Nation Topics - Drug War and Drug Policy | The Nation

Listen to a debate among drug policy advocates and you're likely to hear impassioned claims about the brilliant success (or dismal failure) of more "liberal" approaches in certain European countr

Research assistance: David Levinson Wilk.

For more than half a century, the US government has maintained a hard line on marijuana, denying that the plant has any medical value at all.

Nearly everyone seems to agree that the war on drugs has been a disaster, but little progress in ending it has been made.

Washington has begun the annual spring drug certification ritual.

The disastrous consequences of turning over to the police what is an essentially medical problem are steadily becoming more apparent' as narcotic arrests rise each year to new records and the habit continues to spread, especially among young people. Control by prohibition has failed, but the proposed remedies for this failure consist mainly of more of the same measures which have already proved futile.