STEP UP BARACK AND OPPOSE THE DRUG WAR

Too bad young Barack Obama wasn't as deeply into the drug trade as
the Clintons' smear artists would like America's Democrat voters to believe.

Too bad he hadn't been a serious teenage drug dealer on the mean
middle-class streets of Honolulu, where he was raised by his
grandparents and attended an elite high school.

Better yet, too bad Obama hadn't been arrested for selling pot or
possessing cocaine as a teenager but had still grown up to be what he
is today -- a political rock star just one Clinton away from becoming
America's second black president.

If Obama had suffered serious legal pain for his youthful dalliance
in illegal drugs -- as hundreds of thousands of Americans do every
year -- he might not be the hardened drug warrior he is today.

Obama has gotten props for being the first electable presidential
candidate to fess up to his youthful interest in illegal drugs
without pretending he didn't enjoy the experience.

"When I was a kid, I inhaled frequently -- that was the point," Obama
can be seen admitting on YouTube. More famously, in his 1995
bestseller "Dreams from My Father," he said he used marijuana and
cocaine as a teen but never heroin.

Obama's candor is refreshing in the morally challenged land of
big-time politics, where invertebrates, hypocrites and liars rule.
But when it comes to the mindless prosecution of the war on (some)
drugs, he's as spineless as the next politician.

Though he's way too smart, sophisticated and street-wise to be
unaware of the arguments against drug prohibition, he's made nary a
public peep about what the drug war has done to our liberties and wallets.

Nor has he railed about the decades of socioeconomic damage it's done
to black communities. Nor about the young black males who've died in
disproportionately high numbers in shootouts over drug turf.

No one expects Obama to wreck his White House chances by challenging
the puritanical premises behind the drug war. But except for
methamphetamine, which is ravaging many (white) communities in
Illinois, Sen. Obama virtually ignores the issue of illegal drugs.

A search for the word "marijuana" on his official Web site,
obama.senate.gov (which archives his Senate speeches), brings not one
hit. Ditto for "cocaine." "Heroin" comes up three times -- in
connection with Afghanistan and Burma.

Obama is not even in favor of legalizing medical marijuana. And he
was the last potential president to promise he'd call off federal
drug raids on medical marijuana clinics.

If his past is vetted by the media the way the Clintonistas are
praying it will be, Obama's drug experiences may turn out to be not
as innocent as he's portrayed. But for now it seems that -- like
umpteen millions of his fellow law-breaking Americans -- he did his
pot and coke and didn't get caught.

Too bad. If his life had been spoiled even a little by the evil drug
war, he might have more sympathy for the 1.6 million Americans who
get busted each year for nonviolent drug offenses.

Then, instead of merely being the most charismatic of three
indistinguishable liberals competing to see who can use Big
Government to "change" America the most, he could become a real
American political hero -- by using his famed oratorical skills to
end America's most senseless war.

EDITOR'S NOTE -- Bill Steigerwald is a columnist at the Pittsburgh
Tribune-Review.