The war on drugs has been an utter failure. Nothing about a war addresses the underlying human problems. The worst aspect of it all is that every failure becomes evidence that we're not fighting hard enough. That if we just fight harder, we'll win the war.

Ostensibly, point of the war on drugs is to help the addicts. Yet in most contexts, they get treated with disdain. We provide very little direct help. There's basically nothing to help respectable people, so respectable people don't get help. Instead, they hide their problem until it grows too large to be contained.

It sometimes feels like compassion for drug addicts starts and ends with punishing drug dealers. Maybe it's just easier that way. I think we as a society need to take a hard look in the mirror and ask ourselves if we really did all that we could do to save those lives.