A FRESH APPROACH IN AMERICAN WAR ON DRUGS

Obama's End To Raids On Medical Marijuana Likely To Reignite Debate
On Decriminalization

WASHINGTON - Wars rarely end at the first hint of truce. But when the
Obama administration quietly announced this week it will halt federal
raids against dispensers of medical marijuana, advocates of drug
policy reform found themselves in a tickertape mood.

Could this be Armistice Day for America's decades-long war on drugs?
Not quite. Not yet, at least.

But the new government's reversal of the Bush-era's zero-tolerance on
pot comes amid a confluence of signals that America may be nearing a
turning point in its approach to prohibition. Exit "reefer madness"
and enter a more reasoned debate on what works, with the goal of
targeting deadly cartels who today place drugs in the hands of
American children with greater ease than ever before.

With the U.S. economy in shambles and its banking systems on life
support, people on all sides of the great drug debate agree on this
much: the last thing America needs right now is to get stoned.

Yet stoned it is, in increasingly grim numbers, despite the world's
most expensive sustained effort to use the full weight of law
enforcement, prisons and foreign policy to staunch illegal drugs.

American demand today is estimated to be worth as much as $25
billion, a reality that has shredded Mexico's ability to impose
sovereignty along its northern border, where rampant drug violence
claims 100 lives a week.

"This awful reality is forcing us toward a debate that for the past
couple of decades we just couldn't have because America's official
drug policy was controlled by wild-eyed ideologues," said Dan
Bernath, spokesperson for the Marijuana Policy Project, a
Washington-based reform lobby group.

"But attitudes toward marijuana law reform have changed, even if
policy hasn't. The opposition today is dwindling down to an
ideological fringe rooted in a cultural war that doesn't really
matter to people any more. And now, with a new administration, we
find ourselves on the cusp of what we hope is going to be a reasoned,
fact-based debate."

The best evidence of changing attitudes is the sheer fact of Barack
Obama's ascendance. America now has a president who readily admits to
having not only smoked marijuana but actually having inhaled it in a
period of misspent youth before finding God and the woman of his dreams.

That places him in the company of an estimated 40 per cent of
Americans, or 100 million people, who tell pollsters they have tried
the drug at least once. Analysts say it never became an election
issue simply because in today's America - where 13 states sanction
medical marijuana - it was not going to move votes one way or another.

"Opinions have evolved. So many Americans have used marijuana that
they are now kind of immune to the fear mongering intoning against
its evils," said author Glenn Greenwald, prominent civil rights
lawyer and frequent contributor to Salon.com.

Greenwald knows firsthand how the U.S. debate is opening up. In two
weeks he will appear at the Washington-based Cato Institute to
present a 50-page analysis on the effects of drug decriminalization
in Portugal, which in 2001 became the first EU member state to halt
criminal penalties for marijuana, cocaine and heroin.

"The biggest surprise for me about the investigation in Portugal is
that eight years after the fact there now is a consensus that crosses
ideological lines. It has worked so well that nobody is arguing for
the policy to be reversed," Greenwald told the Toronto Star.

"It is a hot-button issue in every society and it was in Portugal in
2001, when they changed the laws. But the results are pretty clear:
there has been no huge increase in usage. Money has been freed up for
treatment, and at the same time lots of addicts have been able to get
help because they are no longer terrified of being thrown into prison
if they identified themselves as drug users with a problem."

Greenwald, however, is under no illusions the Portuguese approach
could easily be adapted to America. Resistance to drug law reform in
the U.S., he points out, has long been a bipartisan condition held
dear by significant portions of Democrats and Republicans alike.

"The emotion surrounding America's drug war is very deeply
entrenched, and the irrationality that has sustained it for so long
is very difficult to uproot. I truly believe the unquestioned premise
- - that changing the laws will create a spike in usage - is a myth.
But even as attitudes change, myths take time to break down," he said.

"Yet I do believe the space is opening up now to debate the issue
based on empirical analysis, based on what works and what doesn't. We
owe it to ourselves to consider the results in Portugal as part of a
reasoned debate."

The Obama administration has yet to fully articulate its policies on
illicit drugs, though the president has hinted he intends to tackle
the problem from both a public health and law enforcement perspective.

But advocates of a more progressive approach take heart in the
appointment of former Seattle police chief Gil Kerlikowske as Obama's
nominee for drug czar. When Seattle citizens voted in 2003 to make
marijuana prosecution the lowest law enforcement priority,
Kerlikowske's police force acted accordingly, enabling the city to
champion the use of the public health system rather than criminal
justice to address problems caused by illegal drugs.

"So far the new drug czar is an unknown quantity, but his record in
Seattle shows Kerlikowske does not approach marijuana from an
ideological point of view. The city was able to take a new approach,
respecting the wishes of the people it was serving, and that's all
we've ever wanted at a federal level," said the MPP's Bernath.

Washington was conspicuously silent this week after Attorney General
Eric Holder announced the feds will no longer raid medical marijuana
dispensaries that comply with state law.

"It is a bit difficult for many conservatives to get worked up about
it, since so many believe that states should be able to decide for
themselves. And that is essentially what the Obama administration is
saying - if the dispensary complies with state law, the state has
spoken," said Bernath.

