Instead, it's left us with the single largest prison population in the world, something that people on all sides of the aisle agree is unsustainable in the long run.
But make no mistake -- this is not about getting high.
This is about people's lives.
The war on drugs decimates communities of color, breaks apart families and brings violence into already poverty-stricken neighborhoods.
It also prevents us from solving the underlying problems associated with substance abuse, and, if anything makes these problems worse because it passes the buck on to a prison system that doesn't know how to deal with curing addiction.
But that's only part of the story when it comes to how the war on drugs is harming public health.
People also have the right to get well, and criminalizing drugs, especially naturally-occurring ones like pot, prevents them from doing so.
We now know that marijuana, the drug at the epicenter of the war on drugs, has a number of medical benefits.
Americans should have the right to enjoy these medical benefits without having to worry about the government coming to take away their kids, as does Kansas-based medical marijuana activist Shona Banda.
After her 11-year-old son spoke out about his mom using medical marijuana during a school-run drug-education class, Banda was arrested and now faces a long, drawn-out custody battle with the state.
This is just one example of the casual cruelty of the war on drugs, and on this 4/20 should be a wake-up call that it's time to end this insanity for good.
Like all wars, the war on drugs has always been and always will be a war on people.
And while evidence from European countries like Portugal show that it's possible to legalize all drugs without starting the apocalypse, that's probably not going to happen anytime soon here in the United States.
So let's start with marijuana, which has always been at the epicenter of drug war despite being less harmful than alcohol.
If you really want to celebrate 4/20, call your congressman today and tell them to end modern-day prohibition once and for all.
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