The State Department's annual report on the war on drugs says the international effort faced "serious challenges" in 2000 but "continued to bear fruit." The fine print reveals a much more discouraging picture: Plenty of challenge, but very little fruit. The U.S. government spent about $18 billion on international anti-drug programs last year. During that time, worldwide opium poppy (heroin) cultivation grew 17 percent but remained well below its all-time high levels of the mid-1990s; coca (cocaine) plantings increased marginally and the production of synthetic methamphetamine (meth) and similar drugs has been increasing at a frightening rate. [continues 461 words]
President Richard Nixon proclaimed the War on Drugs in 1971. After Vietnam, it became the second major war that America ever lost. The difference was that, unlike Vietnam, no one in authority ever acknowledged the defeat. Thirty years later, the United States has more than 2 million people in prison, mostly on drug-related offenses. By one measure, we have a greater percentage of population behind bars than any country except Rwanda. And we still have the worst drug-abuse record of any industrial country. [continues 576 words]
