OBAMA'S TAKE ON THE DRUG WAR

Fissures are suddenly forming along the edges of the giant iceberg of
America's multibillion-dollar "war" on drug use, first formally
proclaimed by President Richard Nixon in 1971.

But so much depends on what President Barack Obama decides to do with
the issue.

This month a Latin American commission headed by former Presidents
Fernando Henrique Cardoso of Brazil, Ernesto Zedillo of Mexico and
Cesar Gaviria of Colombia condemned harsh U.S. drug prohibition
policies that are based, in Gaviria's words, "on prejudices and fears
and not on results."

Fueled by Americans' drug appetite and dollars, drug-gang violence is
engulfing Mexico, threatening the very stability of the state with
massive corruption and close to 6,000 killings last year.

Brazil is afflicted with daily gun battles between police and gangs
in urban slums. And despite years of intensive U.S.-backed efforts to
eradicate Colombia's cocaine exports, official reports show they've
risen 15 percent in this decade. A high proportion are smuggled into the U.S.

The drug war, the former presidents charge, is imperiling Latin
America's democratic institutions and corrupting "judicial systems,
governments, the political system and especially the police forces."

As both the world's largest drug consumer market and the lead voice
in setting global drug policy, the United States, the Latin leaders
argue, has huge responsibility now to "break the taboo" that's
suffocated open debate about the wisdom of a clearly failed 38-year "war."

The leaders are placing hopes in Obama, who as a candidate said the
"war on drugs is an utter failure" and talked favorably about more
public health-based approaches.

Given that history, and given this president's openness to hearing
diverse points of view, it's hard to believe he'll maintain the stony
wall of indifference to drug policy reform that all his predecessors
since Nixon have maintained.

Still, there are crucial issues of politics and timing. One can just
imagine White House advisers telling Obama to steer clear of the drug
issue, that it could be as perilous and distracting as gays in the
military were for President Bill Clinton in his first year in office.

Against that background, the Latin leaders' statement itself may help
move the compass. Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the Drug
Policy Alliance, calls their manifesto (www.drugsanddemocracy.org) "a
major leap forward in the global drug policy debate." One reason:
these are conservative, highly respected leaders.

Gaviria, as president of Colombia in the early '90s, for example,
worked with U.S. anti-narcotics agents to hunt down and kill Pablo
Escobar, the cocaine kingpin.

But Gaviria and his fellow former presidents, along with Latin
mayors, writers and other respected leaders joining in their
declaration, say it's time to recognize that force and prohibition
have failed to stop dangerous narco-trafficking.

It's high time, they propose, to focus on harm reduction and
prevention efforts -- following European models to change the status
of addicts from drug buyers in an illegal system to that of patients
cared for in a public health system. They also suggest considering
decriminalizing possession of marijuana for personal use -- a step
Obama recently indicated he's not ready to take.

And they say they'll be watching how the U.S. handles the meeting of
a key United Nations-sponsored Commission on Narcotic Drugs which
convenes in Vienna next month. The commission is to review the
prevailing, harsh, U.S.-molded drug policies the U.N. General
Assembly set in 1998. But there's the question: Will Obama (and
Hillary Clinton's State Department) send reformers, or just
bureaucrats who've soldiered in our blind-alley war on drugs? Drug
reformers were disappointed when Obama recently passed over public
health advocates to appoint a police chief -- Gil Kerlikowske of
Seattle -- as the country's new drug czar (director of the Office of
National Drug Control Policy).

But Kerlikowske does appear to have worked harmoniously with
Seattle's cutting edge of drug reforms -- well-established needle
exchange programs, marijuana arrests declared the lowest law
enforcement priority through public initiative, and a local bar
association that's a national model in finding alternatives to drug
prohibition laws.

So there are gleams of hope at the end of a long tunnel. And what
better time than this wrenching recession to shift law enforcement to
legitimately serious crimes, starting to discharge the hundreds of
nonviolent drug offenders held in our bulging, cost-heavy jails and prisons?

Predictably, any shift will be tough. Many law enforcement agencies
count on the jobs -- and seizures of cash -- that the drug "war"
delivers. Our "prison-industrial complex," guard unions included,
remains potent. And federal law actually prohibits the drug czar from
recommending legalization of any proscribed drug, no matter what his
personal judgment may be.

We have dug ourselves a deep hole. Only forthright and courageous
leadership is likely to start us on a saner path. Can this be "the
time?" Please, Mr. President.