Related Stories
Drug war a destructive failure
Key Excerpts from Article on Website of New York Times
Posted: June 22nd, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/11/opinion/11blow.html
Friday marks the 40th anniversary of one of the biggest, most expensive, most destructive social policy experiments in American history: The war on drugs. On the morning of June 17, 1971, President Richard Nixon ... declared: Americas public enemy No. 1 ... is drug abuse. In order to fight and defeat this enemy, it is necessary to wage a new, all-out offensive. So began a war that ... became an unmitigated disaster, an abomination of justice and a self-perpetuating, trillion-dollar economy of wasted human capital, ruined lives and decimated communities. Since 1971, more than 40 million arrests have been conducted for drug-related offenses. And no group has been more targeted and suffered more damage than the black community. Last week, the Report of the Global Commission on Drug Policy ... declared that: The global war on drugs has failed, with devastating consequences for individuals and societies around the world. [Forty] years after President Nixon launched the U.S. governments war on drugs, fundamental reforms in national and global drug control policies are urgently needed. The White House immediately shot back: no dice.
Related Stories
Latest News
Key News Articles from Years Past
