FORTY YEARS OF 'DRUG WAR'

It's been about 40 years since the United States government declared a
war on drugs during the Nixon administration. Published reports put
the cost of the campaign since then at more than a trillion dollars,
much of it spent on enforcing the laws against marijuana.

Just a couple of weeks ago the Oregon State Police reported on an
operation that seized $750,000 worth of marijuana in Southern Oregon,
resulted in three arrests, and involved the work of several local,
state and federal law enforcement agencies in Oregon and Minnesota.

Despite frequent police investigations such as that, pot today is as
widely used as ever, according to some accounts -- though not by most
people. Most people don't need to addle their brains, with either pot
or too much booze.

Pot is reported to be the largest single commodity shipped to the U.S.
market by the Mexican drug cartels. Fighting for the spoils of that
trade, those gangs have plunged their country into a kind of civil war
that has cost an estimated 15,000 lives over the last few years.

The obvious question: Has the drug war been worth it, especially in
regard to marijuana?

Nobody can say for sure. Maybe without it, far more people would smoke
the weed far more often, would drive in a hazy and dangerous state
more often than they do, and cause lots more traffic crashes where
somebody gets hurt.

On the other hand, alcohol is very dangerous in connection with
driving, and it leads to many outbreaks of domestic violence in
addition to that. Yet, despite its social and individual cost, we
treat alcohol as a legal substance while trying to regulate its use.

Alcohol has a cost in lives damaged and lost, especially in driving
accidents. But on alcohol, we don't spend nearly as much law
enforcement time as we spend on fighting marijuana. If the regulatory
approach works, more or less, on alcohol, why would it not work on
pot?