T he War on Drugs began at the end of the 1960s during the Nixon Administration. The proximate cause of the war was serious heroin addiction in a small portion of the inner cities and modest marijuana usage among the young. The fact that the cost of drugs has actually reduced is a clear indication that efforts to decrease supply have failed. Abraham Lincoln once remarked that the best way to repeal a law is to have it strictly enforced. Lincoln's assessment of political intelligence was too sanguine.
Laws have a legitimate teaching function.
Proscribing negative behavior can encourage more constructive life styles. However, when the material and spiritual costs in this pursuit exceed the harm of the forbidden behavior, it is time to reconsider. Prohibition of alcohol lasted 14 years before the country realized the cost in crime far exceeded the negative effects of alcohol consumption. It does not reflect positively on the polity that we have not learned the same lessons with other drugs, particularly marijuana. The War on Drugs and the Politics of Failure, by Dan Baum, is a journalist's view of the history of the drug war.