Surrender in the War on Drugs?

Drug legalization isn't about users easily finding some weed on a Friday night but is instead an issue grounded in rational thought and fairness. The arguments against legalization are grounded in empirically unsupported fears.

Nicholas Kristof made the point well in his column last Sunday...

This year marks the 40th anniversary of President Richard Nixon’s start of the war on drugs, and it now appears that drugs have won.

Here in the United States, four decades of drug war have had three consequences:

First, we have vastly increased the proportion of our population in prisons. Second, we have empowered criminals at home and terrorists abroad. Third, we have squandered resources.

The stakes are huge, the uncertainties great, and there’s a genuine risk that liberalizing drug laws might lead to an increase in use and in addiction. But the evidence suggests that such a risk is small. After all, cocaine was used at only one-fifth of current levels when it was legal in the United States before 1914. And those states that have decriminalized marijuana possession have not seen surging consumption.

MSNBC also has an interesting article on the changing winds in the legalization of marijuana debate.