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.