by Hank Kalet

About the author: Hank Kalet is the news editor for two central New Jersey weekly newspapers.

The war on drugs is, simply, a war on sanity. It is a failed policy of prohibition, focused primarily on urban blacks and Latinos, that has done little more than fill our jails, overtax our police departments and turn an entire population of addicts into criminals.

It has created an underground economy that thrives on violence and greed, an economy that appears to offer those who enter its maze instant gratification and riches, but more often than not leaves its participants dead or in jail.

And it has resulted in dangerous attacks on our civil liberties through the use of neighborhood drug sweeps, the denial of housing to the families of drug dealers, motor vehicle stops made based...