TED Talks: Why We Need to End The War on Drugs

In this TED talk, drug policy reformist Ethan Nadelmann pleas to his audience why the “War on Drugs” or drug trade needs to end. Nadelmann leads his discussion by talking a little about the war between police officers and security vs. people when it comes to them performing checks on people and then they end up complaining about how their basic rights became violated. Then he starts talking about why people and activists need to stop the drug trade by telling everyone that the US is the leading country to legalize marijuana for medical performances and that it is impossible to get rid of drugs or stopping drug trades. Nadelmann then proposes that instead we all should learn how to live with them so that all drugs would cause the least amount of harm as possible, as well how they could possibly benefit people. He believes that the legalization of drugs has almost nothing to do with science but who ever uses them and who is perceived to use them. He then backs up this claim by saying that cocaine became illegal due to fear of blacks sniffing the white powder stuff and becoming criminals (something similar to what Dr. Carl Hart, my author, said at first before doing his own research) and if whites were perceived to use them then it may have been legalized all over the US right now. He also asks why some drug addicts get the chance to recover from drug addiction while other get punished and sent to jail just because of the type of drug they use. Nadelmann believes that by legalizing more drugs people can get treatment for drugs, such as heroin, and actually recover instead of being punished and never recovering.

http://www.ted.com/talks/ethan_nadelmann_why_we_need_to_end_the_war_on_drugs#t-854977