Nixon’s domestic-policy adviser, John Ehrlichman, …revealed the true aim of the Drug War was to criminalize the administration’s “two enemies: the anti-war left and black people.”

…More than $1 trillion later, Nixon’s war has hollowed out urban black communities, [and] visited death upon downtrodden whites in rural America.

…Despite strides toward a more sane national drug policy, the deeper infrastructure of the War on Drugs remains fundamentally unaltered under Obama. Work focused on public health has not replaced paramilitary anti-trafficking efforts, known as interdiction, at home or abroad.

…Obama even carried over George W. Bush’s DEA chief, Michele Leonhart, who would refuse to admit, under House grilling in 2012, that marijuana is a less dangerous drug than crack cocaine.

…Despite the carnage, prohibitionist policies enforced through military interdiction and domestic incarceration have done little to curb the American drug habit. …[The Government Accountability Office] found that “none of the goals” of the Obama drug strategy have been met.

…On any given day in America, nearly 470,000 people are behind bars for drug offenses. That represents a fifth of the total incarcerated population of 2.2 million. …Nearly a quarter of the roughly 744,000 Americans now in jail – 184,000, according to the Sentencing Project – are locked up for drugs.

….For taxpayers, the Drug War imposes huge costs: nearly $55 billion a year. Harvard economist Jeffrey Miron …found state enforcement of drug prohibition – accounting for cops, judges, jails and prisons – costs more than $25 billion a year, with more than $5 billion spent fighting pot.

…As a result, the Drug War is costing taxpayers more than ever. Obama’s 2017 drug budget seeks $31 billion, an increase of 25 percent from when he took office.

Why America Can’t Quit the Drug War | Rolling Stone

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr