Yes, all those Saturday nights you spent totally drunk, you were doing yourself more harm than the guy with mushrooms. It's true that this data was compiled in Britain, where alcohol-induced vomiting litters the streets on Friday night. It's true that alcohol causes a lot of harm largely because it's so commonly used. But there is little reason to believe that the situation is any different in other countries. And it makes you wonder why the government is fighting marijuana and LSD when tobacco and alcohol cause much more harm.

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When you ask why, you discover that drug wars often happen for less than honorable reasons. In the US, marijuana was banned because people believed it was “a social evil brought by Mexican laborers”. Opium was banned in response to complaints about Chinese miners. Non-medical narcotics were banned because of the fear of “sex-crazed blacks”. The fight against drugs has never been about protecting society; it's about sticking it to unpopular minorities.

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The war on drugs has cost the American taxpayer $1.5 trillion. To put that in perspective, it would cost (per year) $23 billion to end homelessness in the US, $267 billion to end world hunger and $47 billion to pass Bernie Sanders' free college plan. And what does the country have to show for it? Let's see: