How About a Cease-Fire in the War on Drugs?

From Mark Perry at "Carpe Diem."

"Mary Anastasia O'Grady write in Monday's WSJ about how an increasing number of world leaders are concluding that laws against drug consumption do more harm than good (see related CD post here about the Global Commission on Drug Policy Report):

"Almost 100 years after drug prohibition was ushered in, school children report that they can easily access narcotics and surveys indicate they are used across social classes. A May 23 story in the Economist reported that Canada now trumps Mexico as an entryway into the U.S. for the drug "ecstasy." American jails are taking in record numbers of young minorities and converting them into hardened criminals; gang violence is on the rise; organized crime is undermining U.S. geopolitical interests in places like Mexico, Central America and Afghanistan. Thousands of innocents, including children, have been killed in the mayhem.

Having produced nothing but hardship for the most vulnerable, disrespect for the rule of law, terror in formerly peaceful cities and profit opportunities for gangsters, drug warriors now want to militarize the southern U.S. border."

In her article, Ms. O'Grady quotes Claremont Institute scholar Angelo Codevilla:

"Even if our southern border were completely closed off it would do nothing to change the fact that mind-altering drugs have become morally and politically acceptable to mainstream American society. America's assumption that restricting supply can somehow make it safe for us to tolerate widespread drug use has itself proved to be a habit-forming narcotic that has reduced our sensitivity to moral rot.""