I was a bit surprised yesterday to see a message in my email IN box from Walter Cronkite. For a split second, I thought he'd seen "Saving Carrick," discovered the website, and was offering some thoughts — good or bad. Not quite. But perhaps even more interesting was that he was writing on behalf of Ethan Nadelmann's Drug Policy Alliance.
Here's part of what he had to say about the War on Drugs in a pitch for donations to the DPA:
It surely hasn’t made our streets safer. Instead, we have locked up literally millions of people...disproportionately people of color...who have caused little or no harm to others - wasting resources that could be used for counter-terrorism, reducing violent crime, or catching white-collar criminals.
With police wielding unprecedented powers to invade privacy, tap phones and conduct searches seemingly at random, our civil liberties are in a very precarious condition.
Hundreds of billions of dollars have been spent on this effort - with no one held accountable for its failure.
Amid the clichés of the drug war, our country has lost sight of the scientific facts. Amid the frantic rhetoric of our leaders, we’ve become blind to reality: The war on drugs, as it is currently fought, is too expensive, and too inhumane.
But nothing will change until someone has the courage to stand up and say what so many politicians privately know: The war on drugs has failed.
Strangely enough, I can't find a copy of the letter on the DPA website. If you want to read the whole pitch, click here.
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