War on drugs is over AND DRUGS WIN

Official attitudes towards illegal drugs are slowly, but surely, changing

 Uruguay does not normally feature much on world news pages. But when its president Jose Mujica announced plans to make the production, sale and consumption of marijuana legal, it made waves around the world.
    In the US, the states of Colorado and Washington legalized the consumption of marijuana by adults. Now, California, Arizona, Oregon and Alaska may also consider legalizing marijuana next year. In Guatemala, president Otto Perez Molina, a former general who waged war on drug smugglers, proposed legalizing drugs, saying that the ‘war on drugs’ had failed – citing poor results after huge expenditures. European countries started on the road to legalization even earlier, with Portugal abolishing all criminal penalties for drug possession as early as 2001. The country saw benefits almost immediately. Illegal drug use by teenagers declined, HIV rates dropped and the number of drug-related deaths plummeted.
    Writing at Esquire, Stephen Marche says: “The war on drugs is over. Drugs won.” Marche highlights the numbers. “The average purity of heroin and cocaine have increased, respectively, 60 percent and 11 percent between 1990 and 2007. Cannabis purity is up a whopping 161 percent over that same time. Not only are drugs way purer than ever, they’re also way, way cheaper. Coke is on an 80 percent discount from 1990, heroin 81 percent, cannabis 86 percent. After a trillion dollars spent on the drug war, now is the greatest time in history to get high,” he writes.
    The mass demand for drugs will always remain, says Marche. Making healthier decisions is a time-consuming process – and for lots of people, the simpler solution, “just take something” will always be easier. And governments, after all the violence and death brought on by the Drug War, may be beginning to recognize this.   

Source:SUNDAY TIMES