The war on drugs has been lost

Just yesterday I wrote about how futile the war on drug is, and today I read an article in the latest issue of Time (April 2^nd) that confirms it. The title, "Incarceration Nation – The war on drugs has succeeded only in putting millions of Americans in jail", says it all.

Some figures are mind boggling: while Japan has 63 prisoners per 100,000 citizens, Germany 90, France 96, and Britain (one of the highest rates) 153, the USA has 760! (In agreement with the figure of 743 reported by Wikipedia ;-)

The population of US prisoners today is more than five times what it was in 1980. Still according to Times, this is due to the so-called war on drugs, as more than half of today’s inmates were convicted on drug-related offences.

Another staggering figure: in 2009, 1.66 million Americans were arrested on drug charges, and 4/5 of them simply for possession.

Last year, a global commission on drug policy consisting of very authoritative politicians and former world-leaders stated that "The global war on drugs has failed." Its main recommendation was to "encourage experimentation by governments with models of legal regulation of drugs to undermine the power of organized crime and safeguard the health and security of their citizens."

I couldn't agree more...