The drug warriors have increased the size of government. They have converted tort laws into an instrument of economic redistribution and the principle of buyer's risk taken into that of buyer's risk selling. They have perverted the medical criteria of disease and treatment by defining certain "bad" choices as diseases, and certain "good" coercions as treatments. They have redefined the relationship between drug seller and drug buyer from a contract between two responsible adults into a victimization relationship.
The war on drugs has by all accounts failed. Yet our national dialogue about how to address this failure is trapped in a dead-end, partisan debate over whom stands tougher against drug use and dealing.