Pubdate: Tue, 10 Dec 2013
Source: Forbes Magazine (US)
Copyright: 2013 Forbes Inc.
Contact:  http://www.forbes.com/forbes/current/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/769
Author: Jacob Sullum

WHITE HOUSE PUSHES 'DRUG POLICY REFORM,' AKA PROHIBITION

Today the Obama administration hosted the first-ever White House
Conference on Drug Policy Reform. But don't be confused: Although
"drug policy reform" usually means moving away from the use of
violence to stop people from consuming arbitrarily proscribed
psychoactive substances, that is not what President Obama has in mind.

"Drug policy reform should be rooted in neuroscience, not political
science," says Obama's drug czar, Gil Kerlikowske, in the email
message announcing the conference. "It should be a public health
issue, not just a criminal justice issue.

That's what a 21st-century approach to drug policy looks
like."

In truth, this 21st-century approach to drug policy looks a lot like
the 20th-century approach to drug policy.

Kerlikowske, who is still upset that he does not get credit for ending
the war on drugs when he took office in 2009, thinks enlightenment in
this area means forcing drug users into "treatment" by threatening
them with jail rather than sending them directly to jail. He needs the
heavy hand of the state not only to impose treatment on recalcitrant
drug users but to imprison people who supply them with the drugs they
want. That is why Kerlikowske says drug policy is "not just a criminal
justice issue"-because he cannot imagine a drug policy that does not
entail locking people in cages for actions that violate no one's
rights, whether those actions involve using politically disfavored
intoxicants or helping people do so.

Patrick Kennedy, co-founder of the anti-pot group Project SAM,
likewise tries to distract attention from the half a million Americans
imprisoned for drug offenses. "For too long drug policy has been
caught in between the false dichotomy of legalization versus
incarceration," Kennedy says in a press release about the White House
conference, where he co-chaired a panel.

The alternative to legalization is continued prohibition, which
requires incarceration. Prohibitionists like Kennedy and Kerlikowske
should have the courage to defend stripping people of their liberty
for doing nothing more than supplying a product to eager buyers.

Instead they pretend this is not happening.

As for Kerlikowske's claim that he seeks to depoliticize drug policy,
that is impossible as long as the government tries to dictate what
people put into their bodies.

How can such an endeavor be anything but political? The Obama
administration, for example, is committed to defending the position
that marijuana, which the Drug Enforcement Administration's chief
administrative law judge once called "the safest therapeutically
active substance known to man," has a high potential for abuse, lacks
medical value, and cannot be used safely even under a doctor's
supervision. This is Kerlikowske's idea of sound science.

Mason Tvert, director of communications at the Marijuana Policy
Project, argues that Kerlikowske's avowed respect for neuroscience is
also belied by his continued support for a policy that encourages
people to use a more dangerous intoxicant instead of marijuana. "Every
objective study on marijuana has concluded that it poses far less harm
to the brain than alcohol," says Tvert, co-author of Marijuana Is
Safer. "The ONDCP has long championed laws that steer adults toward
using alcohol and away from making the safer choice to use marijuana.

If the drug czar is truly committed to prioritizing neuroscience over
political science, he should support efforts to make marijuana a legal
alternative to alcohol for adults."
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