The Last Word: Rewriting the Cost of the War on Drugs

What is the real cost of the war on drugs? How long do you fight a war that cannot be won? Lawrence O’Donnell (The Last Word, NBC News) reconsiders the War on Drugs in this video.

This is a well thought out video monologue, definitely worth a watch.

Memorable themes from The Last Word: Rewriting the Cost of the War on Drugs video:

• The War on Drugs strategy is to take-out the supply side, prices will go up [0:56 mark]
• Cocaine is 74% cheaper in “real dollars” than it was when the War on Drugs started 30 years ago (real dollar are adjusted for inflation) [1:44 mark]
• The United States government has spent $20 – 25 billion per year to fund the War on Drugs [2:03 mark]
• Cocaine use has dropped right along with cocaine price [2:36 mark]
• Every theory on how the War on Drugs would work has been proven wrong [2:38 mark]
• If only the state of California legalized marijuana, Mexican drug cartels would lose about 1/5 of their annual income (~$1.3 billion) from marijuana sales into the United State (cartels are estimated to earn $6.5 billion per year in tax-free revenue) [2:55 mark]
• How much money *must* the Mexican cartels be funneling into California to fight cannabis legalization? [3:20 mark]
• The American experience is that people “age out” of drug use [4:35 mark]
• The “bad luck” casualties of the War on Drugs are disproportionately poor and African American [5:02 mark]
• This War has not harmed the drugs in any way, the only damage done is collateral damage to people [5:41 mark]
• Why do we sacrifice millions of lives to a war that can not be won? [6:52 mark]