Truth about the "Drug War"
• As of 2005, drug offenders accounted for 55 percent of the federal prison population. About 45 percent of them were in prison for possession, not trafficking.
• The number of people incarcerated in federal prisons for drug crimes rose from 14,976 in 1986 to 68,360 in 1999.
• It costs U.S. taxpayers $3 billion per year to keep drug offenders behind bars in federal prisons.
• Drug offenders have accounted for nearly half the meteoric growth in prison populations since 1995.
• About half the population of U.S. jails and prisons are nonviolent offenders, more than the combined populations of Wyoming and Alaska.
