The President and the Drug War: Part I

On the surface, to me, it looks like he's going to be looking to Napolitano and others to help craft and guide policy decisions on how to handle most of this and that he hasn't really made any major decisions yet. Given everything else on his plate I wonder how much time the President has really had to focus on this particular issue. It seems like that's reflected in these remarks.

I hope that he's serious about treating drug abuse as a public health policy across the board throughout the nation rather than primarily, and especially for poorer addicts, a criminal policy on the user end. However, I imagine there are lots of nuances I'm missing in his answers to the questions.

It seems to me that he is saying we will continue the drug war but be smart enough to attack supply and demand.  Supply with the usual approaches (which I think we can all acknowledge have failed) and demand by actually making rehab available.

It does not seem to me that decriminalization is on the plate, but he doesn't specifically rule it out.  Let's face it even if it is the best policy it is a political hand grenade with the pin out.  What i might imagine (and what i think there is some evidence for according to his stance on California medical marijuana) is to lighten up on the criminal enforcement of the less serious drugs (specifically marijuana) and step up enforcement and (and this is important) rehabilitation of addicts of the more serious drugs of abuse.

Something for everyone to be happy about and be upset about.  It is probably the best you are going to get on this hot potato of an issue out of a US President in his first term in 2009.

 

rw

Obama is still smarting from when Holder claimed they would leave Ca. Mraijuana Patients and Dispenarys alone. The LA US Attyhas issued a memo to his staff to ignore those statements. While there has not been a Medical MJ bust since the statements I think we can expect one sooner rather than later.
 Pres. Obama has said over and over that he is against legalizing marijuana so I don't look for him to waste any political capital doing it. Still with the number of Gangs and the violence that follows them they must be dealt with. While ignoring the facts that pot makes up over 60% of the cartels profits and that by legalizing it we would cuts their funds by 50% within a yr or 2. Once they lose money they won't be as powerful. They will also be force to deal in just coke and heroin. Chasing 2 drugs instead of 3 would make enforcements easier. This would also get the gangs out of our National Forests where the grows endanger hikers and others.
 The News programs say the gangs are in every major city, organised and armed. Imagine the damage they could do if they started to operate in the US the same way they do in Mexico or Colombia. Obama is going to need a multifaceted approch and he should embrace ending Prohibition of marijuana as part of it.

Obviously there's a political as well as a policy dimension to anything that Obama does on the interrelated issues of violence in Mexico, border security and drugs.  Rarely does the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff feel it necessary to visit Mexico -- that's news.  The scale of organized violence in Mexico is threatening civil society in that country, and even if there were no actual threat of this violence spilling over into the U.S., news coverage of it makes it more difficult for Obama to deal in an enlightened way with illegal immigration and any concessions to Mexico on trade issues.  So Obama is determined to help Mexico suppress organized violence, which Lopez Obrador would also have had to deal with if he were president instead of the conservative Calderon.  It's interesting that this may give Obama a chance to teach Americans that promiscuous gun trafficking from America is part of this problem -- as the president said -- and that could be a big change from Bush, who did nothing to restrain America's gun exports. 

With respect to border security, one word stands out in what Obama said: "...our approach is to do some things administratively to strengthen border security..."  He didn't say he was putting troops on the border, going for a new fence or otherwise militarizing our response to illegal immigration.  He knows there isn't a physical solution to this problem, only a suite of policies that can dial down the conditions that impel people across the border. 

In regard to drugs, obviously he's emphasizing new initiatives to control demand.  I wouldn't be surprised if this were in a second stimulus package, because anything preventative or rehabilitative that limits the social and other costs of drug addiction will be economically beneficial.

So politically, Obama wants to help reduce the image of a Mexico spinning violently out of control, the belief that America is losing control of its borders (a huge right-wing populist mobilizing issue), and the belief that reducing the collateral damage from drug trafficking is a hopeless cause short of militarizing that problem.  As for the policy dimension, for the first time perhaps in decades we may have a president who sees the relationships between all these conditions, is determined to make actual progress on them, and is not simply going to use a rhetorical sledgehammer to pound away on these issues for a day in order to look like a tough guy and then go back to business as usual.

