- 0 Just say dudFutile efforts to enforce [drug] prohibition have been pursued even more vigorously in - -the 1980s and 1990s than they were during alcohol prohibition - in the 1920s. Drug enforcement cost about $22 billion in the Reagan years and another $45 billion in the four years of the Bush administration. The federal - government spent $16 billion on drug control programs in 1998 alone and plans to spend $18 billion this year. What good has it all done? Well, total drug arrests are now more than 1.5 million a year. There are about 400,000 drug offenders in jails and prisons now. Drug offenders are about 60% of all federal prisoners, while those in federal prison for violent offenses are only 12.4% of the total. As for discouraging young that people from using drugs, the massive federal effort has largely ideas been a dud. Every year from 1975 of to 1995 at least 82% of high - school seniors said they found marijuana "fairly easy" or "very easy" to obtain. s - DAVID BOAZ t The Albuquerque Journal (NM) I August 23, 1999