Well, I disagree about her being a horrible person. From what I saw she truly loved and supported her husband, even if she may have been a bit controlling. Anybody (Wife) who does that can't be all bad as a person.

That said, I agree that her war on drugs had horrific consequences that dog us to this day. All the money would have been better spent on treatment for those addicted.

A recent article in the paper (Review Journal in Las Vegas, I think,) mentioned that legalized Marijuana in Colorado and elsewhere has cut into the Mexican Drug Cartels cash flow and profits and they're having to drop their prices to compete. Had the war on drugs never made it so profitable for them in the first place...

As for D.A.R.E.: What a joke. It did have some positive effect in the inner city gang neighborhoods, but when you took it to more suburban and rural locations, studies showed that it did more harm than good, actually introducing kids who would have never had any idea about drug use until they were several years older, to the world of, gee if I take that I can feel [better, different, whatever] But in spite of those mostly suppressed studies that the program overall did nothing good for the vast majority of kids, they motored on, as it was a sacred cow of a program/policy.

Nancy Regan may not have truly intended the harm her crusade caused, but it would have been nice if she had at some point seen the light and admitted to the failure of the [Her] war on drugs.

Now due to all this nonsense that Mrs. Regan helped start, those of us who need pain medication for legitimate purposes have a hard time getting it as the DEA is looking over the shoulders of any Doctor who prescribes "too much" either to one patient or overall. Took a prescription for a Painkiller to the pharmacy for my mother who'd had surgery earlier in the day, and had to return to the ER for painful complications. Sure she got some medication at the ER, but she didn't need to be admitted, we could get the meds she needed at the all-night pharmacy the ER staff told us to go to... Because of the war on drugs, the pharmacy wouldn't fill the prescription until it had been verified, come back the next day...

Steve Gobel

P.S. I had a cousin who died from a hot shot of heroin after several attempts over several years to get clean. We thought he'd finally made it as this time around he'd been off for several months. Then an old "friend" saw him at the gas station, next thing you know he's back at it, but having been clean, not having the same tolerance, his former dose killed him. His "friend" didn't call 911 as he was [an idiot] afraid of what the cops might do to him.