The Office of National Drug Control Policy hosted a media briefing on Nov. 20, to highlight the Obama Administration’s unprecedented approaches to addressing drug addiction.
Ben Tucker, deputy director for State, Local, and Tribal Affairs set the tone by giving stats about how costly criminalizing drug use has been.
“The Department of Justice released new data showing that drug use cost our society about $193 billion a year. Fifty six billion of those dollars can be traced directly back to costs associated solely with the criminal justice system,” said Tucker.
The deputy pointed out that contributing to this immense cost are the more than seven million people in the United States who are under the supervision of the criminal justice system with more than two million behind bars.
For states and localities across the country, the costs of managing these populations have grown significantly. Between 1988 and 2009, state corrections spending increased from $12 billion to more than $50 billion per year.

