A DAY TO REMEMBER: PROHIBITION ISN'T FOREVER

Many observers have compared the Obama transition to FDR's in
1932-33, but the important P-word has not come up.

By the summer of 1932, alcohol prohibition had been enshrined in the
Constitution for 12 years, as the 18th Amendment. Alcohol-related
crime, violence and poisonings were rampant. Speakeasies flourished
in large cities. Annual liquor imports from Canada alone soared from
the pre-Prohibition level of around 30,000 imperial gallons to more
than a million after 1926, mostly smuggled from offshore mother ships
frequented by an armada of smaller vessels making regular
distributions to their customers.

Despite widespread grumbling over prohibition, the subject of repeal
was barely acknowledged by politicians before 1932, fearing loss of
rural and religious support. Even Roosevelt took refuge in a
states-rights argument, dodging both a wet and a dry label. After
wets managed to insert a solid anti-prohibition plank in the
Democratic party platform, however, Roosevelt embraced reform. To the
roar of convention delegates, he declared unambiguously in his
acceptance speech, "This convention wants repeal. Your candidate
wants repeal. And I am confident that the United States of America
wants repeal." During the campaign, Roosevelt made one speech
denouncing prohibition and the subject didn't need to be brought up
again. Hoover remained silently faithful to his base.

Following Roosevelt's landslide, for which many credited the party's
repudiation of the 18th Amendment, a strong wind blew at the back of
reformers. All Roosevelt had to do was to stay out of the way while a
new process for changing the Constitution, brilliantly engineered by
volunteer lawyers to bypass state legislatures and put the question
directly to voters, steamed ahead at record speed, culminating with
the ratification by a constitutional convention in Utah exactly 75
years ago today. The vote was carried on a coast-to-coast radio
broadcast; it is said that a national cheer could be heard at 3:52 PM
mountain time on Tuesday, December 5, 1933, when Utah joined 36 other
states to ratify the 21st Amendment, tipping the 18th into history.

The prohibition facing President Obama is better known as the drug
war. Since Richard Nixon declared it in 1973, every president, with
the enthusiastic complicity of Congress, has escalated it to the
point that America locks up a higher percentage of our citizens than
any other country on the planet. Spending for incarceration rivals
that for higher education.

As with alcohol, the drug prohibition laws don't stop people from
obtaining and using their intoxicant of choice. Twenty million
American adults use illicit drugs regularly, and only a small
fraction of them are caught. Why a disproportionate share of
arrestees are blacks and minorities, when their drug use rate is no
different from whites, raises troubling questions about enforcement.

While disaffection for the drug war is widely whispered, publicly
questioning its wisdom and efficacy remains taboo-like challenging
alcohol prohibition as late as 1930. In 2008, the topic was
successfully avoided by both candidates and the media, with one
notable exception, namely, Mr. Obama's pledge to call off DEA raids
on medical marijuana facilities in California.

With an economy in shambles and two active wars, the last thing
President Obama needs is an incendiary issue like drug policy reform.
He can, however, use his bully pulpit to promote a badly-needed
national discussion, asking some uncomfortable but necessary
questions, such as whether it is realistic to think that by
continuing to pour vast resources into detection, enforcement,
prosecution and punishment, we will ever achieve success in the
struggle against illegal drugs, and, when we are "successful," how
many more people will be locked up, and at what cost to taxpayers.
Last month's landslide victories for medical marijuana in Michigan,
and decriminalization in Massachusetts, suggest strongly that when
given a secret ballot, voters are open to reform.

Legitimizing debate, and making good on his promise in California,
won't solve the nation's drug problem, but might be a good place to start.