“The global war on drugs has failed, with devastating consequences for individuals and societies around the world. Fifty years after the initiation of the U.N. Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, and 40 years after President Nixon launched the U.S. government’s war on drugs, fundamental reforms in national and global drug control policies are urgently needed.”
Charles Blow, a New York Times OP-ED columnist, had this to say about it in today's column:
"So began a war that has waxed and waned, sputtered and sprinted, until it became an unmitigated disaster, an abomination of justice and a self-perpetuating, trillion-dollar economy of wasted human capital, ruined lives and decimated communities. An effort meant to save us from a form of moral decay became its own insidious brand of moral perversion — turning people who should have been patients into prisoners, criminalizing victimless behavior, targeting those whose first offense was entering the world wrapped in the wrong skin. It feeds our achingly contradictory tendency toward prudery and our overwhelming thirst for punishment."
The June 20, 2011 issue of Time Magazine also noted the "War on Drugs" has failed:
"A high profile commission led by a number of Latin American former Presidents released a report that found that nearly a half century of global policies to combat drugs has backfired, only driving rates of drug use up and creating a black market run by lethal cartels. Ther report suggests a total rethinking of repressive strategies in use for decades, urging the legalization of substances like cannabis."
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