Drug-Induced Dementia

When President Obama won election last fall, many of us thought that his victory might lead, at long last, to a re-evaluation of our nation’s endless, obsessive, futile, puritanical and ruinously costly “war on drugs”. Alas, it appears that this insane policy, which perpetuates the enormous black market and resulting drug-cartel violence that have effectively turned Mexico into a failed state, is not going anywhere soon; we see that Mr. Obama has now announced his intention to “crack down on drug use in our cities and towns.”

The naive opinions of well-intentioned pundits notwithstanding, this is an enormously stubborn, paternalistic and foolish attitude, and I am deeply disappointed in Mr. Obama for publicly endorsing it: as the Harvard economist Jeffery Miron argued in this cogent essay, it is past time for the “war on drugs” to end. I hope Mr. Obama comes to his senses; he will probably need some prodding.

3 Comments

  1. JK says

    http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-04-19/drug-war-lessons-from-colombia/

    Posted April 20, 2009 at 1:54 am | Permalink
  2. Malcolm says

    Yes, that’s the correct view, JK. Thanks for the link.

    Posted April 20, 2009 at 10:28 am | Permalink
  3. JK says

    Well… maybe not so fast:

    http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/us_mexico_drugs_odd

    Posted April 20, 2009 at 5:40 pm | Permalink

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