Taxpayers, politicians, and interest groups use police statistics as a way to measure how effective the police are. Given that arrest rates are a commonly-used statistic, drug crimes (due to the fact that they don't need to be reported by a victim) are a simple and easy way to boost that statistic. The property seizures also allow them to argue their own efficacy. This in turn helps them argue for increased funding.

The Drug Statistic Boost

The number of drug arrests and seizures dramatically increased in 1984 due to the Comprehensive Crime Act. This allowed law enforcement to circumvent state and local laws, resulting in confiscations approximately doubling every year in 1985 until it reached almost $5 billion in total value in 1992. It essentially increased the "perks" afforded to police officers and departments. Because this forfeiture raises the costs of doing drugs, it acts as a sin tax, and the justifications for it are the same as those used to justify sin taxes.

Police Gains to the New Sin Tax

The "War on Drugs" has two major benefits to police: 
- 1) Drug statistics give them an easy way of appearing effective, 
- 2) The property and monetary seizures allow them to reap a sin tax.

University of Oklahoma

The trend of law enforcement lying (or, at least, exaggerating) about the effects of drugs has continued. Due to information spread by law enforcement in the early 1980s, people came to believe that drugs are the source of most societal problems.

Modern Misinformation Spread by Law Enforcement

Benson, Bruce & RASMUSSEN, DAVID. (1996). Predatory Public Finance and the Origins of the War on Drugs. The Independent Review. I. 

Predatory public Finance and the Origins of the War on Drugs

Blaming drugs for societal problems gives bureaucrats to blame away from themselves because: 1) the opposition to such policies gives them someone else to blame if the anti-drug policies fail, 2) there are so many possible solutions that, when the policy fails, they can claim that a) they favored a slightly different solution than what was implemented, or b) other people (police, judges, etc.) failed to do do their part of the job in upholding the policy

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