Pubdate: Mon, 13 Jun 2011 Source: Houston Chronicle (TX) Copyright: 2011 Houston Chronicle Publishing Company Division, Hearst Newspaper Contact: http://www.chron.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/198 HARD STUFF Get Real About Dealing With Illegal Drugs Along with abortion, gun control and gay marriage, drug legalization is one of the truly thorny issues confronting American society. It raises contentious questions touching on criminality, morality, health and addiction, immigration, even national security. Like the other issues, drug legalization frequently resists rational discussion. For the most part, people have their minds made up. There's compelling reason to change that mindset and put drug legalization on the table for reasoned discussion and debate. The illegal drug trafficking through Mexico has become murderous -- and expensive. It's simply unconscionable to allow the status quo to continue. And doing so will require forthright attention to the issue of demand for illegal drugs in this country -- the engine that drives the drug violence. If America's leadership is looking for a scholarly basis on which to begin such a discussion, it will find it in the recent report of the Global Commission on Drug Policy. The commission has true stature. It is made up of former presidents of Mexico, Brazil and Colombia, as well as former U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan and former U.S. officials George Schultz and Paul Volcker. It recommends, in part: "Political leaders and public figures should have the courage to articulate publicly what many of them acknowledge privately: that the evidence ... demonstrates that repressive strategies will not solve the drug problem, and that the war on drugs has not, and cannot, be won." Such an admission would be both powerful and therapeutic - a gateway to candid conversation. The problems of the status quo are self-evident. Criminalizing drug use has filled American prisons at an enormous and unsustainable cost, even as it has enticed criminals into drug trafficking by forcing market prices higher than they would be under a legally monitored system. Meanwhile, the toll is tragic: More than 34,000 have been murdered in Mexico since 2005, and hundreds of thousands of drug users have been sentenced to lives of misery in addiction. The commission recommends that governments "end the criminalization, marginalization and stigmatization of people who use drugs but who do no harm to others." That approach is guaranteed to encounter resistance from many in this country. So be it. This conversation can't wait. - --- MAP posted-by: Richard R Smith Jr.