Peter Reuter, a professor of criminology at University of Maryland
and a supporter of drug criminalization laws, noted: "We've had
drug-using presidents before. But the great change now is that Obama
is honest about it.

"Obama's response when he was asked whether he had inhaled was
perfect: 'I rather thought that was the point.' He is not
apologizing. He doesn't have Bill Clinton's guilty conscience. This
is a president who is not afraid to talk about it."

Reuter expects Obama's candour will help breathe new life into the
stale drug war debate. But rather than a wholesale redrafting of
legislation, he believes the new administration may have a better
chance of success at the judicial level.

"One of the questions is: why do we have such long sentences for drug
offences? It is very difficult these days to find law enforcement
people who disagree. We have large numbers of people, particularly
black males, in jail right now for long stretches, longer than is
reasonable or efficient. It might make sense for Obama to begin
there, at a federal level, to see what can be done."

Underpinning the entire debate, meanwhile, is money. With every
dollar of federal spending now subject to a line-by-line review,
advocates for drug law reform are renewing the argument for a
rerouting of billions from drug war funding into addiction treatment.

Two recent studies by academics at Harvard and Virginia's George
Mason University suggest the U.S. government could see a windfall of
anywhere from $14 to $40 billion annually through decriminalization
of marijuana. The figures combine law enforcement savings and
potential marijuana tax revenues.

"The argument is a bit similar to the situation during prohibition of
alcohol in the 1930s, when the Great Depression was forcing everyone
to look at expenditures and the government accepted that the alcohol
policies were no longer affordable," said Bernath.

"No matter what happens, the marijuana industry is never going to be
as big as the alcohol industry. And it would be disingenuous to argue
it could be some kind of silver bullet for today's economy. But every
billion counts, does it not?"

Greenwald, however, observes that the money argument cuts both ways,
pointing to the "range of vested interests" that are making money
from the drug war.

"There may be few more grotesque wastes of money than the drug war.
But the industries that have sprung up around it are enormous and
lucrative and powerful," he said.

"Decriminalization would be a huge blow to the American prison
industry, which is the largest in the world. Lots of defence
companies and paramilitary firms would suffer greatly. They all have
a strong interest in maintaining the drug war and they will not just
go quietly."

However the debate evolves, the United States can proceed confident
the rest of the world will be watching. Whatever lessons are to be
drawn from beyond its borders, U.S. drug policy is ultimately
expected to dominate policy beyond.

"The United States has a history of blocking reforms elsewhere. There
are other countries, especially in Europe, that are ready to take
more practical measures, especially when it comes to marijuana
policy," said Bernath.

"There is no question America will continue to be the leader. What
we're all looking for now is the most reasoned, highest quality
debate to decide where we go from here."

*SIDEBAR*

14 Estimated annual cost, in billions, of U.S. government efforts to
eradicate the illicit drug trade.

1.4 Billions spent between 1998 and 2006 in advertising aimed at
preventing teens from smoking pot.

4,000 Rise, in percentage, in the number of Americans who have used
marijuana at least once since the drug was prohibited in 1937.

872,000 Number of Americans arrested each year for marijuana
offences. Of those, an average of 40,000 are jailed at an estimated
cost of $1 billion annually.

40 Per cent of Americans believed to have used marijuana one or more
times. That equates to approximately 100 million people.

7,000 Estimated number of drug-related murders in Mexico since the
beginning of 2008, where cartels battle for control of a U.S. illicit
drugs market worth $25 billion.

- - Mitch Potter

SOME KEY DATES IN AMERICA'S CENTURY-OLD DRUG PROBLEM

1906 Pure Food and Drug Act becomes law. Before its enactment, it was
possible to buy, in stores or by mail order, medicines containing
morphine, cocaine or heroin.

1914 Harrison Narcotic Act, considered the foundation of U.S. drug
laws in the 20th century, controls sale of opium and cocaine.

1936 Reefer Madness, an exploitation film about the dangers of
marijuana, is released. Motion Picture Association of America bans
showing narcotics in movies.

1937 U.S. passes the Marijuana Tax Act limiting possession of
marijuana to those who pay excise tax for medical and industrial use.

1951-1956 Federal laws set mandatory sentences for drug-related
offences. Marijuana possession carries a minimum of two to 10 years
and a fine up to $20,000.

1973 U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency is created by president Richard
Nixon. In New York, adoption of the so-called Rockefeller drug laws
prescribes sentences of those convicted of selling two ounces or
possessing four ounces of narcotics to a minimum of 15 years in
prison, giving the state the distinction of having the toughest laws
of its kind in the entire United States.

1982 U.S. first lady Nancy Reagan responds to schoolgirl's question
about what to do when offered drugs: "Just say no."

1986 Ronald Reagan signs the Anti-Drug Abuse Act, which includes
mandatory sentences for drug-related offences and raises the
penalties for marijuana possession and dealing.

1989 George H.W. Bush declares "War on Drugs."

2009 U.S. President Barack Obama nominates Gil Kerlikowske to direct
the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy.

Kerlikowske is Seattle's police chief but has a progressive
reputation on several drug-related matters, including needle-exchange
programs and marijuana possession laws.

Sources: United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime; PBS; Reuters;
Schaffer Library of Drug Policy