That he's straight-up saying what he means. Improved funding for rehab as a way of reducing demand rather than just arresting users is definitely an improvement from the status quo, and drug policy reform is going to come SLOWLY. Maybe if he gets re-elected he'll look towards institutionalizing some form of state's rights regarding decriminalization, but it's not gonna happen soon, if ever. Maybe a decade from now we'll see some real statutory reform.

Al, I think that, as he usually does, Nate Silver's got this one more or less on the dot. My own opinion on the matter (and take that for what it's worth) is that Obama himself is more sympathetic to the decriminalization/legalization camp than he lets on, but he, being a fairly sophisticated politician, knows that coming out for that would still hurt him at the polls more than it would help him. While I have no realistic expectation of decriminalization or legalization under the Obama administration, I think that he's going to be more inclined towards more incrimental steps on drug policy (making movements towards exemptions for medical marijuana, less emphasis on enforcement, etc.)

"The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie, deliberate, contrived and dishonest, but the myth, persistent, persuasive and unrealistic.” JFK

i'm hoping it means that prez is not ready to put his balls up on the table just yet when it comes to drugs. he's got a lot on his plate already. sorry for mixing the metaphors. and yet it's pretty apt. if he came out for decrim right now the right wing hypocrites would chop off his balls and shove them down his throat. they may be only 20%, and they are a loud and bullying 20%.

perhaps if he knew that we had his back...

I think Obama is taking a conservative approach here.  I think he wants to reframe the debate, but isn't ready to throw out the current rulebook.

Frankly, I don't blame him.  If he takes a big chance (a la the Clinton health care agenda) it will (a) likely get shot down and (b) reduce his credibility and ability to implement other perhaps more important reforms.  So I think he's taking incremental steps (e.g., stopping medical marajuana drug raids by the feds, refocusing on addict treatment rather than incarceration) to take the drug war down a notch, without overturning it.

Personally, I think marajuana legalization needs to happen, but I'm not sure that there's enough public support at this time.  Nate Silver did a nice piece on the public support for legalization, and his conclusion is that the numbers just aren't there today.

I'm with Charles Faris.  Obama would unify the opposition by handing them a great moral/criminal issue to browbeat him over.  Following a hypothetical Obama-led effort to decriminalize (rationalize) drug policy, every drug-related crime of any kind would be fodder for the right-wing to yell and scream that if the morally bankrupt Obama administration hadn't decriminalized drugs then this, that, and the other never would have happened. 

  "Our expectation is to have a comprehensive policy in place in the next few months."

As Jessica says, this could mean that the administration hasn't developed a policy. It could also mean that they aren't ready to roll-out the policy. After all, there's a lot on the table; in fact, the Republicans have been reduced to attacking the president for having "too much" on his agenda.

  "It's really a two-way situation there. The drugs are coming north; we're sending funds and guns south."

This looks a lot like one of the president's keywords, "responsibility," applied to a domain where the U.S. has been historically loathe to take any. Pointing out the supply-demand relationship of the drug trade is not new, but drawing an equivalence between northbound drug smuggling and southbound gun-running is.

There's been a tendency to blame Latin American countries for being lax or even complicit in drug production. But the war between the cartels shows that the easy availability of guns in the U.S. has created a symmetrical problem in policing the southern side of the border. Invoking the director of Homeland Security in this context suggests that the office is moving away from the "Fortress America" mentality that envisions all threats to security as attacks from the outside.

Here's an idea -- maybe someone more familiar with Mexican politics can tell me how realistic it is. What if Mexico were to decriminalize marijuana first? The obvious answer to the U.S. objection would be, "We respect the sovereign right of the United States to differ on this issue, just as the United States differs in its laws permitting the sales and possession of firearms." At the very least, this would breathe life back into Avenida Revolución.

  "The implication was somehow that I think we should weaken our drug laws.  That's never been my position."

