by Newt Gingrich

About the author: Newt Gingrich was the Speaker of the House of Representatives from 1995 to 1999 and served as a member of Congress for twenty years. He currently serves as a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and as a distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.

The time has come for the drug war to enter a new, winnable stage. This is a war that has consumed the nation, with varying degrees of success, for nearly three decades. In the 1980s, following the leadership of Nancy Reagan and the effective, unequivocal “Just Say No” campaign, illegal drug use declined year after year.

In the ’90s however, as the messages from the White House and the media became more ambiguous, drug use has increased—especially...