The dubious policies of overcriminalization and drug prohibition are two frequent topics on this blog, so this excellent Ethan Nadelmann essay on the utter failure of America’s 40-year War on Drugs caught my eye. The entire piece is worth reading, but his final point is particularly illuminating:

Legalization has to be on the table. Not because it is necessarily the best solution. Not because it is the obvious alternative to the evident failures of drug prohibition. But for three important reasons:

First, because it is the best way to reduce dramatically the crime, violence, corruption and other extraordinary costs and harmful consequences of prohibition;

Second, because there are as many options — indeed more — for legally regulating drugs as there are options for prohibiting them; and

Third, because putting legalization on the table involves asking fundamental questions about why drug prohibitions first emerged, and whether they were or are truly essential to protect human societies from their own vulnerabilities. Insisting that legalization be on the table — in legislative hearings, public forums and internal government discussions — is not the same as advocating that all drugs be treated the same as alcohol and tobacco. It is, rather, a demand that prohibitionist precepts and policies be treated not as gospel but as political choices that merit critical assessment, including objective comparison with non-prohibitionist approaches.

My question is whether the elaborate law enforcement infrastructure that has been constructed to deal with drug prohibition policy become such a powerful political force that it effectively prevents Congress from changing this disastrous policy for the better good of the majority?