Letters to the Editor
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Not limited to the Right
I've heard similar rhetoric from my own Left, and from "libert"arians, on the subject of the Stupid Drugs Laws. Rather than the excellent and reasonable case for the elimination of most, and weakening of all, of the Stupid Drugs Laws, a simple recourse to "The laws aren't working, so repeal them," is far from uncommon.
(It's a particularly bad argument in this case because, to a large extent, they _have_ worked: the only drugs to which I and my upper-middle-class professional friends seem to have easy (say, the ease for a canonical college student) and safe (as in "not liable to lose your home") access are alcohol, caffeine, and various prescriptions that for the most part aren't much fun. As we, a mostly white, higher-income, group, are the people politicians mostly like* and care about, and they don't want us having fun in particular ways, and we've stopped, that's success.
*They _love_ the rich, but there aren't enough of them to be a voting bloc before the election, though afterward.... As to the poor, politicians seem to have the same attitude that that Don had in "The Godfather": "They're animals; let them lose their souls," with the added bonus that making entire neighbourhoods arrestable-at-will is great for the police and those running them.