Obama Drug Policy: Reforming the Criminal Justice System

Rafael Lemaitre (Communications director for the Office of National Drug Control Policy)
The Huffington Post (US)
Friday, December 2, 2011

The complexity and scale of our drug problem requires a nationwide effort to support smart drug policies that reduce drug use and its consequences. The Obama Administration has been engaged in a government-wide effort to reform our nation's drug policies and restore balance to the way we deal with the drug problem. We have pursued a variety of alternatives that abandon an unproductive enforcement-only "War on Drugs" approach to drug control and acknowledge we cannot arrest our way out of the drug problem and, further, that drug addiction is a disease of the brain, not some "moral failing."