This is about knocking down the inevitable right-wing frame. In removing the drug czar from the cabinet and declining to reiterate a "war on drugs," the president is stepping back from the phony war footing of his predecessors. The nomination of Gil Kerlikowske may also be indicative in this regard; Kerlikowske's predecessor as Seattle chief of police, Norm Stamper, has been outspoken since his retirement in his call to "end the drug war." Obviously Stamper doesn't speak for Kerlikowske, but I think he is true to a sensibility in Seattle and probably other places as well.

I'm looking forward to hearing what else the president has to say on this matter. Whatever the president's intentions, this response was not Bill Clinton's "not on my watch." And to that end, it's a step in the right direction. But change on this issue can't be led from the top. Like Nate said (as Elliot reminds), we need to see a wider consensus in the population first. Hypocrisy on this issue is too easily excited, and anyone who gets too far ahead of conventional wisdom is likely to be made an example of.

When Seattle voted to make marijuana prosecutions the lowest enforcement priority for police, Kerlikowske could have chosen to ignore the people's mandate and continue arrests and citations under state law. He didn't, even though he didn't personally support the measure. He didn't stand in the way of needle-exchange programs in the city, and the “drug war” has even snared a member of his family. (An experience, by the way, which I personally think should qualify someone more for the ONDCP post rather than be a disqualifying factor, but I digress.)

Either way, based on what I've read and heard, this guy—despite the tough exterior police chief background—seems to have a reputation for at least upholding the respecting the will of his superiors, and more importantly, the voters. This is important, as the ONDCP has traditionally been involved with actively campaigning against and interfering with state legalization or decriminalization campaigns, along with recently traveling to various locations to support GOP candidates. I'm guessing that most of these things will now be stopped.

As for what Obama said, there are two instances where he discusses the nature of “security,” both in relation to the border. It is here where such a word no longer continues its long history as an ad hoc synonym for militarization, something Obama clearly said he was not in favor of on the border. Instead, security now involves legal reform and legislation to reunify families and step up accessible drug treatment to those who want it. While the narrative of the war is still clearly there, it would seem that looking between the lines here, Obama is masterfully changing the discourse of the issue itself. And I suspect that behind the rhetoric, there could very well be historical changes to the way the United States handles drugs and the security of its residents.

1. Process the long pending Cannabis Resheduling Petition at HHS. This means appointing a scientific panel to review the literature, and determine if Schedule I placement is indeed justified by the evidence.

2. Research the Ibogaine treatment for addiction, currently illegal. Allow human trials under a reseach protocol.

3. Issue agricultural hemp licenses to the pair of Noirth Dakota farmers who have applications  pending and State Licenses in hand. Expand the program next year. It's not illegal to grow hemp per se, just without such a license. (One, Dave Monson, is the Republican Deputy Majority Leader of the State Assembly, so there's no risk  that it becomes a political line of attack.)

 

 

Democrat for US Senate (Wisconsin 2012)

Mariajuana use as a public health crisis.  Just like the man says, here in Humboldt County, we have scads of pot smokers trying to get into treatment programs, but there just isn't space for them.  Marijuana is a serious substance abuse problem -- lots of pot junkies laying in the gutter with reefers stuck in their arms because there just isn't funding for treatment.

Like Obama says, we should both crack down on pot smokers -- increase federal penalties for both dealing and possession -- AND offer the pot addicts effective treatment to help them escape their debilitating dependency.

I think great changes will be created by looking at the problem realistically which I belive Obama and key cabinet members can do. Decriminialization will be the natural conclusion. But it will very risky until more of the public see's it as postive and the solution. There needs to be credible and different sources of education on the benefits and more of the public to know what a legal system would look and feel like with simple examples of what would happen especially to their children in such an environment.

The administration will use events such as this to nudge the policy toward reason. But no big public steps until much further into the administration maybe in the 2nd term if they make it there.  This crisis is an opportunity Obama and the administration will subltely use to reframe and solve in a different way thus gaining an example of deescalation of the war on drugs as the way to bring success. It can also help curtail an out of control gun industry and terrible laws on the books because of the NRA. I am hopeful, but people with big concern with this issue need to educate person to person, friend to friend how things could be different.

