THE FIVE STAGES OF GRIEF OVER OBAMA'S DRUG POLICIES

Like the stages people who experience grief due to a personal tragedy
pass through, people concerned about modifying American drug policies
have dialed through these five stages since Barack Obama was elected
President of the United States:

1. Unbounded enthusiasm. Drug reform advocates, along with other
progressives, were wild with anticipation when Barack Obama was
elected President. Aside from his remarkable background and
intelligence, he was extremely well-informed about drug reform
initiatives -- including clean needle programs, discrepancies in
sentencing for crack and powder cocaine (which punish minorities
disproportionately), and noninterference with states that have
enacted medical marijuana (MM) statutes. Moreover, he called the war
on drugs an "utter failure."

2. Anxiety. During the run-up to Obama's selection of a Drug Czar, a
name often mentioned was Jim Ramstad, former Congressman and a
recovering alcoholic who opposed all major drug reforms (e.g., needle
exchange, methadone maintenance). Why would Obama even consider such
a Neanderthal, his supporters wondered. Where was he coming from in
all of this, they asked themselves through sleepless nights.

3. Cautious optimism. Instead, the President selected Gil
Kerlikowske, who was not known for being out front in reforming drug
policies as Seattle Police Chief, but who also didn't fight the
city's needle exchange program and low priority on marijuana
possession enforcement, nor Washington state's MM laws. Ethan
Nadelmann, director of the Drug Policy Alliance and the country's
leading reform advocate, declared himself "cautiously optimistic" due
to Kerlikowske's middle-of-the-road stance, even as he was
disappointed that Obama had chosen a law enforcement officer rather
than a public health advocate to be Drug Czar.

4. Euphoria. Not all drug policy change originates in the Office of
National Drug Control Policy. And a number of local and state
initiatives came to the fore, including continuing support by states
for MM, some harm reduction measures, and - as the economic downturn
hit hard - active contemplation of legalizing marijuana in order to
tax revenues from its massive sales in California and around the
country. Furthermore, the House Judiciary Committee eliminated the
crack/powder cocaine sentencing disparity. Although he pushed none of
them, these actions were all consistent with Obama's enunciated
positions on drugs.

5. Disillusionment. But, from the start, Kerlikowske sounded like
anything but a drug reformer. Shortly after his installment as Drug
Czar, he brashly announced that any type of drug decriminalization
would be "waving the white flag" and that the "legalization
vocabulary doesn't exist for me and it was made clear that it doesn't
exist in President Obama's vocabulary." Since then, belying his own
state's policy and Obama's and Attorney General Eric Holder's
statements, Kerlikowske has consistently maintained that marijuana
has no medical value. All in all, Kerlikowske's orientation towards
drug policy seems like, well, a cop's. And yet he seems to reflect
Obama's position on reform.

Where oh where are you Mr. President? Hoping against hope that
Kerlikowske is going rogue, the Drug Policy Alliance has started a
letter-writing campaign to the President asking him to reassert the
progressive views he had previously endorsed, and to rein in his
recalcitrant Drug Czar. Of course, it seems unlikely that a control
maven like Obama would really allow his Drug Czar to repeatedly defy
the President's own inclinations in this area.

A more realistic scenario is that the President - facing opposition
to his key policies from not only red states and hard core
Republicans, but increasingly also independent voters and moderate
Democrats - is unwilling to forge ahead on drug reform. Liberalizing
policies towards currently illicit drugs would strike Americans as
intensely alien - even as young and old Americans are turning more
and more to prescription pharmaceuticals for their highs (and lows),
so that there is increasingly little space between substances deemed
"illicit" and "legal."

But Obama is not committed enough to drug policy reform to incur the
symbolism taking any steps towards liberalization would convey. Can
you imagine what the Congressional hearings, town hall
conflagrations, and shrieking of people calling "I want my country
back" would be like if he tried? American prudery about drugs,
alcohol and whatever else will not be reversed any time soon.