by Jesse Jackson

About the author: Jesse Jackson, a reverend and longtime civil rights activist, is president and founder of the Rainbow/PUSH (People United to Save Humanity) Coalition, an organization dedicated to expanding economic, political, and educational opportunities for disadvantaged communities.

America’s war on drugs is a debacle with ever-increasing casualties and costs. The prison population has tripled since 1980 because the law requires jail time for drug offenders. Even so, drug use continues to rise among the young and stay roughly the same overall.

Americans do not use more drugs, on average, than people in other nations, but the U.S. alone has chosen to lock up low-level offenders. Nearly 60 percent of all people in federal prisons are doing time for drug violations. In state and local jails, the figure...