Pubdate: Thu, 21 Jul 2011
Source: Chico News & Review, The (CA)
Copyright: 2011 Chico Community Publishing, Inc.
Contact:  http://www.newsreview.com/chico/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/559
Author: Robert Sharpe
Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v11/n459/a06.html

THE FAILED DRUG WAR

Re "Happy 40th, Drug War" (Guest comment, by Jay Bergstrom, July 7):

Don't look to the Obama administration for change. The White House 
Office of National Drug Control Policy immediately rejected the 
high-profile Global Commission on Drug Policy's call for reform and 
defended the "balanced drug control efforts" of the federal government.

These "balanced" efforts have given the land of the free the highest 
incarceration rate in the world. Prohibition-related violence has 
caused upward of 35,000 deaths in Mexico over the past four years. 
Despite criminal penalties, the United States has higher rates of 
drug use than European Union countries like Portugal that have decriminalized.

With national debt soaring, we can no longer afford to throw good 
money after bad drug policy.

Robert Sharpe, MPA Common Sense for Drug Policy

Washington
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom