Yeah, Good Luck With That

Mark Kleiman has an article in the American Interest seeking to inject some sanity into the War on Drugs. Uh, right, that'll happen. Apparently, Mr. Kleiman has forgotten the basic lesson that DRUGS ARE BAD, MMMKAY. It is charmingly naive to assume (or incredibly ludicrous to pretend) that drug warriors have any interest in a responsible, well-reasoned policy debate. Eleven years ago, the frigging National Review wrote this exact same article. Literally. Yeah, drug use usually isn't problematic. Addiction is the problem, and illegality doesn't address it. We're wasting money and making things worse. Everybody who has spent ten minutes researching drugs (or doing them) knows all of this already. The people advocating continued illegality for drugs know it. Kleiman's article is just another piece of the Drug War kabuki, as it pretends that the people perpetuating the War on Drugs want a logical debate and that they care deeply about the greater good -- "Oh Lawwdy, the bad drugs is hurtin' the childrens! We only doing this 'cuz we wants to help the childrens!" Bullshit. The War on Drugs is not now and has never been about helping people with a drug problem, nor about helping those who are hurt by people with a drug problem. I think we are well beyond the time when it became important to acknowledge this basic fact.