In an article in The Sydney Morning Herald, Alex Wodak, M.D. asserts evidence in support of the view that drug prohibition is finally on the way out, including the following:

Barack Obama is the third US president in a row to admit smoking marijuana.

President Obama has also stated that the "war on drugs is an utter failure" and has called for more focus on a public health approach.

A Latin American drug policy commission similarly concluded that the "drug war is a failure" and called for an open debate on marijuana decriminalization.

Michel Kazatchkine, of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, argues in favour of decriminalising illicit drugs to allow efforts to halt the spread of HIV to succeed.

A national Zogby poll in the US found that 52 percent of Americans support cannabis becoming legal, taxed and regulated.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California and former President Vicente Fox of Mexico have also called for a debate on marijuana legalization.

Colombia's Vice President Francisco Santos Calderon says that, "The only way you can really solve the problem [is] if you legalise it totally."

U.S. "drug czar" Gil Kerlikowske has called for an end to the war on drugs in the U.S..

This month, Mexico depenalized possession of any illicit drug in small quantities and Argentina is making similar changes for cannabis; they thus join the Netherlands, Germany, Portugal, Spain, and Italy in decriminalizing or depenalizing cannabis or other illicit drugs.

It is now clear that support for a drug policy heavily reliant on law enforcement is dwindling in Western Europe, the U.S., and South America, while support for harm reduction and drug law reform is growing.

Alex Wodak is director of the Alcohol and Drug Service at St Vincent's Hospital in Sydney and is President of the Australian Drug Law Reform Foundation.