As of December 31, 1998, there were over 22,000 drug offenders locked up in New York state prisons, about 33% of the entire prison population. It cost the state over $2 billion to construct prisons to house these people. The operating expense for confining them comes to over $715 million per year. Of the 19,453 commitments to the New York prison system in 1998, 9,063 (46.6%) were for drug offenses. In 1980, 886 drug offenders were sent to State prison, 11% of the total commitments for that year.