Losing the Drug War - a Frank Viviano article

A new exclusive article from the 8 times Pulitzer Prize nominated journalist/ best selling author and barganews staff reporter Frank Viviano on just how he thinks the war on drugs is being won and lost;



Amsterdam - If the reigning symbol of U.S. drug policy in 2005 is a combat plane diving over Latin American cocaine fields, for more than a generation Holland’s has been its smoke-filled coffee shops, bathed in the fumes of government-approved marijuana.
In almost every respect, the approach to drugs – hard and soft – by these two NATO allies represents polar opposites on the scale between de facto total war and de facto legalization. Since 1975, marijuana and other cannabis derivatives have been openly sold and consumed in hundreds of cafes and other outlets licensed by the Dutch authorities.
More recently, cities here have begun providing free doses of heroin to addicts, in a test program watched closely by governments across Europe.

The reasoning behind these measures could hardly be more distant from the “zero-tolerance” logic that prevails in the United States.

The full article is here