The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime drafted a report calling for the decriminalization of drug use and possession for personal consumption, then apparently got cold feet after coming under substantial pressure from at least one government. Fortunately, Richard Branson, the British business mogul and Virgin Group founder, who also happens to serve on the Global Commission on Drug Policy, a panel of 22 world leaders and intellectuals advocating drug policy reform, leaked an embargoed copy of the document.

The UNODC report concluded that criminalization of drug use has increased death rates among addicts and led to the imprisonment of millions of people worldwide for nonviolent offenses.

"In the U.S. alone, over 1.5 million people were arrested in 2014 on nonviolent drug charges, 83 percent of those solely for possession," Mr. Branson noted in a post that included a copy of the UNODC paper. "Globally, more than one in five people sentenced to prison are sentenced for drug offenses."

He pointed out that places that have adopted a less-punitive approach to drug use have not witnessed the collapse of civilization and, in fact, have seen more positive outcomes.

"In places where decriminalization has been tried, like Portugal, drug-related deaths were reduced significantly, as were new HIV or hepatitis infections," Mr. Branson said. "Combined with harm-reduction programs, decriminalization will save lives as people who use drugs will no longer fear arrest and punishment when accessing health care services; it will also reduce crime and ease the burden on prison systems and law enforcement agencies."

In the "war on drugs," the sad truth is that the cure has been worse than the disease. As satirist P.J. O'Rourke wrote, "Marijuana never kicks down your door in the middle of the night. Marijuana never locks up sick and dying people, does not suppress medical research, does not peek in bedroom windows. Even if one takes every reefer-madness allegation of the prohibitionists at face value, marijuana prohibition has done far more harm to far more people than marijuana ever could." The same could be said of other illicit drugs.

In the 44-year drug war, the U.S. has wasted more than $1 trillion while ushering in the militarization of the police, no-knock drug raids, civil asset-forfeiture abuses and the imprisonment of millions of people, which has torn apart families and destroyed job prospects, sentencing drug users and their families to poverty and dysfunction - all for an "offense" that harms no one else.

One need not endorse drug use to tolerate someone else's right to put whatever substances they choose into their own bodies, or see that the effects of criminalization are far worse than those of legalization.

REPRINTED FROM THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER