THE FAILED DRUG WAR

Re "Happy 40th, Drug War" (Guest comment, by Jay Bergstrom, July 7):

Don't look to the Obama administration for change. The White House
Office of National Drug Control Policy immediately rejected the
high-profile Global Commission on Drug Policy's call for reform and
defended the "balanced drug control efforts" of the federal government.

These "balanced" efforts have given the land of the free the highest
incarceration rate in the world. Prohibition-related violence has
caused upward of 35,000 deaths in Mexico over the past four years.
Despite criminal penalties, the United States has higher rates of
drug use than European Union countries like Portugal that have decriminalized.

With national debt soaring, we can no longer afford to throw good
money after bad drug policy.

Robert Sharpe, MPA Common Sense for Drug Policy

Washington