Prohibition doesn't protect children

The latest statistics are in on the failure of prohibition to prevent teenage drug use.

The number of students in the U.S. who attend schools where drugs are used, kept or sold has jumped 41 percent at the high school level and 47 percent at the middle school level since 2002, according to the results of a survey released Thursday by Columbia University’s National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse.

The center says 62 percent of the nation’s high school students and 28 percent of the middle school students in the U.S. attend drug-infected schools, up from 44 percent and 19 percent in 2002.

It's interesting they're using a medical reference, drug-infected, rather than the more traditional drug-infested? A change of rhetoric in response to the reform movement's focus on harm reduction or simply a typo? What do you think?

In any event, it's unsurprising and this at a time when they have escalated the war on some drugs to include trampling on teenagers rights with pee tests and random drug dog raids. When you punish a teenager for something they didn't do, chances are it will piss them off enough to go out and do it.

And all their false propaganda has not only piqued kid's interest in drugs, but has also destroyed the credibility of any legitimate warnings about the consequences of drug abuse. Not to mention, putting the market in the hands of illegal traders leaves drugs more available than even cigarettes.

CASA blames parents, they blame R-rated movies and they blame us - the reform community. The call for even more vigorous assaults on our children in order to "protect them." But the truth of the matter is, it's prohibition that puts drugs in the hands of children and legalization and regulation is the only thing that will reduce their availability.