The War on Drugs Is Lost | Patrick Basham | Cato Institute: Commentary

The War on Drugs Is Lost | Patrick Basham | Cato Institute: Commentary: "In prisons, drugs are plentiful and their use is widespread. No matter what they try, prisons can't keep drugs out - an important lesson for those who would turn Russia, or any country, into a prison to stop drug use.

The startling, deeply unpleasant, but equally unavoidable fact is that 80 percent of drug-related deaths aren't the result of drug use. They are the result of drug prohibition."

"filling prisons with substance abusers doesn't make any public policy sense. If we ended the war on drugs, drug addicts could be treated as patients, not as pestilence."