THE PROSPECTS FOR DRUG REFORM IN THIS COUNTRY HAVE NEVER BEEN SO GOOD

The prospects for reforming drug policy have never been so good. The
persistent failure and negative consequences of drug war policies,
combined with budgetary woes and generational change, are
mainstreaming reformist ideas once considered taboo.

Nowhere is this convergence more evident than with respect to
marijuana. In 1969, when Gallup first asked Americans if they support
legalizing marijuana use, 12 percent were in favor. Support hovered in
the mid-20s for many years, then started drifting upward--from 25
percent in 1995 to 36 percent in 2005. In October, at the height of
the landmark campaign for legalization in California, the latest
Gallup poll found 46 percent in favor nationally, with 50 percent
opposed. Prop 19 garnered 46.5 percent of the vote--and roughly a
quarter of Californians who voted against it said they favored
legalization but were hesitant to vote yes for one reason or another.

Criminal justice reformers know that marijuana offenses account for
"only" 50,000-100,000 of the roughly 500,000 Americans behind bars for
a drug law violation, but arrests for marijuana possession represent
45 percent of the 1.7 million drug arrests made annually in recent
years. And as Queens College professor Harry Levine has amply
documented, African-Americans and Latinos are arrested for marijuana
offenses at dramatically higher rates than whites, even though they
are no more likely to use or possess marijuana. It's only a matter of
time before the racial justice implications of marijuana prohibition
and legalization overcome the cultural conservatism of
African-American and Latino communities.

According to the Gallup poll, 58 percent of Americans who live in the
West now favor legalizing marijuana use. It's thus highly likely that
2012 will see more legalization initiatives in Western states, and
with the support of young people--who consistently say they care a lot
about this issue and turn out in higher numbers for presidential
elections--a few may actually succeed.

Unfortunately, the recent Republican takeover of the House does not
bode well for other aspects of drug policy reform. Lamar Smith, the
incoming Judiciary Committee chair, was the only member of Congress to
speak out last summer against the bipartisan reform of crack cocaine
sentencing laws. Republican control may also undermine recent progress
on issues like medical marijuana and federal funding for needle
exchange. Elsewhere, New Mexico's incoming Republican governor,
Susanna Martinez, is a prosecutor who has threatened to shut down the
state's tightly run medical marijuana program, and New Jersey's
Governor Chris Christie seems determined to strangle his state's
nascent medical marijuana program with nonsensical
regulations.

If there's a silver lining on the Republican surge, it's that
conservatives' penchant for cutting government spending extends even
to the drug war. Conservative organizations like the Heritage
Foundation and Americans for Tax Reform have supported eliminating the
federal boondoggle for local police known as the Byrne grant program.
Some also favor eliminating funding for the National Youth Anti-Drug
Media Campaign, student drug testing and Plan Colombia as part of
broader spending cuts. Liberal organizations would do well to embrace
such proposals.

But all is not lost around the country. Incoming Vermont Governor Pete
Shumlin introduced a marijuana decriminalization bill when he was in
the state legislature and favors harm-reduction policies with respect
to other drugs. Rhode Island's new governor, Lincoln Chafee, seems to
get it too. Prospects for drug policy reform will be better in
Connecticut without Republican Governor Jodi Rell, who vetoed medical
marijuana legislation and blocked other drug policy reforms, and in
California without Arnold Schwarzenegger, who opposed most pragmatic
efforts to reduce the state's prison population and vetoed numerous
harm-reduction bills. The overall state prison population declined for
the first time in thirty-eight years in 2009, a result in good part of
an emerging bipartisan consensus that nearly bankrupt state
governments can no longer afford to keep locking up ever more people,
especially for nonviolent drug offenses.

The greatest challenge today is one that was best articulated a couple
of years ago by the Latin American Commission on Drugs and Democracy,
co-chaired by former presidents Cardoso of Brazil, Gaviria of Colombia
and Zedillo of Mexico. It is to "break the taboo" on vigorous, honest
and open debate about all drug policy options, including harm
reduction, decriminalization and legalization. That's what drug war
advocates most fear--because they know the policies they advocate
ultimately are indefensible on grounds of science, compassion, health
or human rights. Breaking taboos requires courage, but it is an
essential step on the path to broader drug policy reform.

Read articles from The Nation's special issue on drug
reform:

Marc Mauer, "Beyond the Fair Sentencing Act"
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v10/n1017/a05.html

Bruce Western, "Decriminalizing Poverty"
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v10/n1017/a06.html

Tracy Velazquez, "The Verdict on Drug Courts"
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v10/n1018/a01.html

David Cole, "Restoring Lost Liberties"

Laura Carlsen, "A New Model for Mexico"