, wholesale threat to civil liberties in the nation’s history. Passed just six weeks after the September 11 attacks, without congressional hearings and floor debate,²²² the voluminous piece of legislation grants to law enforcement many coveted, but previously rejected, powers.²²³ Since most of its provisions amend and modify existing laws, it is a bill that cannot be read, but only deciphered and analyzed."

    Source: 

    Ashdown, Gerald G., "The Blueing of America: The Bridge Between the War on Drugs and the War on Terrorism," University of Pittsburgh Law Review (Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh School of Law, Summer 2006) Vol. 67, Issue 4, p. 784.
    http://lawreview.law.pitt.edu/issues/67/67.4/Ashdown.pdf



34. (domestic surveillance - information gathering on peaceful activities) "A secret Pentagon database obtained by NBC News, parts of which were published in December 2005, had revealed that nearly four dozen peaceful political gatherings, most of which were aimed at protesting military recruitment or the war in Iraq, were included among more than 1500 “suspicious incidents” reported across the United States. (Lisa Myers et al., Is The Pentagon Spying on Americans? MSNBC.com, Dec. 14, 2005.) Subsequent news reports revealed that a highly secretive component of the Department of Defense, the Count