Finally a major daily has come out with a great piece on the U.S. election and the drug war. Albeit after the voting has ceased. And the newspaper -- the Guardian -- is in England. But stick with me, because the news is good.

Waiting to see who has won the most important US election for decades, the world has been an anguished bystander, pressing up against the window of the superpower. So much depends on America -- from climate change to terms of global trade and haphazard forays into global policing.

But one policy on which the US has always had an iron grip was not mentioned at all -- because both candidates would agree on it. Both would say the global "war on drugs" must go on. Since 1961 the US has strong-armed most countries into signing UN conventions to join this futile and destructive battle.

But instead of bleating with the other drug war sheep, Guardian columnist Polly Toynbee essentially says, The U.S. be damned; we're moving forward. And she lays out her hope that Europe undertakes realistic drug policy reforms immediately.

No American politician would find it easy to start a revolutionary rethink on the drugs war. But Europe can and should; Holland began and now has a shrinking, ageing number of addicts. Together the EU could move step by step to rationalise drug policy; it is just one example of what Europe could do together to offer another, non-US, liberal model of democracy.

Toynbee's optimism is grounded in the fantastic new report by the good folks at Transform, a prominent UK-based drug-policy-reform group. The report, After the War on Drugs -- Options for Control, released last month, is (I'm finding as I finally have a free moment to read it) a remarkable road map for radical drug-policy reform across the EU.

Much has already been made of Transform's claim that drugs -- in the UK at least -- will likely be taxed and regulated like cigarettes and alcohol by the year 2020. But that's just the sexy, type-attracting lure. Transform's remarkable report may be the best, most approachable case I've seen to lay out all the reasons for and steps toward outright legalization of all drugs. (Legalization being defined as "regulation and control".) It also launches a dizzying attack on prohibition and prohibitionists, drug-war politicos, and the status quo.

Congratulations to Transform on a truly amazing report. It's nothing short of a shot across the bow of prohibition. We will hopefully look back on After the War on Drugs -- Options for Control in a decade or so as the beginning of the end of the drug war.

Read the Guardian article here. Read the Transform report here.