US War on Drugs Has Failed: Report

America is treating the symptoms rather than the disease of drug use, and its war on drugs will continue to fail unless it changes course, a new report by an influential Washington think tank finds. The report urges the US to develop stronger ties in the Caribbean and Latin America, where drug-interdiction efforts have suffered under the Bush administration, the LA Times reports.

Drug-fighting efforts are doomed to fail unless the problem of domestic consumption is attacked with as much zeal as the traffickers are, says the Brookings Institution report, whose co-author is Ernesto Zedillo, a former Mexican president who criticizes the American approach as "asymmetrical." "The only long-run solution to the problem of illegal narcotics is to reduce the demand for drugs in the major consuming countries, including the United States," the report states.