May 14, 2009 10:22AM # White House Czar Calls for End to ‘War on Drugs’ By [Ted Galen Carpenter](https://www.cato.org/people/ted-galen-carpenter) --- SHARE This morning in [*The Wall Street Journal*](http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124225891527617397.html): > The Obama administration’s new drug czar says **he wants to banish the idea that the U.S. is fighting “a war on drugs,”** a move that would underscore a shift favoring treatment over incarceration in trying to reduce illicit drug use. > > > …Gil Kerlikowske, the new White House drug czar, signaled Wednesday his openness to rethinking the government’s approach to fighting drug use. > > > Mr. Kerlikowske’s comments are a signal that the Obama administration is set to follow a more moderate — and likely more controversial — stance on the nation’s drug problems. > > > …**The Obama administration is likely to deal with drugs as a matter of public health rather than criminal justice alone**, with treatment’s role growing relative to incarceration, Mr. Kerlikowske said. Well, that’s at least a modest step in the right direction. However, I want to see how *policies* change (if they do) under the Obama administration. A change in terminology won’t mean much if the authorities still routinely throw people in jail for violating drug laws. As for the international war on drugs, everyone in the Washington area is welcome to [join us this Friday on Capitol Hill](https://www.cato.org/event.php?eventid=6081) to discuss the consequences of the war on drugs abroad. ##### Related Tags [Defense and Foreign Policy](https://www.cato.org/defense-foreign-policy), [General](https://www.cato.org/general), [Constitutional Law](https://www.cato.org/constitutional-law), [Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies](https://www.cato.org/robert-levy-center-constitutional-studies) [![Creative Commons License](/build/cato_2020/images/creative-commons.svg)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).