When I first became aware of the drug war, I was a spirited anti-racism activist living in the Deep South. I chiefly saw drug prohibition as a war against people of color and wanted the crusade to end. I didn't yet know about the suffering of debilitated cannabis users, the widespread and avoidable risks to public health caused by abstinence-only policies, and the fierce linkage between the artificially inflated street prices of illegals and the subsequent emergence of crack and meth as a means to cut corners and cost. There was a time when I simply hoped that, in the spirit of bi-partisan unity and brotherly love, lawmakers would rewrite the prohibition rulebook in order to make the war "more equal."