I had the great experience of seeing the Who in 1969 at the Electric Factory in Philadelphia. I was right up against the stage, right below Pete Townsend. Though it hadn't been released in the US yet, they played the whole Tommy. I think they opened with Pinball Wizard. There were only about 500 people there (and about 400 speakers). I may not in my life have seen a better concert.

Since then I have admired Townsend for his songwriting and his persona. I saw them another time at the Factory (coming back from the same tour - those guys toured endlessly ) and Keith Moon had thrown one of his drumsticks high in the rafters and it bounced off, landing by a roadie who lamely tried to get the stick back in Moon's hands. As he was infringing on Townsend's space, Pete kicked the guy saying "Get the F*ck Off the Stayge!".

I admired him for his politics (or non-politics) Later that summer, Abbie Hoffman tried to turn Woodstock into his own revolutionary fantasy and Townsend would have none of it. ( I think he punched him? Not sure..) Pete Townsend is probably one of the original punks. Even though I was a default lefty hippie-kid I admired that about Townsend.

One of my favorite albums of his is almost completely unknown: Iron Man. If you can find it, buy it it's great. It was designed as a Broadway style show but never got produced.

For my birthday my wife took me to see the Broadway Tommy decades later. I was prepared to be not-so-impressed (like the film) but I was delighted. It was fabulous! Townsend was involved - that's one big reason. Actually, it was improved story-wise. .Happy Birthday Pete!

I'm certainly no fan of Soros, and Sting's music is good as long as I don't have to think about his personality or politics, but the author is presenting quite a vitriolic one-sided attack. Besides overlooking the collateral damage of the drug war, the author is representative of the many who overlook the complete failure of it as well.

Law enforcement is simply picking the low hanging fruit. It isn't enough. When there is a big bust of thousands of pounds of this or that, it doesn't affect the price of drugs nationally . What's that tell any economically literate person? That law enforcement isn't making any kind of significant progress, and that they just are raising the price of doing business by 5% at best. My God, legitimate businesses have to pay taxes that are much much higher than that and still manage to survive. Law enforcement is catching the 'bad" guys? Some, maybe, but they are catching the ones who are less competent, less well-funded, and are merely thinning the herd and making an environment for a sick evolution of survival of the most ruthless,best organized, most well-connected and able to corrupt politicians (and law enforcement) etc. .
It's not as though anyone can't get and use and abuse drugs now. The author cites quite a few high profile victims of drug use. Fair enough. But did the "drug war" help these folks?

The question remains, because of the illegality of these substances how much does this discourage and prevent drug use? I say not much. Then you look at the costs and the collateral damage to our society and our freedoms and you see a huge deficit. I'd rather have a few more drug-addled junkies roaming the streets in exchange for disempowering gangs, thugs, subverted countries, corrupted law enforcement and politicians, tunnels under our border, submarines that can also be used to smuggle WMD into our country.

On balance, citing the "scourge" of drugs is becoming an empty argument.