Fort the first time, the United Nations have "lavishly praised drug decriminalization" in its 2009 World Drug Report on the state of global drug policy.
My favorite part: "The world's 'drug czar,' Antonio Maria Costa, would have you believe that the legalization movement is calling for the abolition of drug control," he said. "Quite the contrary, we are demanding that governments replace the failed policy of prohibition with a system that actually regulates and controls drugs, including their purity and prices, as well as who produces them and who they can be sold to. You can't have effective control under prohibition, as we should have learned from our failed experiment with alcohol in the U.S. between 1920 and 1933."
The axis of this debate has been dramatically altered ever since Portugal decriminalized the posession of small quantities of drugs in 2001. I will be interested to see how this issue picks up steam here, but guess is that this economic crisis will just accelorate legalization. We can no longer afford the infrastructure of our countries failed "War on Drugs".
