HOPE FOR CHANGE IN DRUG WAR

President Barack Obama is reported to have settled on Seattle Police
Chief Gil Kerlikowske to head the Office of National Drug Control
Policy, commonly referred to as "drug czar." It would have been
preferable to abolish the position and transfer the 100 or so
employees the "czar" supervises to other departments or to the
private sector and apply the $421 million the office costs to paying
off a tiny sliver of the national debt. But there is at least some
reason to hope Kerlikowske will not be as awful as most of his
recent predecessors.

The office has typically been held by ardent prohibitionists who have
misused it to campaign against state medical marijuana initiatives
and to rail against suggestions of even slight deviations from strict
prohibitionism in ways that fly in the face of scientific evidence
and common sense.

It is both troubling and reassuring that Kerlikowske has almost no
public record on the various controversies surrounding drug policies.
It is troubling because it suggests he has little background to
equip him with solid knowledge. It may be mildly reassuring in that
he has been police chief in Seattle since 2000, during which time
that city has been in the forefront of the search for alternatives to
strict prohibitionism.

Like Colorado, Washington state has a medical marijuana law put in
place by the voters.

In 2003, the people of Seattle approved a policy of making
marijuana-law enforcement the police department's very lowest
priority. The city has an annual Hempfest at which speakers call for
decriminalization, audience members openly smoke marijuana, and the
police stand by to make sure no violence occurs.

Americans should demand Kerlikowske to work toward removing marijuana
from the Schedule I list of the Controlled Substances Act so that
doctors nationwide can prescribe it when appropriate. We should ask
for a renewed emphasis on treatment and accurate information rather
than "Reefer Madness"-style propaganda. Perhaps it is too much to
hope for a top-level appointee to recommend ending the war on drugs,
but an evidence-based assessment would surely conclude that it has
done far more harm than good.