794
O'Connor, J., dissenting
The question, then, is whether Montana's drug tax is punitive. Our double jeopardy cases make clear that a civil sanction will be considered punishment to the extent that it serves only the purposes of retribution and deterrence, as opposed to furthering any nonpunitive objective. Id., at 448-450. See also Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U. S. 520, 539, n. 20 (1979); Kennedy v. Mendoza-Martinez, 372 U. S. 144, 168 (1963). This will obtain when, as in Halper, the amount of the sanction is "overwhelmingly disproportionate" to the damages caused by the wrongful conduct and thus "is not rationally related to the goal of making the Government whole." 490 U. S., at 449, 451.
The State and Federal Governments spend vast sums on drug control activities. See, e. g., U. S. Dept. of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, Fact Sheet: Drug Data Summary 5 (Apr. 1994) (approximately $27 billion in fiscal year 1991). The Kurths are directly responsible for some of these expenditures—the costs of detecting, investigating, and raiding their operation, the price of prosecuting them and incarcerating those who received prison sentences, and part of the money spent on drug abuse education, deterrence, and treatment. The State of Montana has a legitimate nonpunitive interest in defraying the costs of such activities. United States v. Halper, supra, at 444-446, and n. 6; see also United States v. Ward, supra, at 254; One Lot Emerald Cut Stones v. United States, 409 U. S. 232, 237 (1972); Rex Trailer Co. v. United States, 350 U. S. 148, 153-154 (1956). For example, readily available statistics indicate that apprehension, prosecution, and incarceration of the Kurths will cost the State of Montana at least $120,000. See Montana Board of Crime Control, Per-Unit and Per-Transaction Expenditures in the Montana Criminal Justice System 8, 15, 19, 21, 22-23, and Tables 21 and 23 (1993) (Montana Criminal Justice Expenditures).
But measuring the costs actually imposed by every participant in the illegal drug trade would be, to the extent it is
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