MOVING NATION TOWARD FAIRER, SENSIBLE POT POLICY

The most surprising response to Attorney General Eric Holder's recent
announcement that the federal government would cease raids or arrests
in states where medical marijuana is permitted is the general lack of response.

Sure, Holder was simply making good on a pledge delivered by
candidate Barrack Obama.

But on another level, the administration's announcement could change
the entire balance, or some would say historic imbalance, where drug
enforcement and punishments are concerned.

Politics in practice demands nothing less than a tough posture against crime.

And so it was that presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, both
of whom had admitted to once trying marijuana, were nonetheless
expected to stand down any attempt to undermine national drug policy,
even if that meant states approving laws outlining marijuana's legal
use for medical ends.

That 13 states have now voted to legalize marijuana use for medical
reasons -- principally to offset the nauseating side effects of
cancer treatments -- did not deter the federal government under those
previous administration from staging raids on property in states
where medical marijuana had been approved by elected state
legislators. Raids were similarly launched against dispensaries and
co-ops where marijuana was being grown for distribution to patients
and with the implied consent of state and/or local laws.

The Supreme Court in 2005 upheld those federal prosecutions, ruling
that states lacked the power to trump federal drug laws.

So Holder's announcement does not alter that arrangement. The federal
government still holds pre-eminent enforcement power over drug laws.

What it should do is permit the federal government to reorder
priorities in a manner that will let federal drug agents and
prosecutors focus limited resources on the hardest, most addictive
drugs and the biggest cartels.

And what we hope it will additionally accomplish in the long turn is
a change in the very dynamic of this long-time fight. Rather than
more of the same get- tough approach that to date has cost taxpayers
billions of dollars and imprisoned thousands of pushers and users,
hard-drug addicts and casual marijuana users s alike, isn't it time
to embrace a smarter drug policy that makes proper distinctions among
drugs and drug laws?

We think so.

And without Holder's small but important first step, it may have been
added years before the national conversation was properly redirected.