Congress interrogates economic cost of drug policy

I'm listening online right now to an interesting Congressional hearing from the US Joint Economic Committee (see the hearing page here), via Sentencing Law & Policy.

Congressman Jim Webb in his opening statement declared that marijuana is now California's most lucrative cash crop, surpassing even winemakers' profits, and that 4/5 of illegal marijuana fields in California are owned by Mexican drug cartels.

Webb said 86% of US high school students said it is "very easy" or "fairly easy" to buy marijuana, even though the number of people in custody on drug charges increased 13-fold in the last 25 years.

Here's the link to watch the archived hearing.

RELATED: From the Congressional website:

Charts:

• Percent of High School Seniors Who Can Obtain Drugs (PDF - 173.5 KBs)
• Total Prisoners in Custody on Drug Charges (PDF - 177.7 KBs)
• Price of Cocaine (PDF - 191.8 KBs)
• Drug Arrests as a Percent of Total Arrests (PDF - 164.4 KBs)

Witness Statements:

• Anne Swern, First Assistant District Attorney, Kings County, Brooklyn, NY (PDF - 155.4 KBs)
• Norma Fernandes, Community Coordinator, Kings County District Attorney (PDF - 17.8 KBs)
• Peter Reuter, Dept. of Criminology, University of Maryland (PDF - 144.6 KBs)
• John Walsh, Senior Associate, Washington Office on Latin America (PDF - 151.4 KBs)