The War Is Not Lost

In "The Lost War," his Outlook article on the international drug trade, Misha Glenny writes that "the 'War on Drugs' is defeating the 'war on terror.'" What he fails to note, however, is that while we still have a lot to accomplish, the national effort against drugs is working on its own terms.

With a comprehensive anti-drug strategy in place, involving foreign policy, enforcement, education, treatment and prevention, overall drug use in the United States has declined by roughly half in the past 25 years -- from about 13 percent of the population in 1980 to just over 6 percent of the population in 2005. Cocaine use, including crack, is down 70 percent. Do we want to go back?

Plan Colombia has helped to reduce cocaine and crack use in America. Yet about half the drugs coming into the United States come through or from Mexico. While Mexico has eradicated more drugs than any nation on earth, it needs help. Of course we should assist Mexico in its anti-drug efforts.

In Afghanistan, we should do more, not less, to fight drugs -- doing so stops the money that funds and protects Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda. Glenny's impressions nothwithstanding, this effort is not hopeless. What is hopeless is the attitude of the British and American military that fighting drugs will destabilize the Afghan economy. The happiness of Afghan farmers is less important to me than the security of American citizens.

Afghanistan has once again become the No. 1 producer of opium and heroin in the world on our watch -- by our lack of action. Afghanistan's drugs are killing the youth of Asia and America -- and protecting al-Qaeda.

Domestically, our efforts have also had an impact. In Baltimore, for example, where the mayor once favored legalization, activist policies involving treatment and enforcement have contributed to a 42.5 percent drop in heroin-related emergency room admissions, according to the Department of Health and Human Services' Drug Abuse Warning Network.

The lesson is clear: We cannot hide from the drug abuse problem. We must confront it.

When Glenny writes, "The problem starts with prohibition, the basis of the war on drugs," his premise -- that the "war" is "lost" and strategies are failing -- is flawed. If any other problem -- hunger, poverty, illiteracy -- were reduced by half, we'd call it major progress. Yes, as Glenny states, "the war on drugs has been a third rail issue" in Washington since it began. That's because Congress and the American people understand that to fail to confront drugs would be to cause a train wreck.

Robert S. Weiner is the former spokesman for the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy and former communications director for the House Committee on Narcotics Abuse and Control.