To reach that objective, Congress spent billions of dollars to disrupt the drug trade. Despite thousands of arrests and seizures, America is not drug free.
Illegal drugs are as readily available today as ever before.
Drug prohibition has proven to be a costly failure. Like alcohol prohibition, drug prohibition has created more problems than it has solved. The drug war has destroyed the lives of inner-city residents, corrupted law enforcement, and distorted our foreign policy. Yet drug prohibition is still seen as a viable strategy by most police officers, prosecutors, and political leaders. Paradoxically, alternative drug policies such as legalization fall outside the parameters of serious debate in our nation's capital.