Pubdate: Thu, 16 Apr 2009
Source: Philadelphia Daily News (PA)
Copyright: 2009 Philadelphia Newspapers Inc.
Contact: http://www.philly.com/dailynews/about/feedback/
Website: http://www.philly.com/dailynews/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/339

WAR ON DRUGS BECOMES WAR ON ADDICTION

The war on drugs was lost long ago, but that hasn't stopped us from
wasting more than an estimated $1 trillion fighting it, plus incurring
millions of casualties in the form of lives ruined
unnecessarily.

In the process, we have purposely rejected effective weapons against
drug use in favor of methods that had been proven unworkable, like
massive arrests and harsh sentences for possession.

That finally may be changing.

Last week, President Obama appointed A. Thomas McLellan, University of
Pennsylvania psychiatry professor, as second in command to the
nation's drug czar. This will put one of the nation's leading
authorities on addiction in charge of drug policy.

What a concept. Instead of focusing solely on arrests and
incarcerations, we are going to look at the best ways to treat
addiction. Instead of fueling the profit motive for drug dealers, we
might reduce it by reducing demand and, with it, some of the crime it
engenders.

Ever since the War on Drugs was declared by President Richard Nixon in
1971 (some say as a proxy for the culture wars), the United States has
spent most of its time and our money on police work, trials and
prisons. This has resulted in the highest incarceration rate by far of
any developed nation in the world, with minority prisoners far out of
proportion to their numbers in the general population.

But these tactics haven't reduced drug use. In fact, drug use has
skyrocketed. Instead of changing course, though, Washington
politicians intensified the same tactics, expecting a different
result. A lot of people who knew better watched it happen. And some
jumped on the bandwagon to craft their own contributions to the
lunacy. (You know who you are, Joe Biden - you of the disastrous
mandatory-sentencing guidelines.)

Now Obama is signaling a more balanced approach, with the appointment
of McLellan, combined with the previous appointment of former Seattle
Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske, to head the Office of National Drug
Control Policy. As Kerlikow-ske told senators during his confirmation
hearing, "The greatest contribution we can make toward [international]
stability would be to reduce our demand for illicit drugs."

Reducing demand would surely impact the drug wars in Mexico but also
the economic support that the lucrative market in illegal drugs
provides al Qaeda in Afghanistan.

So it's puzzling and disappointing that Obama chose to distort and
deride a legitimate question on legalization of marijuana during his
Internet town-hall meeting last month. While it's true that
drug-reform advocates organized a campaign to drive the question to
first place, it's one that more people are asking, and not only stoners.

Obama made a lame joke about "what this says about the online
audience," ignored the issue of imprisonment for "victimless crimes"
and answered a flat "no," without elaboration.

This page isn't prepared to go as far as Obama did in 2004 when, as a
state senator, he supported decriminalizing marijuana as opposed to
legalization. But if his administration truly intends to use
evidence-based science and not political ideology to frame drug
policy, no reasonable questions should be off limits. *
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MAP posted-by: Larry Seguin