War on Drugs: EPIC FAIL

Talk about the legalization of marijuana is picking up, due to many factors. Cash-strapped states like California are considering it, and the more liberal Massachusetts. With the recent dramatic crackdown on the tobacco industry, people will still need an outlet for their stress, frustration and spare cash. But legalization is topic for another post. This is about the demise of the 'War on Drugs.'
Even the White House has realized that the 'War on Drugs' is going even worse than any of our other failed wars, with such a minimal impact on the availability and cost of drugs (particularly weed) as to be completely irrelevant. They don't even want to keep the title anymore. Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times has written a wonderful op-ed about the idea the drugs have effectively 'Won the War.' Forty years, over a trillion dollars, an incarceration rate 5 times the world average, a 1200% increase in drug-related arrests in 30 years, and I can still make a couple calls and have a bag of weed in a few hours. And I don't know any dealers.
And what about the rampant corruption within the law-enforcement system? How do you police illegal substances when you can't even trust the police? Recent stories hint at the continuing problem that much of which could be alleviated by a different approach to narcotics. Many other problems could see solutions with legalization, including a reverse in the flow of cash to stop drugs and an increase in education and treatment. Now, these may seem like crazy ideas, but I'm not the only one spreading them around. A lot of reasonable people are sick of the wasting of their tax dollars particularly on a substance that has never caused a single direct fatality. The 'why not' approach seems to be gaining some headway, since the far-right is too busy screaming about Obama, dead abortion doctors and jokes made at the expense of the Palins'. I would like to see an end to all major operations in this useless war within my lifetime.