The New Third Rail of Politics

The "third rail of politics" up until recently was Social Security. No politician had the balls to even approach the idea of tinkering with Roosevelt's legacy. Bush put that issue to rest and it's now a national argument.

The new "third rail" is the War on Drugs. This strategy of spending more and more money to fight drugs has proven to be the biggest scam on the American taxpayer since the advent of welfare. No politician, regardless of popularity will even utter a single word about the failure of this entrenched program.

I'll say it however: the War on Drugs is a complete and utter failure! We pump ungodly amounts of money into this program (and it is a program just like Medicare or Head Start) and all it does is keep more and more law enforcement folks from focusing on other more important issues.

The new Bush budget for the drug war has increased by $268,000,000 from the already burgeoning amount of last year and we have what to show for it? Nothing.

Treatment and prevention is the way to reduce drug use, and granted some of the funds go toward that cause, but eradication programs in foreign nations and sending agents to Afghanistan isn't going to work if we can't reduce the demand in the US.

How many people are in jail for drug posession that shouldn't be? We are paying entirely too many tax dollars to incarcerate non-violent drug users who can be better served by treatment or intervention programs.

That concludes my Libertariam screed for the week. Thanks for listening.

Update: I was contacted by the author of the site I linked to above. He set me straight on this point:
One minor correction. The federal drug budget has increased BY $268,000,000 TO $12,431,000,000. Oh, and that's not counting incarceration or federal court costs.

The post above has been corrected.