Pubdate: Sat, 23 Jan 2016
Source: Sydney Morning Herald (Australia)
Copyright: 2016 The Sydney Morning Herald
Contact:  http://www.smh.com.au/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/441
Author: Joe Weller
Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v16/n042/a05.html

TIME TO CEASE THE INEFFECTUAL WAR WITHOUT END ON DRUGS

The Herald identifies that organised crime groups have become so 
successful at importing drugs into Australia that the wholesale price 
being paid for ice, cocaine and ecstasy has dramatically fallen in 
the past 18 months ("Drug supply soars as imports get cheaper", January 22).

Australia has been involved in other wars that were debacles: Vietnam 
and Iraq. But even those saw governments of the day eventually admit 
the country's folly and withdraw.

I can only hope that our longest war, that on drugs, will reach a 
similar ignominious end in my lifetime. Then perhaps all the 
politicians with an interest in this war - as well as law enforcement 
officers, judicial and magisterial officers, corrections officers, 
lawyers, probation and parole officers - can begin to put their 
efforts into something that is not such a stupendous dead end, 
insofar as the betterment of society is concerned.

I am worried that there may be some truth in the words of a police 
officer in that superb crime drama, The Wire, when he said "the war 
on drugs is not a war because wars have an end".

Joe Weller Lewisham
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom