...June 17 marks the 40th anniversary of President Richard's Nixon's introduction of the term "war on drugs." If this indeed was a war, it was the least successful in American history, and consider the competition. Over the four decades the country has spent in excess of $1 trillion and made tens of millions of arrests.
We now have one in every 100 American adults behind bars, many on drug-related charges, thanks to the massive criminal justice industrial complex. Drugs are cheaper, purer and more prevalent than they were in 1970. Blacks are arrested at a higher rate and imprisoned longer for drug crimes. The rate of addiction — 1.3 percent of the population — has stayed the same for about a century. Cities such as Hartford that are continually ravaged by the violence connected to illegal drug trade.
Is it perhaps time to change policy?...[Full Article]
