LOTT'S POT SHOT

On Monday, after Richland County, S.C., Sheriff Leon Lott announced
that he did not have enough evidence to arrest Olympic swimmer Michael
Phelps for smoking marijuana at a November party in Columbia, the gold
medalist issued a statement of regret. "I used bad judgment, and it's
a mistake I won't make again," Mr. Phelps said. "For young people
especially - be careful about the decisions you make. One bad decision
can really hurt you and the people you care about."

Mr. Phelps' mistake was not smoking pot so much as doing it in front
of someone with a cell phone camera and no compunction about selling
the picture to a British tabloid. And if that mistake hurt him, it's
not because marijuana turned the record-breaking champion into a
slacker or a drug addict. It's because consuming an arbitrarily
proscribed intoxicant can result in serious legal (and therefore
social and economic) consequences, which cause far more harm than
marijuana itself.

This reality should be recognized by President Obama, whose own
youthful pot smoking did not exactly hold him back but whose future
might have been very different if he had been arrested on drug charges
in high school or college. The same, of course, could be said for the
two drug-experienced baby boomers who preceded him in the White House.
But there are some indications that Mr. Obama might take a less
dogmatic approach to drug policy.

A few days after that photo of Mr. Phelps sucking on a bong appeared
in the News of the World, the Obama administration signaled that the
president will keep his campaign promise to stop the Drug Enforcement
Administration's raids on medical marijuana dispensaries, five of
which have occurred since he took office. "The president believes that
federal resources should not be used to circumvent state laws," a
White House spokesman told The Washington Times, "and as he continues
to appoint senior leadership to fill out the ranks of the federal
government, he expects them to review their policies with that in mind."

The week after Sheriff Lott's deputies, looking for evidence to
incriminate Mr. Phelps, raided two houses and charged seven people
with marijuana possession, newspapers reported that Mr. Obama had
chosen Seattle Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske to head the Office of
National Drug Control Policy. Mr. Kerlikowske is known for decidedly
milder treatment of pot smokers than the hard-line sheriff, who said
investigating Mr. Phelps was necessary to avoid "sending a message of
tolerance."

Norm Stamper, who preceded Mr. Kerlikowske as Seattle's police chief
and now promotes drug policy reform as a member of Law Enforcement
Against Prohibition, said the "one thing I know for sure" about Mr.
Kerlikowske is that "if Michael Phelps had bent over that bong in
Seattle and not in Sheriff Leon Lott's Richland County he'd have
nothing to fear but a foolish and fickle cereal maker" (a reference to
the widely criticized decision by Kellogg's to drop its endorsement
deal with Mr. Phelps). Although Mr. Kerlikowske's personal views on
drug policy are unknown, he has helped implement state and local
reforms such as allowing medical use of marijuana and making pot
possession Seattle's "lowest law enforcement priority."

Among other things, the latter policy means police can patrol
Seattle's annual Hempfest, where the scent of burning cannabis is
conspicuous, without arresting every other person. It is hard to
imagine Sheriff Lott exercising similar restraint.

If you're glad that police arrested a record 873,000 Americans on
marijuana charges in 2007 (the vast majority of them for simple
possession), you can thank zero-tolerance zealots like Sheriff Lott.
The sheriff said he felt compelled to investigate Mr. Phelps, which
involved busting seven people directly or indirectly linked to the
party he attended, to show that "even with his star status, he is
still obligated to obey the laws of our state." In the end, though,
this case worked out the way drug cases usually do: The big shot got
off, and the little guys got shafted.