Is the US really ready to end its drug war?

8 states and Washington, DC have legalised recreational marijuana, in conflict with federal law

In recent years an international movement to reform global narcotics policies has been growing, with activists and presidents alike declaring that the United States’ “war on drugs” has failed. Now it seems the US has finally gotten the message – from Latin America, at least, whose nations have long borne the brunt of international drug prohibition.

On December 16, president Barack Obama signed into law a bipartisan commission to assess four decades of US counter-narcotics policies and programmes in Latin America. The Western