LET'S END THE WAR ON DRUGS

Whether it's music, activism or daily life, the one ideal to which I
have always aspired is constant challenge -- taking risks, stepping
out of my comfort zone, exploring new ideas.

I am writing because I believe the United States must do precisely
that -- and so, therefore, must all of us -- in the case of what has
been the most unsuccessful, unjust yet untouchable issue in politics:
the War on Drugs.

The War on Drugs has failed -- but it's worse than that. It is
actively harming our society. Violent crime is thriving in the
shadows to which the drug trade has been consigned. People who
genuinely need help can't get it. Neither can people who need medical
marijuana to treat terrible diseases. We are spending billions,
filling up our prisons with non-violent offenders and sacrificing our
liberties.

For too long, the War on Drugs has been a sacrosanct undertaking that
was virtually immune from criticism in the public realm. Politicians
dared not disagree for fear of being stigmatized as "soft on crime."
Any activist who spoke up was dismissed as a fringe element.

But recently, I discovered just how much that's changing--and that's
how I came to speak out on behalf of an extraordinary organization
called the Drug Policy Alliance.

I learned of DPA, as they're known, while reading what once might
have been the unlikeliest of places for a thoughtful discussion of
the Drug War -- the op-ed page of the Wall Street Journal.

It featured an op-ed that dared to say in print -- in a thoughtful,
meticulous argument -- what everyone who has seriously looked at the
issue has known for years: the War on Drugs is an absolute failure
whose cost to society is increasingly unbearable and absolutely unjustifiable.

The author of that piece is a former Princeton professor turned
activist named Ethan Nadelmann, who runs DPA. I was so impressed by
his argument that I began reading up on the group.

Their work spoke directly to my heart as an activist for social
justice -- because ending the War on Drugs is about exactly that.

For years, the Drug War has been used as a pretext to lock people in
prison for exorbitant lengths of time -- people whose "crimes" never
hurt another human being, people who already lived at the margins of
society, whose voices were the faintest and whose power was the least.

Civil liberties have been trampled. Law enforcement has been
militarized. Literally hundreds of billions of dollars -- dollars
denied to urgent problems ranging from poverty to pollution -- have
been spent. People who do need help with drugs have been treated as
criminals instead. Meanwhile, resources to fight genuine crime --
violent crime -- have been significantly diminished.

And in exchange for all this, the War on Drugs has not stopped people
from using drugs or kept drugs from crossing the borders or being
sold on the streets.

To me, it all adds up to a clear message of exactly the sort I've
always tried to heed in my life: It's time to step out of our comfort
zone and try something new.

That's where DPA comes in. Their focus is on reducing the harm drugs