Since 2007, the DEA has taken $3.2 billion in cash from people without charging them with a crime

[USALiberal]

This is the real reason for the "War on Drugs" IMO.....

The Drug Enforcement Administration takes billions of dollars in cash from people who are never charged with criminal activity, according to a report issued Wednesday by the Justice Department’s Inspector General.

Since 2007, the report found, the DEA has seized more than $4 billion in cash from people suspected of involvement with the drug trade. But 81 percent of those seizures, totaling $3.2 billion, were conducted administratively, meaning no civil or criminal charges were brought against the owners of the cash and no judicial review of the seizures ever occurred.

That total does not include the dollar value of other seized assets, like cars, homes, electronics and clothing.

These seizures are all legal under the controversial practice of civil asset forfeiture, which allows authorities to take cash, contraband and property from people suspected of crime. But the practice does not require authorities to obtain a criminal conviction, and it allows departments to keep seized cash and property for themselves unless individuals successfully challenge the forfeiture in court. Critics across the political spectrum say this creates a perverse profit motive, incentivizing police to seize goods not for the purpose of fighting crime, but for padding department budgets.

http://www.thecannabist.co/2017/03/29/dea-forfeiture-seizure-inspector-general-report/76291/

[tymorial]

1. Asset seizure is the reason behind the continues schedule status of marijuana

And the move to schedule kratom.

[Warpy]

2. It's certainly one reaon the drug war has been so damned difficult to end

Too many people are making too much money from outright theft.