More than a quarter of inmates enter Italian prisons for drug possession. More broadly, 34 percent of inmates are in prison for drug law, almost double the European average of 18 percent. The data, added to the one according to which more than 40 percent of those who enter prison use drugs, with a record in the last 17 years, lead to the conclusion that "without detainees for Art. 73 of the drug law, there would be no overcrowding in prisons". These are numbers and conclusions reached by the White Paper on Drug Policy, now in its 14th edition and presented yesterday at the Chamber on the occasion of the International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking. Of the 56,196 inmates in prison as of December 31, 2022, as many as 12,147 were so because of Art. 73 of the Consolidated Law alone. Another 6,126 in association with Art. 74 (association for the purpose of illicit trafficking in narcotic drugs or psychotropic substances), only 1,010 solely because of Art. 74. This is 34.3 percent of the total. This is, essentially, double the European average (18 percent) and much more than the world average (22 percent), as the paper explains, according to which "the data on the admissions and presences of inmates defined as "drug addicts" become catastrophic: 40.7 percent of those who enter prison are so, while as of December 31, 2022, there were 16,845 "certified" inmates in Italian prisons, 30 percent of the total (+10 percent over 2021). This record presence (from 2006 to the present) is fueled by the continued entry of "drug addicts" into prisons, which after the two-year pandemic has started to increase again (+18.4% over 2021)".