OBAMA COULD 'CRACK' THE WAR ON DRUGS

Whether or not he wins the Democratic nomination, Barack Obama has won my respect not only because he inspires pride and hope for the future of our country, but because of the way he confronts the skeleton in his closet: drugs.

It often seems that our understanding of civic duty is informed by an unhealthy obsession with the Vietnam War, but Obama is too young for that. And while I don't always agree with him, I am always impressed by the way he handles himself.

Drug use is difficult to ignore unless a politician addresses it with honesty, humility and courage. In "Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance," Obama wrote about his rough adolescence: "Pot had helped, and booze; maybe a little blow when you could afford it. Not smack, though." He said that the high he got from drugs was "something that could flatten out the landscape of my heart, blur the edges of my memory."

That sounds nice, lyrical even. It's more honest than "I didn't inhale." But I still prefer President Bush's admission: "When I was young and irresponsible, I was young and irresponsible."

Drug use is irresponsible, and everything from cocaine to marijuana presents numerous problems in our society.

According to the Drug Enforcement Administration, cocaine is trafficked primarily by Colombian, Dominican and Mexican criminal groups. They aren't big on expanding your mind so much as pocketing your money. Those pesky drug laws get in their way, so they use a variety of techniques to ensure they can better serve you, including kidnapping, torture, extortion, human trafficking and terrorism. Read any news article about the FARC, Revolutionary Armed Forces of Columbia, and you can see drug money at work.

Popular myth suggests that most of the marijuana consumed in the United States is grown here at home or in Canada. Unfortunately, the demand in the American marijuana market is too large to be supplied by American criminals alone. In today's global marketplace, there's always a mob willing to lend a hand in getting you high. Mexican gangs still traffic most of the marijuana used in the United States, but Russian and East Asian mobs are giving them a run for their money. Those mobsters also control enormous human trafficking networks for prostitution. Many of the trafficking victims are child sex slaves.

The point here is that these international crimes overlap. Giving money to a drug dealer is, in a very real sense, giving money to a human trafficking network. It is giving money to a terrorist network. It is an act that aids our enemies and severely damages the lives of those who fall prey to the heinous acts committed by members of these organizations.

All drugs - from marijuana to cocaine to methamphetamines - are addictive. They increase the dopamine in your brain to unnaturally high levels. To achieve the same dopamine level, you have to do more drugs. That's bad for your brain, your cardiovascular system and your reproductive health. But, boy, does it feel good. That salient feeling causes conditioning: You relate the feeling from the drugs to your surroundings. I once worked with a recovering heroin addict who said, "Those candle lit crack houses were the most depressing places I've ever been to, but damn was I happy to be there."

This is where Obama can do a lot of good. He, more than most politicians, has an opportunity to sympathize with drug abusers and others caught up in the drug trade. This seeming weakness of his can be turned into an impressive strength used to reform one of our most malfunctioning social programs.

But as of now, most people disobey drug laws because they think the laws are stupid or senseless. Unfortunately, they are the law, and the people who sell drugs are often involved in criminal organizations, so the only responsible way to use drugs is through civil disobedience. If you choose to do that, be careful how you go about it. In his "Letter from a Birmingham Jail," Martin Luther King, Jr., wrote, "In no sense do I advocate evading or defying the law. ... I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for law."

So, here's what you do: Grow your own plants and process or manufacture your drugs at home. If anyone asks you what you are doing, be honest. Then, get your friends together and go to a crowded area to use the drugs. Since the tight-wads with the power don't understand the beauty of liberating one's mind with chemicals, you'll probably be arrested and expelled from school. Don't let that stop you. You will be fighting for something much nobler than a Georgetown degree; your campaign will be fought with all the moral righteousness of freedom for India and political rights for minorities in the United States.

Or you can obey the law and appeal to our leaders to create more compassionate and effective drug policies. For Obama, or any politician, to do that will take political courage. I hope he has what it takes, because the current resident of the White House has never had the political courage to do so - despite the lessons learned during his misspent youth.

A cursory review of the American prison system demonstrates that drugs sow much more sorrow than joy in American society. The War on Drugs is not succeeding. Only a leader who is unafraid of change can help.