NEAL PEIRCE COLUMN
� 2006 Washington Post Writers Group
THE OTHER 'WAR' WE KEEP ON LOSING
By Neal Peirce

Pick your week or month, the evidence keeps rolling in to show
this country's vaunted "war on drugs" is as destructively misguided as
our cataclysmic error in invading Iraq.

There are 2.2 million of Americans are behind bars, another 5
million on probation or parole, the Justice Dept. reported Nov. 30. We
exceed Russia and Cuba in incarcerations per 100,000 people; in fact no
other nation comes close. The biggest single reason for the expanding
numbers? Our war on drugs -- a quarter of all sentences are for drug
offenses, mostly non-violent.

So has the "war" worked? Has drug use or addiction declined?
Clearly not.