IN THE TANKS: IS THE WAR ON DRUGS OVER?

WASHINGTON, March 29 (UPI) -- Next week the Heartlander, the monthly
journal of the Heartland Institute, will report that Joseph Bast, the
president of the conservative think tank, was arrested at Chicago's
O'Hare International Airport for possession of methamphetamine with
intent to distribute.

This shocking admission will come in Bast's "president's letter" in
the journal. In explaining his predicament, the letter will voice
doubt about the wisdom and effectiveness of the United States
continuing to pursue its war on drugs.

It should be noted that the president's letter will be published on
April 1 and that it is fictitious drama is part of Bast's annual April
Fool's Day tradition. However, the letter's condemnation of the war on
drugs is no joke.

The letter reads, in part: "For years, Heartland's founder Dave Padden
urged me to become a more vocal proponent of drug legalization. I
begged off: it's too controversial, it splits the conservative-libertarian
alliance we're trying to build, it's too emotionally charged. Recent
events ... have convinced me I was wrong.... I guess I always knew
there were victims of the war on drugs. I just never thought I would
be one of them."

The letter ends with a survey that asks readers what they would do if
Heartland were to forcefully advocate an end to the war on drugs:
"Increase their level of financial support? Reduce their level of
financial support? Leave unchanged their level of financial support."

The war on drugs has waxed and waned in various forms since President
Richard M. Nixon. Ronald Reagan vigorously resurrected the program in
the 1980s, much to the delight of law-and-order conservatives, and
established the drug czar position in the Office of National Drug
Control Policy.

Reagan's return to the issue came at precisely the time that
conservative think tanks were coming into their own and exerting
tremendous influence. The hard-line support of the drug war by think
tanks like the Heritage Foundation and the Heartland Institute -- an
influential state-based think tank in Chicago -- provided public
endorsement, cheerlead the effort, and lent the backing of their large
constituencies, their clout among similar think tanks and state-based
groups, and provided the intellectual underpinnings to make a
compelling public case for the drug war.

Now, after investing so much in the war on drugs, conservative think
tanks seem to be contemplating a shift on the issue. The Heartland
Institute's board of directors is debating a 180-degree turn in its
position, moving away from the war on drugs and its current
incarceration model and toward an approach that stresses treatment,
prevention and demand reduction.

For the past 10 years Heartland's board has been able to achieve
unanimous agreement policy issues. However, reflecting the difficulty
of making a turnabout on the drug war issue, the board is now split 12
to 3 in favor of this policy reversal. Regardless of the dissent,
later this year Heartland will publish a series of articles by Dan
Gardner, originally published by the Ottawa Citizen, which examines
the U.S. drug war, concludes that it is a failure and suggests a shift
toward drug legalization as the best approach.

Heartland is ahead of the curve, but it is not alone. The Indiana-based
conservative Hudson Institute last week released "Reducing Illegal Drug Use
in the United States: Blueprint for a Drug-Free Future," by Edmund
McGarrell and Jason Hutchens. The book is a wholesale indictment of the war
on drugs, and while it does not advocate legalization, it does argue that
most drug laws should be repealed. Hudson's Chris Mann asserts that "there
are more than two sides to this coin."

McGarrell and Hutchens suggest that efforts to reduce drug use should
be closely tied to workforce issues, welfare reform, restorative
justice and faith-based organizations -- all of which dovetails nicely
with President George W. Bush's proposal for federal funding for
faith-based social service initiatives.

Morgan Reynolds, director of the criminal justice department for the
conservative Dallas-based National Center for Policy Analysis is very
direct on the issue. "The war on drugs is almost all cost and no
benefits," he says. "It is a disaster, and it has become more and more
obvious, and support is eroding. I believe in 10 years you're going to
see us in a very different, and more effective, place than where we
are now."

Besides becoming a hot topic for policy analyses, the war on drugs has
recently resurfaced in popular and political culture. The Academy Award
winning film "Traffic" is a disparaging and emphatic critique that lays
bare the unsavory underbelly of the drug war. The recently broadcast finale
of the cancelled TV series "Homicide: Life on the Streets" featured a
mayoral candidate who is shot for proposing the legalization of drugs.

In politics, Republicans, surprisingly, are taking the lead against
the drug war. New York Gov. George Pataki is spearheading efforts to
repeal the strict drug possession laws and mandatory minimum jail
terms, popularly known as the "Rockefeller Laws" and regularly
criticized as draconian. And New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson has
developed a left-right coalition in support of legislation
decriminalizing the possession of less than one ounce of marijuana.
While the bill is expected to fail, it is widely regarded as a
Republican watershed moment.

Some may believe that a reversal on this issue by conservative think
tanks is simply a reflection of changing public sentiment and popular
culture. Even if that is true, it can take years for such a shift in
public sentiment to translate into concrete policies and legislation.
However, when the think tanks begin to drive such a shift, it
inevitably accelerates and yields real-world changes very quickly.

This is because think tanks play a special role in American political
life. In cases like this, for example, they are uniquely able to
provide politicians with ideological cover. Think tanks maintain a
constituency of like-minded people who offer politicians a forum to
address supportive audiences with a radical idea -- like ending the
drug war -- before offering it up in the politically dangerous,
steel-cage-death-match atmosphere of American public opinion.

The research and analyses produced by think tanks also gives
politicians data to cite and to work with in support of changes in
status quo legislation. And should the actions of one think tank
trigger a domino effect (as is common), in which other think tanks
quickly take up the risky position announced by the first to declare,
NCPA's Reynolds notes: "It will make it safer for people to say the
emperor has no clothes."

A telling example of this sort of influence is the shift toward reform
in the debate over Social Security -- once shunned by politicians as
the "third rail of American politics." It began in the think tanks and
even though the debate is now public, the think tanks continue to lead
it.

Conservative think tanks have given much to the cause of the war on
drugs. They have lent their considerable clout, constituencies, and
intellectual and fiscal capital. The fact that these think tanks now
seem to be reversing their position after decades of adamant support
marks a monumental change of thinking in the conservative policy
community. And while some of this radical thinking may occur in an
ivory-tower bubble, the fact is that what happens in think
tanks-especially the conservative ones-is far more often the precursor
to a major shift in the political winds in Washington and across the
nation.

The unique ability of think tanks to provide ideological cover,
friendly testing forums and intellectual ammunition for politicians
virtually guarantees that as their viewpoint shifts, so will the
perspectives and positions of politicians. As the debate over the war
on drugs continues, think tanks like Heartland and Hudson provide a
glimpse into the future of likely actions that will set the stage for
actual policy changes. The war on drugs may indeed be over, a failed
enterprise, and these think tanks are drawing up the armistice while
they formulate the strategy for the next, less warlike, approach to
solving America's seemingly permanent drug problems.