The War On Drugs Is Working -- But Only To Rid Taxpayers Of Hundreds Of Billions Of Their Dollars
Via Jason S., Serena Dai lays out a chart by filmmaker Matt Groff on theatlanticwire that shows that while drug war spending has climbed astronomically since 1970, the drug addition rate has remained pretty much the same.

Dai writes:

As you can see, while the blue illicit drug addiction rate line has remained relatively steady at about 1.3 percent, the green line for drug control spending has skyrocketed. The increased spending did not correlate to lower addiction rates. "Drug use and abuse exists on a spectrum and as a society we must accept that some portion of the population will be addicted to drugs even if we don't like it," Groff says.

More on the chart from Mike Riggs at reason:

A reader points out that the dollar amounts on the right Y axis don't add up to $1.5 trillion. The creator of the chart, documentary filmmaker Matt Groff, Tweeted the following in response to a question about where the $1.5 trillion figure comes from: "Short answer: chart shows only fed drug control, $1.5T refers to all costs assoc. w/ drug prohibition..."