[Raellus]

America's "War on Drugs" has done little but destroy lives and incite violence both here and abroad. Treating it like a counterinsurgency war or low intensity conflict has done litte to stem the tide of drugs into the U.S. or reduce the drug-related violence in places like Mexico. If anything, it's made it worse. Criminalizing possession has led to prison overcrowding in the U.S. and turned users and small time dealers into career criminals. It's a significant drain on the American economy and there's really no return on the investment. As long as we treat illegal drugs as a more of a foreign issue than a domestic one, we are going to fail. The U.S. is the #1 consumer of illegal narcotics in the world. As long as there is such high demand, people will go to incredible lengths to supply it. It's hypocritical to blame foreigners for our [American] drug problems.

Spending billions more to use USN SSNs to sink drug carrying submarines is just throwing good money after bad.

IMHO, we need to seriously consider decrimininalization of most drugs and reprioritize government spending on treatment, rehab, and education instead of contracting private corporations to build and staff more prisons. Some European countries (Holland, at least) have done this and their addiction and drug-related crime rates (per capita) are still much, much lower than here in the U.S. Legalizing and taxing drugs like Marijuana is going to increase government revinues which can then be invested in treatement and rehabilitation programs. The system would start to pay for itself and tax dollars could go elsewhere. Decriminalization/legalization would also significantly reduce the power of the black market drug cartels both here and abroad, if not kill them altogether. The Prohibition years are a good historical precedent. This plan may not be as sexy as "black" ops raids, drone strikes, and sub-killing, but it would be a lot cheaper and more effective.