TIME TO CHANGE DRUG STRATEGY

Federal authorities' efforts in recent months to crack down on
state-regulated marijuana dispensaries in California have increased
tensions over which level of government should take the lead in
defining the legal boundaries for drug use and possession.

Marijuana, under the federal Controlled Substances Act, is classified
as a Schedule I drug, the same as LSD and ecstasy. The designation
means none is recognized as having any medicinal value.

But that view runs counter to the positions of numerous doctors and
scientists who've found the plant does, indeed, offer some medicinal
benefits to individuals dealing with certain health conditions. More
than a dozen states, and the District of Columbia, have been
convinced and approved their own laws that either decriminalize
marijuana or allow for its medicinal use.

Such moves are based as much on science as the reality that this
nation's war on drug use has failed. An Associated Press report last
year found the federal government had poured $1 trillion into
boosting drug-control efforts since 1970. The result: The number of
drug users in the U.S. has nearly doubled, the number of drug
overdoses has climbed steadily, millions of nonviolent drug offenders
have been imprisoned, and countless lives have been ruined.

President Barack Obama signaled previously that his administration
wasn't interested in dismantling the state-regulated networks of
legitimate marijuana dispensaries in states that have loosened their
own drug laws. But his administration's actions have been
demonstrably different, given authorities' recent efforts to enforce
the supremacy of federal drug laws.

A proposal sponsored by Rep. Ron Paul, a Texan seeking the Republican
presidential nomination, and Rep. Barney Frank, a Democrat from
Massachusetts, would roll back some of the federal restrictions that
have propelled the recent crack-down in California. It would, in
other words, leave states to decide whether to recognize the
medicinal value of marijuana and exchange the strategy of
criminalization for one of treatment and education.

The bill has been stuck for the past four months in a subcommittee,
where it's been all but ignored.

Perhaps it shouldn't pass in its current form. Perhaps some changes
are needed. But given the results of the current strategy - and the
fact that more Americans than ever (50 percent, according to a recent
Gallup poll) actually favor legalization of marijuana - the bill
deserves discussion.