D C America's anti-drugs crusade is not a campaign issue. The war also carries social costs. Mandatory minimum sentences sometimes keep drug offenders behind bars longer than violent criminals. America's drug war also does it few favours abroad.
Illegal drugs remain abundant in America.
In Washington, DC alone, there are half a dozen well-known marijuana markets. Wholesale abuse of crack cocaine seems to have burned itself out in the inner cities, only to surface in rural Mississippi and Kansas. The fact that the subject is often too close for comfort is, of course, the reason it is ignored. In the past four years, seven states and the District of Columbia have passed ballot initiatives legalising the personal use of marijuana for medicinal purposes. This summer, the governor of Hawaii approved a similar measure passed by the state legislature.