november.org
Losing The War

Our government spends millions of your tax dollars on international drug eradication programs alone and in yet another example of the failure of these policies the US State Department released the 2003 drug cultivation figures for Mexico. The report states, "despite intensive Mexican eradication programs -- [there was] an overall increase in marijuana and opium poppy cultivation."

Rather an understatement in light of a 70 percent increase in marijuana and a 78 percent increase in opium poppies They also seized a record amount of drugs and arrested two cartel "kingpins" among many smaller dealers with no effect on the flow of drugs into the US. The lesson is obvious. The more they interdict and eradicate, the more production goes up to compensate.

Under the Bush administration, the total cost of enforcing the prohibition has risen to almost 40 billion dollars. This criminal waste of your tax dollars has resulted in the wholesale poisoning of large tracts of the planet with herbicides and given us the largest prison population in the world. It has done nothing to eliminate the availability of street drugs nor the problems of drug abuse.

It's time to admit the War on Drugs has failed miserably and to reallocate the resources spent on punitive measures to harm reduction programs instead.