THE FAILURE THAT KEEPS ON FAILING

I once covered Nancy Reagan at an appearance at Bentley University in
Waltham, Mass. The petite, fashionable first lady had made drug abuse
her number-one issue, and she was waging her own low-key offensive in
a war that would never end.

There was a naive charm about it, a sense of a well-meaning woman
sincerely believing that something as simple as "Just Say No" could
undo something as complicated and pervasive and consuming as drug
addiction. Mrs. Reagan was not from the "been there, done that"
school of drug counseling.

It didn't work, of course. In the more than a quarter-century since
that appearance, the war on drugs has consumed billions of dollars,
packed prisons beyond capacity and done absolutely nothing to get in
the way of the dealer and the user doing business. The appetite
remains insatiable, and the obscene profits have led to an obscene
disregard for life along the U.S.-Mexican border.

Now, a global commission on drug policy has stated the obvious: The
war on drugs is a failure.

All those SWAT teams storming housing projects in search of drug
kingpins, all that aerial spraying and all those mandatory sentences
have done nothing to stem the tide. The war on drugs is a colossal
waste. It has become its own self-serving end.

The global commission, which includes such heavy hitters as George
Schultz, President Reagan's secretary of state, and Richard Branson,
founder of the Virgin Group, has dared to embrace what the career
drug-fighters have long avoided -- common sense. It has dared to
consider what has to be considered -- legalization.

It seems stunningly simple. Legalize drugs and it removes the
criminal attraction and the need for drug cartels to hire their own
armies to kill people. The commission recommends that governments
consider models for the legal regulation of drugs to "undermine the
power of organized crime and safeguard the health and security of
their citizens."

Legalizing drugs, or some of them, could save lives. As it is now,
every time some fashionable American fun-seeker snorts up a line of
cocaine, he or she is making life riskier for innocents on the other
side of the border.

The commission also recommends an end to simplistic "just say no"
policies. And it urges an end to making criminals of people who use
drugs but do no harm to others.

I remember when police would take reporters along on early morning
raids to show the war on drugs in its full legal fury. I also
remember the grubby apartments and threadbare trappings of the people
alleged to be major dealers. And I remember the news conference at
the end of the day at which police officials declared they had dealt
a major blow to drug-trafficking in the area.

It was drug war ritual. It was part of the show, part of the
justification for keeping the whole thing going. It was sadly funny sometimes.

But let's not get too excited about the possibility of the
commission's report forcing a major change. Sure, the war on drugs
looks like a failure. But it's so darn big.

And maybe victory is still possible. Maybe a few more raids, a few
more major blows to drug trafficking, and tens of millions of people
will decide they don't want to get high anymore.