U.S. SHOULD FOLLOW EUROPE'S LEAD IN DRUG-LAW REFORM

Afghanistan is the world's largest producer of opium, the raw material
used to make ******. According to the State Department, both the
Taliban and the Northern Alliance have financed their activities by
taxing the opium trade. A recent State Department report blames the
Afghan drug trade for increased levels of global terrorism and notes
that the production of opium "undermines the rule of law by generating
large amounts of cash, contributing to regional money-laundering and
official corruption."

Paradoxically, Afghanistan's brutal Taliban regime was able to reap
obscene profits from the ****** trade because of drug prohibition, not
in spite of it. The same lesson, unfortunately, applies here at home.

Just as alcohol prohibition did in the early 1900s, the modern-day
drug war subsidizes organized crime. An easily grown weed like
marijuana is literally worth its weight in gold in U.S. cities. In
Colombia, the various armed factions waging civil war are financially
dependent on America's drug war. The illicit trade keeps prices high
and a cartel reaps the profits. While U.S. politicians ignore the
historical precedent of alcohol prohibition, Europeans are instituting
harm reduction, a public he