America’s dubious policy of drug prohibition has been a frequent topic on this blog, so I was pleased to see this Mary Anastasia O’Grady/WSJ column (previous posts on O’Grady’s work are here) yesterday on the Global Commission on Drug Policy’s statement last week calling for a “paradigm shift in global drug policy.”

O’Grady’s column is particularly noteworthy because of her citing of this fine Angelo Codevilla’s/Claremont Institute piece that explains how one of the unintended consequences of the failed War on Drugs is the increasing militarization of America’s borders. As Codevilla notes:

A friendly border is like oxygen: when you’ve got it, you don’t think about it. Only when you lose it does its importance seize you. But by then it is difficult to remember the fundamental truth: if borders are friendly, you don’t have to secure them; and if they are unfriendly, you must pay dearly for every bit of partial security, because ever harsher measures produce ever greater hostility.
Thucydides’ account of the Peloponnesian War gives us what may be history’s most poignant description of how a hostile border proved disastrous to a great power. In the war’s 19th year, Sparta put a small garrison in Decelea, in their enemy’s backyard, which, Thucydides tells us, "was one of the principal causes of [the Athenians’] ruin." "[I]nstead of a city, [Athens] became a fortress," with "two wars at once," and in a few years was "worn out by having to keep guard on the fortifications." Having lost a friendly border, Athens turned itself inside out trying to secure an unfriendly one.

For an excellent overview of why America’s drug prohibition policy should be scuttled, check out this Milton Friedman argument. And if you are interested in how a regulatory structure for recreational drug usage could be devised, the University of Chicago’s James Leitzel’s TEDxUChicago presentation below provides a great starting point: