DRUG-POLICY REFORM 'POINT MAN' IN UTAH

He'll Give Talk on Trying to End the War on Drugs

The general leading the war against the "war on drugs" is in Utah,
again spreading his message that it's time for this country to
legalize what he mockingly calls the "forbidden fruit."

"Marijuana ultimately should be made legal," Ethan Nadelmann,
executive director of Drug Policy Alliance, told the Deseret Morning
News' editorial board Wednesday.

That's not to say Nadelmann, whose group is partially funded by
anti-George W. Bush billionaire crusader/liberal philanthropist George
Soros, envisions us living in a world where we could go to 7-Eleven
and buy a 20-pack of joints or where doobie commercials air during the
Super Bowl. Marijuana legalization would have its limits, including
time-and-place matters that would be decided by local officials, if he
got his way.

"Tax it, control it, regulate it," he said. "That's the direction
where we need to head."

Nadelmann, sometimes called "the point man" for drug-policy reform,
made the media rounds Wednesday along with being the keynote speaker
for a Harm Reduction Project fund-raiser. He says current strict laws
are akin to alcohol Prohibition and says his group is comparable,
historically speaking, to where the movement for civil rights was in
the 1940s, where the women's rights movement was in the 1890s and
where the abolitionist movement was in the 1820s. "We see ourselves as
the new political social justice movement on the block," he said.

Tonight he'll speak and answer audience questions at the University of
Utah on "Building a Political Movement to End the War on Drugs." It's
free, but seating is limited inside Mark H. Green Hall in the Francis
Armstrong Madsen Building, 1655 E. Campus Center Drive (380 South).

Those hoping to hear a glowing endorsement of the country's drug
policy might not want to go.

"What you have," he said, "is a growing consciousness in the public .
. . that there's something fundamentally wrong, both in moral terms
and in policy terms, with the status quo."

The Drug Policy Alliance, he says, is "the leading organization in the
country of people who believe the war on drugs is doing more harm than
good. . . . The war on drugs is an incredibly irrational policy that
accomplishes no positive good in economic, in crime control, in any
terms for America."

Nadelmann, a former Princeton professor who has three Harvard degrees,
including a doctorate, firmly believes most drugs should be treated
primarily as a health issue, not as a criminal justice issue. He touts
the medicinal benefits of marijuana -- and says science backs him up
with data on its merits -- and insists that busted drug abusers, even
users, should receive treatment instead of being incarcerated. He also
advocates asset forfeiture reform, objecting to the notion that
confiscated drug money should go to police coffers.

Having marijuana in the free market -- with potential advertising aimed
at kids -- is "the single most credible argument about legalization,"
Nadelmann said. But he calls the principal justification of the drug
war -- that of protecting children -- a "sham" because teenagers have
always had and will continue to have "the greatest access" to marijuana.

And he believes the government should focus more on pain-control
issues where some doctors are afraid to administer adequate
relief-providing drugs because of regulations. He also pointed out
that 100,000-plus die a year to abuse and misuse of legal
pharmaceutical drugs. Given the choice between being a passenger with
a friend high on marijuana or with a buddy taking meds for being sick,
he said, "I'm driving with my pothead friend any day over my friend
who just took two cold pills."

As for public opinion on legalization, Nadelmann wrote in a National
Review article this summer that public support for broader
legalization ranges between 25 and 42 percent, depending on question
phrasing, and said two of every five Americans, according to a Zogby
poll, say "government should treat marijuana more or less the same way
it treats alcohol," making it illegal only for children.

He says science, common sense and evidence "suggests we can safely
move forward" with marijuana legalization. Then the government should
consider allowing medicinal heroin for addicts, but he said "there are
no great answers" concerning cocaine and methamphetamines.