It is amazing to realize that there are two entire generations of people living who will not remember a time when they would not hear on the news about “The War on Drugs.” Only those who are over forty will remember that June 17, 1971 was the day when then President Richard Nixon declared that “drug abuse is public enemy #1” and declared the war on drugs.
In response to this 40th anniversary, a group called the Drug Policy Forum of Hawaii called for a “Drug War Rally and Signwaving” to be held in the Hawaii Capitol Rotunda on June 17, 2011. The Executive Director, Jeanne Y. Ohta states that one trillion dollars has been spent thus far on this “war” and millions of lives have been ruined during that time period. She sees the methods that have been used as a total failure.
This group seems to think that the War on Drugs itself has caused the broken families. They point to the fact that a high percentage of native Hawaiians are imprisoned as a result of the Drug War also. Last of all, they show that everyone’s lives are impacted by it because taxes have had to increase so much in order to pay everyone that is fighting this battle. They claim that this program is “unevaluated.”
The group certainly raises some valid questions, and they invite people to visit their website and consider joining them. The important point is that they are not alone in this thinking. It’s interesting to note that the Obama Administration has moved away from using the term “war on drugs.” And in June 2011 the United Nation's Global Commission on Drug Policy declared that, "The global war on drugs has failed, with devastating consequences for individuals and societies around the world. Fifty years after the initiation of the UN Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, and years after President Nixon launched the US government’s war on drugs, fundamental reforms in national and global drug control policies are urgently needed."
Treatment, not punishment, seems to be what is most needed. Now legislators will just have to figure out how to make that change.
