NO CHANGE HERE

Regarding "Hard stuff; Get real about dealing with illegal drugs"
(Page B11, Tuesday), don't look to the Obama administration for
change. The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy
immediately rejected the high-profile Global Commission on Drug
Policy call for reform and defended the "balanced drug control
efforts" of the federal government.

These so-called balanced efforts have given the land of the free the
highest incarceration rate in the world. Prohibition-related violence
has caused upward of 35,000 deaths in Mexico over the past four
years. Despite criminal penalties, the U.S. has higher rates of drug
use than European Union countries like Portugal that have decriminalized.

With national debt soaring, we can no longer afford to throw good
money after bad drug policy.

Robert Sharpe, policy analyst, Common Sense for Drug Policy, Washington, D.C.