WE HAVE LOST THE DRUG WAR

THANKS TO drug prohibition, we have international cartels, widespread
corruption, erosion of civil liberties, and the highest rate of
incarceration in the world.

New Mexico Governor Gary E. Johnson is right: The war on drugs is a
miserable failure. The notion that drugs are a medical problem, not a
criminal problem, didn't start with Brooklyn district attorney Charles J.
Hynes. The 1972 landmark report "Licit and Illicit Drugs" by Edward M.
Brecher came down emphatically on the side of treatment.

Looking further back, the disastrous social consequences that resulted from
alcohol prohibition in the 1920s should provide all the evidence we need
that, as bad as drugs can be, the effects of prohibition are worse.

The rest of the world is moving from a prohibition model to a harm
reduction model in dealing with drugs. It is well past time for the United
States to do the same.

- -- STEVE WELLCOME, Bolton