DRUG STRATEGIES

The problem with the "war on drugs" that America has been waging for more
than 20 years now is the sense that it's a conventional war. Attack the
enemy. Defend your shores. Take prisoners. Lots of prisoners.

But this cannot end like a conventional war, with the surrender or
annihilation of the enemy.

Because the enemy is us.

As long as there is a demand for what drugs can do, people will find a way
to get them. And that demand is as old as civilization. Prohibition didn't
work to stop alcohol use in the 1920s. Why should we expect "zero
tolerance" to work today? Fear of getting caught has never been enough to
discourage drug users or the dealers who prey on them.

This is not to suggest that we ought to just roll over and let America get
high. But for too long, too many resources have been spent for little
long-term result. The number of people imprisoned for drug offenses rose
tenfold from 1980-98, yet surveys of high school seniors show their ability
to buy cocaine and marijuana has been essentially unchanged since 1975.

The real drug war needs to be fought on the demand front, which isn't as
exciting as kicking down doors and seizing bales of illicit cargo. How many
movies have been made about recovering addicts as opposed to hard-charging
cops?

Rethinking the drug war will take more commitment than has been seen to
date in public policy. For starters, there is a miserable lack of data on
what's working. While drug enforcement costs taxpayers more than $35
billion a year, the Office of National Drug Control Policy said last year
that it had no means to measure performance in a third of its 60 objective
categories.

Seems as if we've pretty well identified the enemy. It's time to get a
handle on our most effective weapons and put them to use where they are
needed, on the home front.