From Classic's graph link in Wikipedia...
Quote:
Marijuana constitutes almost half of all drug arrests, and between 1990–2002, marijuana accounted for 82% of the increase in the number of drug arrests . In 2004, approximately 12.7% of state prisoners and 12.4% of Federal prisoners were serving time for a marijuana-related offense.[53]
The practice of imposing longer prison sentences on repeat offenders is common in many countries, but the Three strike laws in the U.S., which mandate 25 year imprisonment and were implemented in many states in the 1990s, is very extreme in comparison with most European countries. During the first 9 years after Nixon coined the expression War on Drugs, statistics show only a minor increase in the total number of imprisoned which implies that some factor other than the declaration of "war" is the primary contributor to the incarceration rate.
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Reagan, as Governor of Calif pushed the de-institutionalization of patients with mental illness...
proposing instead they be treated in their local communities with the State providing funds.
The funding never happened.
Then, as President, this de-institutionalization program spread across the nation.