"America's public enemy number one in the United States is drug abuse: In order to fight and defeat this enemy, it is necessary to wage a new all-out offensive," Nixon declared in 1971.
Two years later, as Watergate closed in, Tricky Dick declared "all-out global war on the drug menace" and created the Drug Enforcement Administration.
The U.S. government has been fighting the "War on Drugs" for 42 years, longer than the "Thirty Years War" that ravaged Europe in the 17th century. What is there to show for it? Ruined lives, full jails and cash to the drug cartels.
"The global war on drugs has failed, with devastating consequences for individuals and societies around the world," the Global Commission on Drug Policy wrote 17 months ago. The panel included ex-Secretary of State George Shultz, Virgin Atlantic founder Richard Branson and ex-UN Secretary General Kofi Annan.
"Vast expenditures on criminalization and repressive measures directed at producers, traffickers and consumers of illegal drugs have clearly failed to curtail supply or consumption," the panel added.
What a war.
In the United States, approximately 700,000 marijuana-related arrests are made every year. The vast majority -- just under 90 percent -- involve nothing more than mere possession of small amounts of marijuana.
Our jails hold an estimated 100,000 Americans charged with one or another marijuana offense. The direct expenditures of the "war:" $10-15 billion a year.
Yet 100 million Americans -- including Barack Obama, part of a dope-smoking "Choom Gang" in high school -- have smoked the forbidden weed.
The march of folly has not yet ended.
Big time news. The march of folly will never end. Fighting folly is like fighting stupidity (see the lead image atop the right-hand sidebar). Folly wins. Stupidity wins. (But less so, in Seattle.)
Read the entire online report.*
_________________________
* As a bonus, the story leads with a most memorable photo. So what more could you ask?