President Nixon was the man to officially declare the “war on drugs.” He was responsible for the drastic increase in the amount of federal drug control agencies. Ever since then, the war on drugs has steadily remained a major issue for the United States. During the Reagan years, the incarceration rates dramatically rose because of his unexpected inflation of the drug war. Drug policies typically play an important role during election times for politicians. Whether a person is for or against drug legalization, it can easily sway either way for their election campaign. The war on drugs is still going strong in the United States today. George W. Bush allotted a record amount of money to go toward this war, and now the Obama administration continues to feed billions of dollars a year toward this war’s insatiable appetite. As of now, the United States spends an estimated 51 billion dollars a year on the war on drugs. Surprisingly, if this country legalized drugs and then taxed them at the tobacco and alcohol rate, then it would earn 46.7 billion dollars in tax revenue per year (“Drug War Statistics”). Despite an increased emphasis on treatment and prevention programs in recent years, the Obama administration in its 2013 budget still requested $25.6 billion in federal spending on the drug war. Of that, $15 billion would go to law enforcement, interdiction and international efforts. Over four decades, American taxpayers have dished out $1 trillion on the drug war. (Sledge) After all of this spending, nothing seems to have gotten done in regards to the prevention and treatment of the use of these drugs: “Progress is inevitably slow but there is unprecedented momentum behind drug policy reform right now. We look forward to a future where drug policies are shaped by science and compassion rather than political hysteria” (“A Brief History”). Unfortunately, the only thing that has increased are incarceration rates. The United