POLITICOS ONLY SAY WAR ON DRUGS IS A FAILURE AFTER THEY'VE QUIT

While it's hopeful that four former mayors have made crystal clear the
urgency and necessity of ending prohibition to restore justice, the
safety of our streets and our individual freedom to choose, it remains
disturbing that virtually no politician currently in elected office at
any level advocates this.

It is a political irony that these former mayors, former presidents of
Colombia, Brazil and Mexico, former governors, hundreds of other
previously elected and now former officials throughout the world,
along with hundreds of former police officers, all declare the war on
drugs a counter-productive failure, a gift to organized crime and a
threat to the stability of several nations, but none of them acted on
this while in the political authority of their elected or appointed
office.

There is an unfathomable disconnect between actually holding political
office and doing the right thing when it comes to ending prohibition.
Even with majorities in the U.S. and Canada favouring the legalization
of marijuana, no serious action occurs in the parliaments,
statehouses, legislatures and congresses of Canada, Mexico or the
United States to further this desire. Nor is any rational explanation
for this dereliction of democratic will and common sense offered by
the authorities in office. Why?

Marc Emery, U.S. federal prison, Yazoo City, Miss.