TRY A NEW STRATEGY IN THE WAR ON DRUGS

The United States cannot lock up its drug problem behind prison walls.
Instead, treat it.

AMERICA IS fighting a losing battle in the drug war. Let's keep going with it.

A recent poll indicates substantial majorities of Americans hold both
attitudes - which makes no sense, but does help explain why politicians
keep hammering away for ever-more-draconian laws against drug offenders.

Tough talk sells.

It just doesn't work.

Interdict. Incarcerate. Ratchet up those mandatory minimum sentences. Watch
the prison population grow.

The American electorate should become equally hard-nosed about demanding
actual results. Success cannot be measured by the increasing numbers of
people imprisoned. Those numbers represent failure.

Success must be measured by the steady lowering of demand for illegal drugs.

Drug trafficking is an illicit enterprise that spawns all sorts of other
crime, from petty larceny to murder. We do not suggest that dangerous and
addictive drugs be legalized for recreational use, or that drug trafficking
be condoned.

We do urge a change in priorities.

Rather than giving top priority to interdiction and incarceration - doing
business as usual - let's pour more resources instead into education and
rehabilitation. Let's treat drug addiction as a chronic disease rather than
a crime.

A pop definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over, and
expecting a different result.

Let's bring some sanity to the nation's long and losing war on drugs.