Study Highlights Marijuana Prohibition's Failures

The study uses the U.S. government's own figures to come to some pretty alarming conlusions:

• The annual overall budget for the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy increased by more than 600%; growing from approximately $1.5 billion in 1981 to more than $18 billion in 2002 (the last year reliable figures were available, the number is probably in the low to mid $20 billions now).
• Between 1990 and 2006, marijuana-related arrests increased by 150%, while marijuana seizures increased by more than 400%.
• The estimated retail cost of marijuana decreased from $37 per gram in 1990 to $15 per gram in 2007.
• Marijuana has remained almost “universally available” to American youth during the last 30 years of prohibition, and has become far more potent since the inception of America's drug war.