THE 'DRUG WAR' IS A FLOP

As a nation we now have nearly half a million people behind bars on
drug charges, more than the total prison population in all of Western
Europe. And the burden of this explosion in incarceration falls
disproportionately on black and Latino communities.

Deaths attributable to marijuana are very rare. In fact, deaths from
all illegal drugs combined, including cocaine and heroin, are fewer
than 20,000 annually. By contrast, more than 450,000 Americans die
each year from tobacco or alcohol use (not counting drunk driving
fatalities). Should we outlaw liquor and cigarettes? Ask anyone who
remembers our nation's disastrous experiment with alcohol
prohibition.

Perhaps the most pernicious aspect of the drug war is the crime that
drug prohibition generates. Our policies have empowered a lethal black
market, complete with international armies of latter-day Al Capones.
Their warfare against each other and against law enforcement will not
be stopped until the public takes the regulation and control of their
commodity away from them. We might look to Holland as a model.

- - Gary E. Johnson, Republican governor of New Mexico, commenting in
The New York Times.