by Mark Luedtke

Created on: May 28, 2009

The news gets worse every day. President Obama widens the war against the resurgent Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Backed by Hugo Chavez, FARC terrorists ravage South America. Mexican drug cartels wage a low level civil war in Mexico that's overflowing into the US. They control our southern border, dominate illegal immigrant drug gangs, and corrupt our police, prosecutors, judges and politicians. Drug murders and kidnappings skyrocket. Paramilitary-style drug raids kill innocent Americans. The US has more people in prison per capita than any other country in the world. The land of the free is more like the home of the incarcerated.

What if I told you I have a policy that would disarm the Taliban, FARC, the Mexican drug cartels and drug gangs? It would reduce crime in America by 2 million arrests per year, save thousands of American lives each year, and free 1/3 of Americans from jail. It would generate $50 billion in tax revenue, just for starters. Surely no reasonable person would reject a policy that generated such fantastic benefits. That policy is to end the War on Drugs.

The War on Drugs funds the Taliban, FARC, the Mexican drug cartels, the illegal immigrant drug gangs and the drug dealers. We'll never be able to overcome these problems as long as we're funding both sides. Every time we escalate the War on Drugs, we enrich and empower the bad guys.

It's no coincidence that the rise in SWAT teams parallels our escalation of the War on Drugs. Every time heavily armed and armored cops bust in the doors of Americans in the dead of night and somebody gets killed, we see the human toll in our own country. According to the American College of Emergency Room physicians, in 2005 about 112 million Americans used an illegal drug at least once and more than 35 million used an illegal drug in the previous year. Every American looks like a criminal suspect to a cop, and that attitude feeds the us versus them mentality that leads to so many abuses of police power.

The War on Drugs is a war we can never win because it's a war against Americans, but somebody forgot to tell Obama's drug czar who recently claimed, We're not at war with the people in this country. Tell that to Charlie Lynch who's awaiting sentencing in Federal court for selling medical marijuana that's perfectly legal in California. Tell it to Ryan Frederick who's on trial for murder for shooting home invaders who happened to be local police on a dark of night, no knock drug raid. Tell

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