Yet theres no escaping the reality that the countrys collective imagination, fueled by research and compassion, has shifted toward saner drug laws. Polls have shown that the overwhelming majority of us believe the drug war has failed, and that ending it is long overdue. Support for the legalization of marijuana stands at greater than half the population, with fresh converts signing on daily. And people are finally beginning to understand a simple truth about drugs: The more dangerous a substance, the more sinister its reputation, the greater the justification for replacing prohibition with regulation.
Conventional wisdom has Obama tackling drug law reform in 2012 if then, not before.
Meanwhile, change we can believe in must come from voter initiatives and/or legislative action in each of the 50 states, pressure on the U.S. Congress, and support for Senator Webbs courageous efforts to radically overhaul our criminal justice system, including its drug laws.
It would be nice if the US whilst coming to this realisation and implementing these changes would encourage the other countries that they influenced to start wars on their own people in the name of morality to follow suit with legalisation.