From the Atlantic….
Asked in 1995 to comment on the War on Drugs, William F. Buckley told the New York Bar Association that perhaps it should be ended. Waging it seemed to him counterproductive and unjust. “It is outrageous to live in a society whose laws tolerate sending young people to life in prison because they grew, or distributed, a dozen ounces of marijuana,” he stated. And the magazine he founded soon followed suit. In 1996, National Review published a brave editorial declaring that “the war on drugs has failed,” adding that “we all agree on movement toward legalization, even though we may differ on just how far.” It was brave because just one in four Americans favored legalizing marijuana back then, and most of them weren’t movement conservatives.
My request to the federal government is to get tough on crime by starving criminal organizations of money. The time has come to re-think the war on drugs and come up with a new public policy for dealing with this social and health issue. By all means lets get rid of gangs, but let’s start by taking away their ability to make easy money.
