Money Talks: A New Direction in the War on Drugs?

Drug Policy Alliance

At a Congressional hearing last week, Drug Czar John Walters defended the Bush budget from hostile members of Congress and said it’s time to eliminate anti-drug programs that don’t work and increase funding for programs that do work. Walters went on to say that the federal government should stop focusing so many resources on low-level offenders:

"It could be a more powerful tool if it's moved and integrated, remains state and local focused, and part of a consolidated effort…to break the businesses that are the drug trade. Otherwise, you are chasing primarily small people, putting them in jail, year after year, generation after generation. Break the business. Don't break generation after generation… of young men, especially poor, minority young men in our cities, and [put] them in jail.”