Government Spending on trafficking is something that we need to think about.
Why does the U.S. government spends more on the drug war than they do on fighting human trafficking?
Is it because drug abuse is something every tax payer can relate to?
Is it easier to discuss drugs than it is to discuss the 11 year old girl that is being raped repeatedly and no one even knows it’s happening?
I think if every knew about how much of a problem human trafficking is, they would demand that the government shift funds and spend more money fighting to end it.
When you sell drugs it’s a one time sale but with humans you can sell them over and over again (sometimes 10-20 times in one night).
So why aren’t we spending more of that drug war budget on fighting human trafficking? Who wouldn’t agree that freeing human beings is more important?
I don’t know one person who isn’t affected by addiction. With that said, of course it’s a worthy fight however can’t we also fight to end human trafficking? Could we spend even a quarter of the drug war budget? Could we spend two-thirds on human trafficking? Is that too much to ask?
We’re talking about human trafficking.
Without increasing the federal budget the government could allocate more of the drug war budget to be used to fight human trafficking and because they often work hand in hand–for example, using trafficking victims to buy or sell drugs) you would reduce both drugs and trafficking.
Another thought:
According the Cato Institute in 2010, legalizing, taxing and regulating illegal drugs similarly to drugs and alcohol. This alone could raise 46.7 billion in tax revenue annually.
Could we spend that money on fighting human trafficking?
https://www.state.gov/j/tip/rls/tiprpt/countries/2016/258888.htm
https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/voices/how-much-your-money-wasted-war-drugs
https://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/pubs/pdf/DrugProhibitionWP.pdf
http://extract.suntimes.com/news/10/153/8022/how-much-does-war-on-drugs-cost-united-states
