How the United States Lost the War on Drugs

Pretty ambitious title. I'm printing it out now.

Update: Well, I wasn't expecting that. That's some of the best journalism on American drug policy I've ever read. It's 20 pages, engrossing but demanding. So I recommend you read it when you have a half hour to kill. It has a very good timeline of how American policy changed over the years, adapting to new problems of drug abuse and drug distribution, and specifically how different ideologies in the office of the drug czar affected America's targeted approaches to (usually) the wrong enemies.

Update 2: Absolutely engrossing, informative, and well-told. I strongly recommend you pick up the latest Rolling Stone and read this article. It'll take you through a timeline linking the Vietnam War to today's methamphetamine epidemic, and introduce you to many failed drug policy experiments along the way. I was somewhat hopeful in the end, because there have been moments along the way where something really almost happened. From the perspective of drug policy, I suspect Hilary Clinton would be far more effective than Giuliani, personally.