End the Drug War

Today's Washington Post has a thoughtful article advocating ending the drug war. Written by a couple of Law Enforcement Officers, it has an interesting angle. A police officer dies in the line of duty every other day, and stopping the futile and harmful War on (some) Drugs will reduce that tremendously. The war destroys communities. Stopping the war could create and save 77 billion dollars per year.

I have posted time after time that there is no constitutional basis for prohibition. Indeed, alcohol prohibition required a constitutional amendment, and another one for repeal. But this nation had much more respect for its founding document eighty years ago. The concluding paragraph sums it up well:

Without the drug war, America's most decimated neighborhoods would have a chance to recover. Working people could sit on stoops, misguided youths wouldn't look up to criminals as role models, our overflowing prisons could hold real criminals, and -- most important to us -- more police officers wouldn't have to die.

A free society can not long survive alienating large portions of its population. If Obama really wants to provide us with "change we can believe in," he should read this article, and ponder the consequences of inaction on his people.