The war on drugs costs the United States 47 billion dollars a year. In 2016, the U.S. jailed two million people for drug offenses. And in 2017, 72,000 people died from accidental drug overdoses. It’s safe to say the conflict has been a costly failure. In 2014, journalist Johann Hari began studying the root causes of addiction. He asked why are we at war with drug addicts? Is it the illegality of drugs that destroys addicts, or the drugs themselves? When societies ban a drug and then they criminalize its users aren’t they barking up the wrong tree?