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Editor's Observations: The Geology Of Drug Policy In 2002, Frank O. Bowman Iii

Faculty Publications

Public concern about drug abuse as a major issue in American life may be ebbing. The notion that "the drug war is a failure" has become the common wisdom in academic and journalistic circles. Support for routine and lengthy imprisonment of non-violent drug offenders may be eroding, even among the prosecutors, police, and judges whose job it is to enforce the law. Anger among African American, Latino, and other minority communities at the perceived discriminatory enforcement of drug laws is simmering and may begin to boil over in ways that effect the political terrain. And after the events of September …