Legalization: Editorial on the Drug war: Make it medical

Hurrah for the Providence (Rhode Island) Journal!

Editorial: Drug war: Make it medical | Editorials | projo.com | The Providence Journal: "There’s only one way to stop this monstrous commerce, which, in addition to costing many lives, corrupts law enforcement on both sides of the border. That is to treat illicit drugs like the legal drugs known as alcohol and nicotine. ...

.... it would be naïve to believe that chopping off the heads of the beastly cartels would stop the bloodshed. The U.S. is a rich and avid consumer of illegal narcotics — and decades of a “war against drugs” has hardly made a dent in the demand. (The U.S. is also the main source of guns in the drug war in Mexico.) Despite the dangers, there’s simply too much money in the drug trade for criminals to abandon it, particularly in a poor country. Law-enforcement officials now fear that the arrested kingpins’ underlings will embark on a struggle to take over the leadership, and that will unleash new spasms of violence. ...

The way to end the drug trade is to take the massive profit out of it by legalizing these illicit substances. Drugs can be regulated and taxed like alcohol and cigarettes. ...

Let’s end the hypocritical and self-destructive drug war and treat misuse of cocaine, heroin and marijuana as we treat misuse of the socially privileged drug alcohol — as a medical problem. While the private-prison industry may like it, for society, in Mexico and the U.S., the drug war is a disaster." Dec. 28, 2010