jeremy's Reviews > Too High to Fail: Cannabis and the New Green Economic Revolution

to anyone that has been paying attention for the past few decades (or can recall the lessons of alcohol prohibition), it is rather evident that the war on drugs has been not only a dismal failure, but also a tremendous waste of lives and resources. this counterproductive debacle has cost us some one trillion dollars, swelled our prisons (we now have the highest incarceration rate of any country in the world), enabled cartels, disrupted lives, ruined families - all while having a most negligible effect on supply, demand, availability, and consumption. doug fine's too high to fail takes aim at this national travesty, especially the ongoing focus on cannabis, in a well-researched, intriguing, and often infuriating exposé.

fine and his family moved from their home in new mexico to what is perhaps ground zero of the ever-burgeoning movement to restore sense and logic to our local, state, and federal drug policies - mendocino county, situated within california's famed emerald triangle. known for progressive attitudes towards cannabis, medical marijuana, and the cultivation thereof, fine uses mendocino as a litmus test or springboard from which the rest of the nation may learn and soon follow suit. fine spent a year amongst growers, local law enforcement, and other citizens to gauge how well their permissive experiment is going - focusing often on crime, revenue, sustainability, and quality of life issues.

while fine's argument is not a new or unique one, it adds a compelling voice to the chorus of americans (judges, sheriffs, moms, farmers, academics, conservatives, liberals, and other fans of logic and reason) whom overwhelmingly now favor access to medical marijuana and, to a lesser extent (but still in the majority), those that believe cannabis ought to be reclassified under federal law altogether (as it is currently regulated more stringently than cocaine, opium, methamphetamine, and a whole host of oft-abused pharmaceutical and prescription drugs). fine's reportage takes on a personal note, as he evaluates much more than data and figures alone. with a sluggish economy and new opportunities for taxation and the reduction of costs related to cannabis prohibition, more towns, cities, counties, and states are beginning to explore alternatives to our decades-old draconian drug laws. with so much to gain (alleviated prison conditions, reduced enforcement spending, suppression of drug cartels and associated violence, increased tax revenue, agricultural and industrial resurgence per hemp farming, regulation of the black market, focus on harm reduction, the availability of demonstrably effective medicine, the decriminalization of behavior that is increasingly losing its taboo, and more), fine makes clear that the social acceptance and voter tolerance of drug law alternatives continue to gain in popularity. while our nation's politicians continue to lag behind on an issue with such far-reaching ramifications and consequences, the populace's demands for change continue to grow ever louder.

too high to fail is not an academic treatise by any stretch of the imagination, but instead a well-reasoned, often compelling argument for change, compassion, and common sense. fine's writing style is perhaps somewhat similar to michael pollan's - interjecting personal narrative and humor into the book's broader theme and subject. as the issue gains ever more traction nationwide, we may well be witnessing the early death throes of federal cannabis constraint (which will, of course, begin on the state level and eventually spread upward). while a lot of drug policy books may be unable to change the minds of readers, too high to fail will, at the least, offer a more sensible approach with which to think about this long, costly, tragic, ineffective, and ultimately embarrassing national nightmare.

the drug war is, along with alcohol prohibition, one of america's worst waste of resources. it is one of our nation's most awful policies, lumped in with dark episodes of our history like jim crow. it is one big constitutional violation, and it isn't necessary. it needlessly and with hardly any real effect - other than causing the founding fathers to roll over in the graves - misspends billions that could be otherwise much better directed. ending the war on drugs - or at least fundamentally changing it and removing cannabis from the equation - should be a national imperative.