&gt;The prison-industrial complex will not allow falling incarceration rates to eat into its profits - too many executive bonuses depend just the opposite.<p>We need to get away from thinking this is some kind of conspiracy.  The drug war exists because the public is unwilling to entertain alternatives, and to the extent it&#x27;s misguided, it&#x27;s a misguided attempt to deal with real problems.<p>Certainly there are companies and individuals making money by building and staffing prisons, but without public support the system would not exist as currently constituted.<p>In my state you don&#x27;t go to jail for simple possession.  People who end up in the slammer on drug charges are there either because they were dealing, or because the drug charges were coupled with other criminal behavior.  To get locked up for possession of even &quot;hard&quot; drugs you have to be arrested multiple times and have a history of the sorts of crimes associated with junkies.<p>I&#x27;m curious what people who want to &quot;end the drug war&quot; are proposing we do with a meth head on serial burglary spree in an effort to support his habit.  Because he&#x27;s not going to stop breaking into houses no matter what you do with the drug laws.