It's a Health Issue

One trillion dollars over 40 years and what do we have to show for it? Nada, unless you count a ballooning prison industrial complex as an accomplishment.

I've been a supporter of this approach for awhile. It's the only sensible and humane way to go. (thx for the tip KS)

From the Washington Post...

The Portuguese took a risky leap: They decriminalized the use of all drugs in a groundbreaking law in 2000. Drugs in Portugal are still illegal. But here's what Portugal did: It changed the law so that users are sent to counseling and sometimes treatment instead of criminal courts and prison. The switch from drugs as a criminal issue to a public health one was aimed at preventing users from going underground.

Here's what happened between 2000 and 2008:

- There were small increases in illicit drug use among adults, but decreases for adolescents and problem users, such as drug addicts and prisoners.

- Drug-related court cases dropped 66 percent.

- Drug-related HIV cases dropped 75 percent. In 2002, 49 percent of people with AIDS were addicts; by 2008 that number fell to 28 percent.

- The number of regular users held steady at less than 3 percent of the population for marijuana and less than 0.3 percent for heroin and cocaine - figures which show decriminalization brought no surge in drug use.

- The number of people treated for drug addiction rose 20 percent from 2001 to 2008.

The U.S. is spending $74 billion this year on criminal and court proceedings for drug offenders, compared with $3.6 billion for treatment.

Nationally [in the U.S.], between 4 and 29 percent of drug court participants will get caught using drugs again, compared with 48 percent of those who go through traditional courts.

Seems like this would be right up the alley for the "get government off our backs/reduce spending" conservatives and teabaggers but somehow I doubt they'll be leading the charge on this one.