When will we end the failed drug war?

Here’s a good article to start the New Year — an excellent piece by Atlanta-Journal Constitution editorial page editor Cynthia Tucker

Some four or so decades into an intensive effort to stamp out recreational drug use, billions of dollars have been spent; thousands of criminals, many of them foreigners, have been enriched; and hundreds of thousands of Americans have been imprisoned. And the use of illegal substances continues unabated.
With the nation poised on the brink of a new political era, isn’t it time to abandon the wrongheaded war on drugs? Isn’t it time to admit that this second Prohibition has been as big a failure as the last – the one aimed at alcohol? […]
The nation’s so-called war on drugs recalls that old Vietnam War phrase about burning the village in order to save it. It also brings to mind Albert Einstein’s famous definition of insanity: Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.
Our war on drugs really is a war on people. That’s true insanity.

Strong words from a major newspaper.