Dear editor,

Former General Barry McCaffrey, U.S. Drug Czar, used to urge the media not to refer to the War on Drugs as... the War on Drugs.

It's not *really* a war, he said.

A better metaphor would be to compare the policy with
the medical struggle against cancer.

Right. Everyone knows that the way we as a society
battle cancer is by arresting and jailing millions of
people who have harmed no one; stripping away basic
Constitutional liberties; sending U.S. troops into
foreign lands to kill innocent civilians; using the
National Guard and virtually every military arm of the
federal government; instigating warrantless boat, bus,
and car searches; ordering mandatory urine tests;
utilizing asset forfeiture; virtually abolishing
financial privacy; sending black-garbed, masked, and
militarily-armed police to break into suspects' houses
in the middle of the night; bombarding the nation with
absurdly misleading propaganda....

Say, General, it sure sounds -- and feels like -- a
war to us.

But now he says that he has won the war on drugs?

http://www.mapinc.org/alert/0332.html

"We'd be better off if he just waged a war on cancer."