Interesting news here ; the Parliament of Norway has indeed decided to decriminalize all drugs ; it has already been done in Portugal (since 2001), and has led it to less problems and far more interesting ways to solve this particular issue : indeed, when you think about it, it leaves more place inside the prisons for the truly violent criminals, most drug addicts or users are not like that. I know it is a controversial and sensitive debate, but my point is the fact you decide to give more money to treatments in order to make people less addicted to drugs is the best solution, the one Portugal has adopted. You have to fight the problem from the root, or if you put dealers in prison, there will always be others to replace them. You have to look at where all this comes from, to search for the laboratories that are hidden and produce it, all around the country and the world. If this drug war has kept going on and on, it is mainly because most rich people from even those Parliaments have interest in keeping it alive ; and this is a fucking disgrace for me. I believe this is the way the system works ; the main cartels are working with many banks to launder their money, and some people from the parliaments too (I don't want to generalize either).
The fact is here : according to 2013 data from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and European crime-fighting agency Europol, the annual global drugs trade is worth around $435 billion a year, with the annual cocaine trade worth $84 billion of that amount. 9 bills out of 10 in the USA are tainted with cocaine. 40% of the people from the USA have tried cocaine at least once in their lives.
A Harvard economist, Jeffrey Miron, estimated that ending the war on drugs would inject 76.8 billion dollars into the US economy in 2010 alone. He estimates that the government would save $41.3 billion for law enforcement and the government would gain up to $46.7 billion in tax revenue.
Since the war on drugs began under the administration of President Richard Nixon, the federal drug-fighting budget has increased from $100 million in 1970 to $15.1 billion in 2010, with a total cost estimated near 1 trillion dollars over 40 years. In the same time period an estimated 37 million nonviolent drug offenders have been incarcerated. $121 billion was spent to arrest these offenders and $450 billion to incarcerate them.
By the way, talking about this issue, there is an interesting documentary I saw recently, I'd like to share it with you ; again, this is no incitement to sell drugs, it's just a good documentary that makes you see the issue from another point of view.
http://themindunleashed.com/2017/12/norways-parliament-votes-to-decriminalize-all-drugs.html