A Colorful Breakdown Of US Drug Seizures By State
Recently we've provided illustrations on how the drug war has been a total failure and reported on America's massive meth problem.
Now, with this interactive study by Rehabs.com, we have an idea of which states correspond most closely to which drugs.
Using GlobalIncidentMap.com, researchers mapped the last 5,000 drug busts in the U.S. to create the American Drug Landscape.
While not a definitive representation of drug use, the resulting infographic provides an interesting nationwide view of which drugs arise where.
For instance, we learned that Delaware and Pennsylvania are partial to smack. Also, meth is surprisingly prevalent in California — although the crazy spike in meth labs seems to be on the eastern side of the country.
The biggest takeaway: a total of 780,000 lbs of marijuana were reportedly seized in 2012, and weed-related busts accounted for 70.5% of the last 5,000.
Combined with the fact that domestic marijuana production is rising, what does this tell us?
Essentially, the war on drugs is largely driven by marijuana busts.
So if more states (and/or Latin America) go the way of Colorado and Washington by legalizing weed — or the government simply stops classifying marijuana as a schedule I drug — the amount of taxpayer money spent incarcerating drug offenders would plummet overnight.
A big thanks to Rehabs.com for sharing this vibrant graphic with us. Check it out:
find more here.
The interactive study even has a function (top right corner) where you can look up what busts occur most around your home.
For example, here's NYC:
