Another Saturday in the Drug War

Some news this week from our wonderful War on Drugs:

A Brookings Institution report guided by former Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo outlined broad strategies for reform in Latin America, and didn't mince words on the drug war.

"Current U.S. counter- narcotics policies are failing by most objective standards," the report says. "The only long-run solution to the problem of illegal narcotics is to reduce the demand for drugs in the major consuming countries, including the United States."

And an October report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office in October outlined clearly the failure of Plan Columbia to reduce cocaine production in the war-torn country. While security in Columbia has improved in recent years, cocaine production has increased. Here are four reasons to scrap our focus on reducing supply - it's a waste of money, crop eradication harms the environment, we anger our friends in countries like Ecuador, Columbia and Bolivia, and - as the GAO now points out - it's not effective.

A new study this week showed that methadone is effective in treating cocaine addictions.

I've written about (Attorney General nominee) Eric Holder's support for mandatory minimum sentences. U.S. Rep. Jim Ramstad's name is still being tossed around as a possible drug czar, and while Ramstad has taken progressive positions on treatment and alternatives to incarceration, for some reason he's against needle exchanges proven to prevent the spread of HIV and other diseases.