Facts Do Matter: A Reply to Professor Wisotsky

Abstract

Although he agrees that the "drug war is an indefensible disaster that harms almost everyone," Professor Wisotsky opines that my article, Drug Prohibition: An Unnatural Disaster' is "the wrong argument at the wrong time," because, he says, the issue has nothing to do with facts? A "rational approach" has no "potential to make a difference" where drugs are concerned because "people, even policy makers, are not driven by fact and knowledge, but by values and symbols." "[T]he drug debate," he declares, "is not and has never been about facts or evidence.' "[D]ecades of relentless anti-drug propaganda have deprived the public and its officials of their powers of critical thinking on this subject."