News on the great success in that other endless war:
Researchers found that 42% of people surveyed in the United States had tried marijuana at least once, and 16% had tried cocaine. About 20% of residents surveyed in the Netherlands, by contrast, reported having tried pot; in Asian countries, such as Japan and China, marijuana use was virtually “non-existent,” the study found. New Zealand was the only other country to claim roughly the same percentage of pot smokers as the U.S., but no other nation came close to the proportion of Americans who reported trying cocaine.
Our war on drugs stands among the most expensive, punitive and generally damaging in the developed world, yet we use more than any others. Hell, we do more blow than Columbia. There is a lot of harm to be found in a lot of drugs, but I’m a pragmatist. Establishing our policy based on means (we cannot possibly have drugs legalized) rather than goals (minimizing the number who use drugs and the damage it does) is idiotic. It is the irony that those most puritanically opposed to drugs (or sex) are those who ultimately are least concerned with the damage caused. They see it as fitting punishment for transgression.
