Hey guys, Marshall and Saga here. Welcome back to the realignment. This week we sat down

with one of our nation's leading experts on drug control policy, Hudson Zone, John Walters.

John's career in government stretches from the Reagan administration to his tenure as

the director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, otherwise known

as the drugs are, during the George W. Bush administration.

We explore the debate over the health effects of marijuana, the growing drug legalization

movement at the state and the national level, and the connection between the war on drugs

and border security. This episode emphasizes one of the realignment's main themes. No

policy outcome is inevitable. John emphasizes that policymakers have the ability and the

responsibility to make choices rather than to accept the status quo.

Let's dive in.

John Walters, welcome to the realignment. Thanks for doing with you. Thanks for joining us.

So you were the drugs are for almost the entirety of the George W. Bush administration.

What was your biggest accomplishment? Well I think the goals were to reduce drug use

and I'm proud of the fact that we were able to reduce especially teen drug use by 25%

people think none of these efforts make any difference on drugs they did. We also helped

Columbia go back and become a state that was able to have rule of law, economic growth

by working within a present or rebate, very brave man who worked with us on destroying

the coca industry. So when you say drug use was down, math marijuana, what is drug, what

is drug's constitute? Well that number is an aggregate number for all teens and it goes

across all drugs. The biggest single drug of course, the illegal drug of abuses is marijuana

so that dropped by 25% or more. But also we had not only things like math which are, these

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