IPFS News Link • Drug War
Perspective: It is time to end the war on drugs
• https://www.duboiscountyfreepress.com' What began as a campaign of good intentions has become among the most costly policy failures of the last 150 years. We seem unwilling or unable to grapple with the immense consequences, or indeed even fully appreciate the depth, of the problem. Before I explain the issue and discuss some reasonable alternatives, I wish to make clear my personal feelings about illegal drug use.
I am about as anti-drug as a baby boomer can possibly be, and personally view much addiction and even casual use as at least partially a moral failing. Coming of age in the 1970s, even casual marijuana use could disqualify someone from military service, so I steered clear of drugs. Later, as a young officer in an Army hospital, I witnessed the seductiveness of intravenous opioids, and saw plenty of soldiers ruin their lives with drug convictions.