Time to Wind Down the War on Drugs | Gene Healy | Cato Institute: Commentary

Time to Wind Down the War on Drugs | Gene Healy | Cato Institute: Commentary: "At the state level, nearly 60 percent of those serving time for drugs have 'no history of violence or significant selling activity,' Webb notes.

The United States has 5 percent of the world's population, and nearly a quarter of the worlds prisoners -- more per capita than authoritarian regimes like Iran, China and Russia. We probably shouldn't take official Chinese prison stats at face value, but is there really good reason for the United States to imprison people at six times the rate Canada does?

As Webb puts it, 'Either we are home to the most evil people on Earth,' or we're doing something wrong."

"Pot is less harmful than alcohol, as shown by government-commissioned studies, including a 1999 report by the Institute for Medicine and the 1972 Shafer Commission"

"In 2001, Portugal became the first -- and so far, only -- Western democracy to decriminalize possession of small amounts of all drugs, including cocaine and heroin. The results of that experiment are now in.

In a recent study for the Cato Institute, Glenn Greenwald reports that decriminalization has 'had no adverse effect on drug usage rates in Portugal,' drug-related pathologies "have decreased dramatically," and there's little public support for recriminalization."

For those who believe in limited government, where is the Constitutional authority for the federal government to do anything. (Maybe the interstate commerce clause but that was supposed to keep states from limiting commerce between themselves.)