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You wrote, "The WOD can't be won."

Yes, it can, but evidently not dramatically enough or quickly enough for the notorious short-commitment span of the American people. For example, drug courts established in my home state and elsewhere are achieving remarkable results in terms of both recovery and in the reduction of criminal recidivism.

But legalistic and economic reasons aside, one of the reasons I was drawn to conservatism as a political philosophy is because of its clarity of moral purpose. Legalizing drugs is another step on the road to cultural acceptance and affirmation. Look at gambling: the same murderous rats who ran the casinos in Vegas are running the casinos now, only nationwide. Gambling is accepted, even celebrated, with its grubby, loathsome philosophy permeating everything from the Internet to the local 7-11, teaching children that the one thing infinitely better than hard work and study is the luck of the draw. After drugs, I suppose prostitution is next. After all, we're talking 'victimless' crimes, right? And prostitutes aren't really prostitutes: they're 'sex workers', and their johns are 'participants in the sex industry', consumers. That is the logic, correct?

I say we draw the line here, now. Better to fight the good fight and lose than to passively acquiesce. That would be such a European thing to do.

re :I was drawn to conservatism as a political philosophy is because of its clarity of moral purpose.

I know many socialists who say the same thing.

Taking drugs, gambling going to prostitutes, you could say that that indicates a weak willed nature, a lack of moral backbone.

We could even go further and mention smokers, drinkers and those with very unhealthy diets.

After all if we are going to look after in fact assume responsibility for others because they are too weak to assume responsibility for there own actions, or hand that responsibility over to the government why stop at just prostitution, gambling and drugs.

There is so much else we can do to regulate people and make a perfect society.

Better to fight the good fight and lose than to passively acquiesce. That would be such a European thing to do

the better fight is to restore respect for individual rights and Liberty. The drug war itself fits the European way. The way of putting the state above the individual. The drug war is corrosive to our liberties. Humans are moral beings and I believe if left alone, most would make the proper choice. You seem to think that everyone would become drug crazed zombies if all drugs were legalized. I have faith that would not be the case.

Yes, it can, but evidently not dramatically enough or quickly enough for the notorious short-commitment span of the American people. For example, drug courts established in my home state and elsewhere are achieving remarkable results in terms of both recovery and in the reduction of criminal recidivism.

I call BS. Not quickly enough? They have been fighting this so called WOD since I was young, I am well over 60 now. We not only haven't won,and are not winning now, we have taken relatively benign street gangs who had little money and crummy little weapons such as zip guns and chains and have helped them gain financial independence(the same way gangs did duriong prohibition), and who are now about as well armed as they can get because they have the money to do so. Money that they obtained by selling and running illegal drugs.

As long as drugs are illegal we will have them in this country, the demand makes it so, and as long as they are illegal we will have street gangs killing, robbing and generally causing violence in order to maintain the wealth they have now. It was true with booze and it is true with drugs.

Legalize, we will still have drugs but we won't have the crime that goes with the illegal selling of them.

Rum runners are virtually gone from this country because of the legalizing of booze by the lifting of prohibition. Anyone who can't see the problem would be solved by legalizing drugs is an idiot and if you fall into the category they you are truely blind to the ways of the world and are more interested in forcing your version of morality onto people than you are with stopping the crime involved in the WOD.

Not all gambling is about the luck of the draw. Poker for example, requires a great deal of memorization, understanding of mathematics and fast computation of probabilities, as well as being a quick study of human psychology. Sure, luck beats skill everytime, but the law of large numbers will make sure skill wins out eventually.

I assume you are talking about gambling games which are purely random and which have no strategery to pursue.

"Yes, it can, but evidently not dramatically enough or quickly enough for the notorious short-commitment span of the American people."

So after 30 years of nothing but failure and the strategic equivalent of pumping 1000's of gallons of gasoline on a house fire you want to keep doing the same thing. How about we let people have the consequences of their actions? How about we take the 40 billion dollars spent and write it off and say "No More!"? How about we stop the wrong-address-no-knock-raids by a paramilitary police that kills or hospitalizes innocent people? How about we simply say to the addicts and junkies, "You're on your own, both help and death are available, take your pick"?

Insanity is defined as doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. I vote for sanity.

Drugs have been illegal for 75 years and we have had the "Drug War" for 35 years, how damn long do you think we should keep spending 40 billion on the DEA alone plus the state and local costs? We have more people in prison than any other 4 countries in the world.

My real question though is who annointed you and people like you shove your morals down other peoples throats? I'm not a druggie, hell I don't even drink alcohol. The thing is though that so long as they aren't bothering other people I could care less about the people who do drugs. I see this war on drugs as encouraging these people to steal as well as commiting other crimes to keep a few other (dealers) criminals rich. Forget the drug war, spend the money on education and treatment. Let the government supervise the distribution of drugs and see what happens to crime.

You wrote, "The WOD can't be won."

Hardly. They're just eliminating competitors.

The WOD CANNOT be won. We can simply turn back to the 1920s, and watch the illegal stamp put on alcohol...and see that the efforts of the police and laws...simply didn't do the job. People generally looked the other way. Eventually....we got to the point of seeing how worthless the effort was, and state by state...we stopped prohibition.

The WOD is the same way. You could hire 30,000 additional cops...have drug tests in 30 percent of the work places of America...seize personal property of citizens convicted of drug use...and even start executing anyone with a significant amount of drugs in their possession as a sales guy. It does not matter. They won't stop. I can walk through any neighborhood in Mobile...even upper class neighborhoods...and 20 percent of the folks are smoking pot. There are college professors doing coke. There are congressmen using drugs. It doesn't matter.

You want to have an impact? Legalize pot alone...authorize dealers in each county where it can be bought, and tax the heck out of it...and watch tax revenue jump by leaps and bounds. Face a serious reality here...there are probably 10,000 cops throughout the US...on the payroll of some local or international drug cartel. DEA has them and so does the border patrol. We are spinning wheels.