Obama’s ‘New’ Drug Strategy

Ho-hum. Another administration, another "comprehensive plan to combat drug abuse, putting the focus on prevention and treatment strategies." This one "calls for a 15 percent reduction in youth drug use, a 10 percent decrease in drugged driving, and a 15 percent reduction in overall drug-related deaths by 2015." It involves more central planning -- " the creation of a community-based national prevention system" -- more taxpayers' money -- "an expanded array of intervention-oriented treatment programs" -- and more nannyism -- "a push to screen patients early for signs of substance abuse, even during routine appointments, and the expansion of prescription-drug monitoring programs." And don't forget the ever-popular, ever-futile "more international cooperation in disrupting the flow of drugs and money." Let's write down those percentage goals, modest as they are, and see how many of them get accomplished.

As it happens, I had a chance to meet with drug czar Gil Kerlikowske and his top aides last year, as part of a series of outreach meetings as the new team planned its strategy. It doesn't look like my advice was taken. Of course, I probably didn't help my case by noting that our last three presidents have acknowledged using illegal drugs, and it is just incomprehensible to me how they can morally justify arresting other people for doing the same thing they did. Do they think that they would have been better off if they had been arrested and incarcerated for their youthful drug use? Do they think the country would have been better off if they had been arrested and incarcerated? If not, how do they justify punishing others?

I then suggested that they pursue the policies recommended by Timothy Lynch and myself in the Cato Handbook for Policymakers:

● repeal the Controlled Substances Act of 1970,

● repeal the federal mandatory minimum sentences and the federal sentencing guidelines,

● direct the administration not to interfere with the implementation of state initiatives that allow for the medical use of marijuana, and

● shut down the Drug Enforcement Administration.

Suspecting that the administration despite being headed a young president who in 2004 had declared the war on drugs an "utter failure" and advocated the decriminalization of marijuana, would not adopt my proposals, I went on to recommend a few mildly ameliorative reforms: stop federal lobbying in state initiative campaigns, stop federal raids on medical marijuana dispensaries and other interference with state policy choices, and stop the Pentagon from giving military equipment to local police forces.

I must admit, though, that the other think tank analysts at the meeting, both liberal and conservative, offered the sorts of proposals for more social workers and more transition programs and more doctors that seem to have ended up in the "new" proposal. Perhaps I should have come up with a couple of proposals that would have cost more money rather than less.