A Costly Campaign: The Economic Toll of the War on Drugs

This paper forwards the notion that shifting the War on Drugs paradigm toward viewing drug addiction as a public health concern, will be more successful and cost-efficient. Drug addiction involves both neuroscience and genetics, which makes it both a complex medical and legal issue. The War on Drugs, in a constitutional and historical context, was a failure, despite being implemented and enforced for decades. It led to the government’s intrusion of personal liberty, and further aggravation of racial disparity. It was not just costly, as indicated by the figure of a trillion dollars spent, but also enabled dangerous, yet “politically popular” decisions. The result of such efforts neither showed a reduction in drug use, nor an increase in public safety, both of which would have been accomplished by alternative public health strategies. Authors contend that decriminalization may have been a more productive alternative to the War on Drugs, offsetting the sizable expenses of policing, courts, incarceration and allowing governments to allocate more resources toward treatment and prevention. This study’s focus is geared toward shifting away from punitive approaches, in favor of positive engagement with the targeted population to reduce both financial and social harms associated with previous drug policies.  A promising approach going forward involves the utilization of artificial intelligence risk-assessment instruments, which may help predict recidivism, guide sentencing, or affect bail decisions. It may also eliminate the racial and socioeconomic biases already baked into past strategies. This improved approach will hopefully be cost-effective and have positive social consequences.