Long Overdue First Step

A recent Neal Peirce column, while as painfully vague and preachy as most of his columns tend to be, hits the nail on the head in response to the long overdue decision to dial down the failed war on drugs.  He points out that the driving force, making this now a bipartisan issue, is cost to tax payers.

“National awareness of the futility of the drug war has risen over recent years. And there’s growing understanding, in an era of fierce budget shortfalls, that billions of dollars are being expended — by the federal and state governments alike — on prosecutions and incarcerations that do little to stem either drug use or crime.”

He is correct that fiscal stress has brought the two parties together on this common sense move.  It is long overdue because we have known for years that the WOD is costly and ineffective: a massive waste of taxpayer dollars. 

We have also know for a long time that the costs associated with this monumental failure are not evenly distributed, disproportionately harming poor and minority urban communities and undermining family values.

I have blogged before on the importance of reading New Jim Crow to get a detailed and persuasive presentation of all the major arguments against the WOD.  The recent decision regarding stop’n’frisk in NYC, as well as Holder’s comments highlighted by Peirce, are long overdue steps in the right direction.