Just found an article that backs up what I'm talking about:

http://www.hartfordadvocate.com/article.cfm?aid=3384

Some of the highlights:

"We've done polls," said Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance. "Two things about asset forfeiture the public dislikes: first, that when cops and prosecutors seize property they get to keep it for their own departments, the public finds that corrupting ... and second, that you could lose your property without a criminal conviction."
How can the government take your money or property if you haven't been convicted of a crime? "These are civil cases," Gameli said, and they differ from criminal ones. "It bolsters the case if he's convicted [of a crime]," Gameli said, but "a civil case has a lower standard of proof ... I know of cases where the guy walked on the charges, but still lost his car or his money."
Remember Gameli's hypothetical "knucklehead" who enriched the local constabulary? Chances are he had drugs on him too. But not necessarily — under asset forfeiture laws, the simple possession of cash, with no drugs or other contraband, can be considered evidence of criminal activity.
You'll find no shortage of examples throughout the country. Two recent examples, chosen only because they're so unremarkable, are as follows: in October 2006, two men driving through Davidson County, North Carolina, were stopped by sheriff's deputies and found to have $88,000 hidden in their car. The men told the sheriffs they were on their way to buy a house in Atlanta. Although no drugs were found, the sheriffs confiscated the money anyway. And just last August, a truck driver at a weigh station in El Paso had $23,700 confiscated; once again, no drugs or contraband were found, but the cash led to an assumption of guilt.
Naturally, police and the DEA insist they're not infringing upon the rights of innocent people. "The police won't take [the money] if they have a good excuse," says Steve Robertson, a DEA spokesman down in D.C., when asked about cases like the one in El Paso. "I would assume he was listed in a database where he might be drug-related."
And my favorite:

He's talking about asset forfeiture, one of the more devastating weapons in the government's drug war arsenal. The rationale behind it sounds sensible enough: if you make money from criminal activities, you shouldn't get to keep your ill-gotten gains. And whether you agree with the law or not, intoxicants other than alcohol are illegal, so money made from the sale of such is (legally) fair game for confiscation.
But so is anything else that has any involvement with drug activity. If you want to buy a joint, you can lose the car you drove to make the deal. The same holds true if a friend or spouse borrows your car for the same purpose. The confiscated car is sold at auction, and the police force that nabbed it gets to keep 70 or 80 percent of the proceeds, depending upon the car's value.
Disproportionate, no?