QUOTE OF THE DAY: “…conceived to eradicate the illegal drug market, the war on drugs cannot be won”

“If there is one number that embodies the seemingly intractable challenge imposed by the illegal drug trade on the relationship between the United States and Mexico, it is $177.26. That is the retail price, according to Drug Enforcement Administration data, of one gram of pure cocaine from your typical local pusher. That is 74 percent cheaper than it was 30 years ago.
”This number contains pretty much all you need to evaluate the Mexican and American governments’ ‘war’ to eradicate illegal drugs from the streets of the United States. They would do well to heed its message. What it says is that the struggle on which they have spent billions of dollars and lost tens of thousands of lives over the last four decades has failed…
Conceived to eradicate the illegal drug market, the war on drugs cannot be won.”
      - New York Times, July 3, 2012