US War on Drugs Has Failed: Report

America is treating the symptoms rather than the disease of drug use, and its war on drugs will continue to fail unless it changes course, a new report by an influential Washington think tank finds. The report urges the US to develop stronger ties in the Caribbean and Latin America, where drug-interdiction efforts have suffered under the Bush administration, the LA Times reports.

Drug-fighting efforts are doomed to fail unless the problem of domestic consumption is attacked with as much zeal as the traffickers are, says the Brookings Institution report, whose co-author is Ernesto Zedillo, a former Mexican president who criticizes the American approach as "asymmetrical." "The only long-run solution to the problem of illegal narcotics is to reduce the demand for drugs in the major consuming countries, including the United States," the report states.
(More War on Drugs stories.)