Street prices vary, or so they say. People pay $20, $50 or more for larger quantities. Willie Nelson lamented the current price in the movie 'Half Baked' a few years back. He would be shocked to see what the real cost is though.
According to the U.S. Department of Justice, taxpayers were forced to spend $1 billion last year incarcerating and arresting citizens for marijuana offenses. Even without the advertising costs of anti-drug war campaigns with cute messages that have zero effect, the $1 billion dollar mark is impressive all on its own.
From Alternet:
According to the new BJS report, "Drug Use and Dependence, State and Federal Prisoners, 2004," 12.7 percent of state inmates and 12.4 percent of federal inmates incarcerated for drug violations are serving time for marijuana offenses. Combining these percentages with separate U.S. Department of Justice statistics on the total number of state and federal drug prisoners suggests that there are now about 33,655 state inmates and 10,785 federal inmates behind bars for marijuana offenses. The report failed to include estimates on the percentage of inmates incarcerated in county and/or local jails for pot-related offenses.
Multiplying these totals by U.S. DOJ prison expenditure data reveals that taxpayers are spending more than $1 billion annually to imprison pot offenders.
As Alternet noted, that does not include local jail expenditures. The figures also neglect the economic costs of the offenders being incarcerated and not contributing to the economy in their jobs and as consumers. If there are nearly 11,000 federal inmates, the total amount must be far higher. The FBI reports that over 40 percent of drug offenses stem from marijuana, the highest numbers to come out yet. The question that pops into my mind is, don't they have anything better to do with our resources than busting people with grass?
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