Time to end the war on drugs.

I grew up in the 1980s, back when the “Just Say No” campaign was in full swing. I remember being prepared to fend off relentless peer pressure to do drugs, evil strangers offering what was not actually candy, and so forth. Then I grew up, and almost none of the scenarios I’d been taught in D.A.R.E. ever really came to pass.

I still avoided drugs, mostly because of a combination of a good home life and an over-analytical brain. It wasn’t as if drugs weren’t around, though. I watched too many of my friends experiment with everything from speed to acid. No one ever pressured me to try it. It was simply there if you wanted to dive in.

As time has gone by, I’ve known and loved many people who’ve struggled with drug dependencies. I’ve come to understand that drug abuse is not a simple matter of criminality or a moral failure on the part of the user. It’s a deeply complex health issue that is inextricably tied to everything from socioeconomic status and environment to institutionalized discrimination and neglect.

We don’t do a very good job of treating it as such in this country, though. The 1980s also saw the full terror of the so-called war on drugs, declared by Richard Nixon but truly brought to bear by Ronald Reagan’s “tough on crime” (and incredibly discriminatory) mandatory minimums, and Bill Clinton’s tougher sentencing laws and attacks on inmates’ legal defense rights.

It’s a war that has cost countless lives and billions of dollars, ripped apart families, and enforced racial and class disparities. All this, and it still utterly failed at its core mission.

Why? Because approaching what is a medical and social problem as a simple matter of crime and punishment is a sure-fire way to make things worse. It pits police against the communities they’re supposed to protect and serve by militarizing them and basing their funding off property seizures of alleged dealers. It throws people into an overcrowded and often violent prison system who have legitimate mental and physical health issues. Once released, it stigmatizes and makes incorporation back into society nearly impossible.

I’m glad President Donald Trump has decided to acknowledge the seriousness of that epidemic, declaring it a national health emergency and vowing to dedicate far more attention and money to combat its effects. In doing so, it clears the way for faster action at the state and local levels.

It also may allow the government to deploy the U.S. Public Health Service to offer direct help in places with little to no access to medical care or drug treatment.

With an estimated 2.6 million opioid addicts in the United States, and deaths from opioid overdose exceeding 59,000 last year (made worse by the introduction of fentanyl and similar drugs used to cut heroin and cocaine, and which recently caused the sudden death of a friend), it’s far past time for us to get serious about addressing the root causes as well as the symptoms of the disease.

Recent signaling from the Trump Department of Justice is cause for concern, though. Attorney General Jeff Sessions seems determined to undo any recent progress and throw us right back into the “tough on crime” dark ages. It would fly in the face of growing bipartisan consensus that the war on drugs has not worked.

Let us hope, then, that this declaration by the president will at least allow those people and organizations that are on the ground and can deal with this serious issue in a more holistic, humane, and realistic manner to operate more freely and effectively. If we want to save lives, the war on drugs must die first.