Ending the "war on drugs"

Far more stupid, costly and counter-productive even than Bush's so-called "war on Terror" - the "war on drugs".

Two recent takes on how to end it, one more fun, one more serious:

- Israeli ad on legalizing marijuana

- a thorough paper on a "neo-paternalist" (read: liberal-paternalist, as opposed to conservative-paternalist) approach to drug laws offenders - the idea: "coerced abstinence" while leaving offenders (as long as they stay off drugs) out of prison. To me, sounds like a much less defensible and effective approach than simply legalizing the stuff. But then again, since there seems to be no prospect of any of it (even grass) becoming legal any time soon, this might be a step forward?!

Link exchange - on GDP, left and right...

A few things I recommend reading:

A lot of good stuff from Matthew Yglesias some thinking on the issue of growth, resource allocation etc. Brings back to the issue that GDP measurement is awfully inadequate - maybe, since there is no better single indicator, we should start tracking a combination of indicators?? (like GDP, health data, income distribution, GDP composition etc.) - and also a nice post on health care...


And from the Dish on prohibition - reminding us that the desire to modify the other is not only from the right, but also from the left...

Enjoy!