Editor's Note: This column initially appeared in the on June 12.

"Public safety is the single most important mission for government, and illegal drugs are the number one threat to public safety in Pennsylvania." So says our esteemed Pennsylvania Attorney General Linda L. Kelley on her website. Or maybe the statement was left over by the former Attorney General, who is now our Governor. In either event, the statement is wrong. Stupidity is the greatest threat to public safety. For the information of all concerned, the War on Drugs has been lost.

Don't take ye olde columnist's word for it, I merely quote the Global Commission on Drug Policy. Members include all sorts of distinguished people such as Kofi Annan, former head of the UN; Richard Branson, the British billionaire; George P. Schultz, our former Secretary of State; and former presidents of Brazil, Colombia and Mexico. Neither the Global Commission on Drug Policy nor I maintain that what we usually call illegal drugs (marijuana, heroin, cocaine, etc.) are good for you, although marijuana has been found to have some legitimate medical uses. Rather, the situation is the same now with respect to drugs as it was in the 1920s when Prohibition made liquor, wine and beer illegal. Then the resulting crime overcame law enforcement and corrupted society.

In 1933 the 21st Amendment was passed repealing the 18th (the amendment that allowed the national government to impose Prohibition). Sanity more or less returned. It was not that alcoholic beverages were found to be good for you (although some taken in moderation are). Rather, the majority of Americans realized that prohibiting the sale of alcoholic beverages in the United States was, to put it mildly, impractical and caused more problems than doing so purported to solve. So let it be said of drugs. Fox News reports that the drug laws have cost America one trillion dollars over the last 40 years, not to mention hundreds of thousands of lives. It reported that "even U.S. drug czar Gil Kerlikowske concedes the (present drug) strategy hasn't worked."

"In the grand scheme, it has not been successful," Kerikowskie said of the War on Drugs in speaking to the Associated Press. "Forty years later, the concern about drugs and drug problems is, if anything, magnified, intensified." American Action, which tracks such things, reports that the U.S. in 2011 spends $1,716.77 per second fighting drugs. (The 40 years, by the way, refers to the fact that President Nixon announced the start of the War on Drugs 40 years ago.)

Rarely does a politician tell us the truth about drugs. President Obama did take a brave stand. He said, again according to Fox, that he promised to "reduce drug use and the great danger it causes with a new national policy that treats drug use more as a public health issue and focus on prevention and treatment." How would he do that? He didn't say.