United Liberty

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie is the latest in a slowly growing number of politicians who is admitting what millions of Americans already know - that the policy of incarcerating millions of drug users is extremely illogical and counterproductive.  Christie joins fellow Garden State politician Cory Booker who recently took to Twitter to decry the so-called “War on Drugs,” which, by any reasonable standard, is a war that has been a utter disaster.

In Christie’s view, the state of New Jersey would be far better off providing treatment for drug abusers than it is “warehousing addicted people.”  By the Governor’s math, incarceration costs the state $49,000 a year as opposed to $24,000 for treatment.  While one can debate whether taxpayers should be footing the bill to provide such treatment, it’s surely a significant improvement over a mindset that sees abusers as felons to be punished, rather than patients who need help.

Christie is remarkable for being one of the few Republican figures to criticize the War on Drugs.  GOP nominee Mitt Romney has expressed his intention to fully continue the War on Drugs, even amp it up.  Newt Gingrich famously praised Singapore’s draconian policy of executing drug smugglers.

For many years, it is has been something that was hardly discussed by mainstream leaders.  So it is indeed encouraging to see more and more of them come to the understanding that the War on Drugs is doing immense harm.  We’ll see if this actually has any impact on policy.