BAFFLING DRUG CZAR CHOICE

President Bush's drug czar nominee once told Congress that it should yank
all prescription privileges from doctors who recommend medical marijuana
for their patients. Monday's Supreme Court ruling, barring doctors from
prescribing medical marijuana, would give him authority to act on his
convictions. We can only hope that John P. Walters has become less extreme
since he voiced his hard-line views to Congress in 1996, when he was a mere
Republican drug policy consultant.

In recent months, Bush has impressed liberal and conservative drug policy
experts with his measured analysis of why America's drug war has failed. He
has observed that "maybe long [mandatory] minimum sentences for first-time
users may not be the best way to occupy jail space and/or heal people from
their disease." He has called for more drug treatment programs in prisons
and pointed out that "the best way to affect supply is to reduce the demand
for drugs."

Bush's decision to appoint Walters to the nation's top anti-drug post is
baffling given the president's clear understanding that the nation's drug
problem can best be solved by reducing demand at home, not by eradicating
supply from abroad.

In recent years Walters has railed more loudly than anyone in Washington
against drug treatment programs. He has called them "the latest
manifestation of the liberals' commitment to a 'therapeutic state' in which
the government serves as the agent of personal rehabilitation." And no drug
policy aide in Washington has focused as narrowly as Walters on a
militaristic approach to reducing drug use. As a deputy to drug czars
William J. Bennett and Bob Martinez from 1989 to 1993, Walters became known
for his preoccupation with drug seizures, military aid and other national
security dimensions of drug policy.

Perhaps now that he will be in charge of a $19-billion budget, Walters will
moderate his convictions. Maybe he has joined the growing ranks of
enlightened politicians, which include many Republicans--from governors
such as New York's George Pataki to Bush administration officials such as
Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy G. Thompson, Secretary of State
Colin L. Powell and "faith czar" John J. DiIulio Jr.

These conservatives have all come to see that keeping drugs out of living
rooms and classrooms, churches and mosques is far more effective--and
cost-effective--than using helicopters, submarines, radar sightings and
choke points in the Caribbean to stop drugs from entering the United States.

The views Walters once expressed on medical marijuana are part of an old,
draconian mind-set. California physicians who recommend medical marijuana
to nauseated, emaciated cancer patients should not have to fear that
federal agents will bust down their doors.