coming out of the closet

There's a nice short interview with Jacob Sullum over at Suicide Girls (NSFW!). Sullum puts forward an interesting thought on how the drug war might end or at least be scaled back:

It’s also important to make responsible drug users feel like they are not alone but also my hope is that people who can afford to will start talking about it. Many people can’t talk about their drug use because they will get fired from their jobs. I can talk about it because my employer won’t fire me over it. I hope that if more people talk about this then something similar will happen to when gay people started coming out of the closet. People started to recognize that they do know gay people and they even like them. It becomes more personal and concrete to them. They can see that decent people are drug users. It’s not conclusive proof or anything but it makes a big impact.

I've often despaired that the War on (some) Drugs will never end and I wonder how it can be stopped. I hope Sullum is right that having normal users come out of the closet will help. I wish I could help but the only drugs I take are caffeine and alcohol.