Look, I get why people think the war on drugs hasn't worked. Billions spent, incarceration rates through the roof, and drugs are still everywhere. That's a fair observation. But calling it an "abject failure" misses the bigger picture. Here's the thing: we've actually made serious progress in reducing drug use among young people over the last few decades. Prevention programs work. Treatment access has expanded. And while the black market persists, we've disrupted countless cartels and trafficking networks. That's not failure - that's a tough fight we're slowly winning. The real problem isn't the strategy itself. It's that we've never properly funded treatment and prevention. We've over-relied on enforcement while underfunding the health side. That's a fixable mistake, not proof the whole approach is doomed. Portugal's model shows what happens when you balance both - usage drops, addiction rates fall. So no, it's not an abject failure. It's a work in progress that needs smarter execution.

You know, I was at a community meeting last week where a mom talked about losing her son to fentanyl. He wasn't some hardened criminal—he was a kid who got hooked after a prescription. That's the reality we're ignoring here. You bring up Portugal, and I love that example. But here's the thing—Portugal didn't just decriminalize. They massively invested in housing, jobs, and healthcare for addicts. That's not "the war on drugs working better." That's a fundamentally different approach. We've spent trillions on incarceration and interdiction, and what do we have? Record overdose deaths. Cartels richer than ever. I agree we've failed to fund the right strategies. But when a strategy fails so consistently for fifty years, maybe it's not a fixable mistake—maybe the whole premise is broken. We can't just say "we're doing it wrong" forever. At some point, we have to admit the war itself is the problem.

Look, I hear what you're saying about the trillion dollars and the overdose numbers. Those are real. They sting. But here's what I think you're missing—we're actually seeing the payoff now in places that got it right. Portugal isn't an outlier. It's proof that when you balance enforcement with healthcare, it works. And Singapore? Sure, it's small, but their approach shows that strict laws plus treatment can produce results. You call that authoritarian—I call it having the courage to actually fund what works. The problem isn't the war on drugs. It's that we've only fought half of it. We poured everything into policing and nothing into recovery. That's like blaming your car for not moving when you only filled half the tank. We're finally shifting toward that balance. More treatment courts, more harm reduction, more focus on cartel leadership instead of users. That's not abandoning the war—that's finally fighting it intelligently.