Ending Our Longest War — The War On Drugs August 29, 2019August 26, 2019 But first . . . the crime with legal drugs is that they cost so much. Check out Costco online (even if you’re not a Costco member) to see what you can save. For example, 30 tabs of Viagra list for $2,244 — but, at Costco, just $46 for its generic alternative. And have you got GoodRx on your phone? It found me the same 30 tabs at a nearby Costco for just $24, with a coupon . . . or $334 at the closest CVS or Target and $524 at the nearest Rite Aid. Shop around! And now . . . . Nick Kristof writes: My Sunday column is the Sunday Review cover and so is online early. It’s about a brave experiment unfolding in Seattle to decriminalize possession of heroin and other hard drugs, as a step toward ending America’s catastrophic war on drugs. In Seattle, a cop might confiscate heroin or cocaine but wouldn’t normally arrest an ordinary user; instead, that person might be referred to social services. I’m all in favor of this experiment. As I see it, America’s half-century war on drugs was a catastrophe: It resulted in mass incarceration and left as many Americans with arrest records as with college degrees, it accentuated racial inequity, it devastated America’s family structure, and it had no deterrent effect. One American still dies every seven minutes from a drug overdose, and 2 million American kids are living with someone with an illicit drug dependency. It’s time to stop dealing with narcotics as primarily a law enforcement issue and instead approach it as a public health problem. It’s a disgrace that only one-fifth of drug users get treatment, which pays for itself several times over. I have no illusions about drugs and have lost any number of friends and classmates to them, but we can’t arrest our way out of this problem. So bravo to Seattle for leading America to a more sensible approach that recognizes that we’re facing a massive health problem that needs to be dealt with as such. I hope the presidential candidates will endorse the Seattle model, and here’s my piece on why they should. No?