It might behoove them and the general public to read “Chasing the Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs,” and to watch Michael Moore’s movie, “Where to Invade Next.” What author Johann Hari discovered is that drug-dependent people respond more positively to understanding, compassion and emotional connectedness than they do to punishment. And they are punished in a variety of ways.

While this does not guarantee that a person will stop using drugs, he found that there is a greater chance that he/she will. One way to promote understanding is to legalize or at least decriminalize drugs. This conclusion did not come easy for me, but after years of seeing the damage that the war on drugs has done, it is the only sensible conclusion. The U.S. can learn a lot from other countries where drugs have been decriminalized; Portugal, for one, “where HIV infections and drug-related deaths have decreased.”