I think a lot of the comments here are very good.  I think there is a general sense that Obama, as a realist, knows the "drug war" approach simply doesn't work.  And as someone who doesn't have some fundamentalist, fanatical anti-drug stance Obama is just looking at the public good.  But he has his plate full, and it will have to wait, political-capital-wise. 

Maybe it's an issue that a Democrat will just not be able to confront.  It may be that it takes some resurgence of true "conservatism" and a conservative leader that can sell the reality that the drug war is a tragic, expensive farce, but sell it from the right like Nixon making overtures to China.  We have reality on our side on this issue, but history and media idiocy and political opportunism may make it something we can't realistically lead the charge on.  I think Obama knows that. 

We (as liberals) can provide cover, we can make headway in public opinion, but our political leaders dare not say its name... Sad but true.

The culture wars are a proxy for the drug war. Until we end the latter, the former will continue to tear the nation apart, despite the overused rhetoric of post- this and post- that. Any talk of lasting national unity is putrified by that reality. We must engage the issue of ending the drug war -- where some real concensus exists on both the right and left.

If Obama is too busy to realize that, or lacking in will to risk it politically, then he is wasting his time in trying to build meaningful unity and concensus in the nation, in my opinion. The failure to address ending the drug war head on will be tallied in corpses, dollars and yet another generation lost to the prison-industrial complex.

An apologist for anyone on that issue I am not. 

But I do agree unless it is organized from below, it has no hope of being advanced from above, what's more being initiated from above. However, I do not accept the proposition that it is a back-burner issue. How can the longest-running second longest-running war in U.S. history not be seen as a major rail of Pan American politics?

[Factoid: Nixon declared his war on drugs in 1971, 38 years ago; the Berlin Wall, the iconic symbol of the Cold War, was errected in 1961 and came down 28 years later.]

Anyone clinging to a notion that ending the drug war can be back-burnered, or otherwise ignored out of some misconceived idea that it affects only a small group of drug-addled losers and fringe radicals, is deluding themselves, stoned on a mass-media illusion that will have dire consequences for the country, for all of the Americas.

Nora Callahan

Executive Director of the November Coalition

What are you talking about? Half the population has smoked pot. If it would be so serious you would expect larger health deficits to be observable. Do you have any links to data which would support your assertion?

Hi, first post here from someone who has lurked for several months.  Al, you do great work; this blog is one of a few of my must-reads.  In my view, cognitive liberty ranks with gay rights and disability rights as one of the most important civil rights issues today.

What struck me during Standing O's campaign was how little he had to say about this issue beyond a few simple riffs:  "I'm not for decriminalization"; "it's a poor use of federal resources to bust pot clinics"; "we need to base our approach more on public health and decreasing the demand side".  These all suggest a cautious, Clintonian, incremental approach.  The selection of inveterate drug-warrior Biden as VP sealed that impression, and nothing Obama has said or done since has changed my it.

Per comments above, I doubt we're going to see Obama expending much political capital on this issue.  He's not gonna risk a repeat of Clinton's early miscues with a wedge issue like gays in the military.  Rather, I think he's going to try and get the FedGov out of the way a little bit (in terms of drug-warring) and let states like Cali lead. That alone is a pretty big deal.

Commenter kaleidoscope above is hilariously dead-on regarding cannabis as a public health issue.  The most important public health implications I can think of involve getting medical cannbis to more people who need it, and reminding people that vaporizing is healthier.  I wouldn't expect that sort of thing under Obama, expect maybe during a second term if we're lucky.

As for the US Attorney in LA reversing himself (and Holder?) after Holder's announcement that raids would cease, it obviously sucks, but I think it signifies a delay more than a denial of reform.  Here's an article from the LA Times -- notice the bullshit about mandatory minumums, which we now know aren't binding on judges:

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-medpot7-2009mar07,0,5710770.stor...

It's the sentencing grid ("Guidelines") that's been made discretionary.

 

Democrat for US Senate (Wisconsin 2012)

I have to take issue with the description of President Clinton's approach to the drug war as "incremental," unless this is understood to mean an incremental escalation.

High Times printed an article in 2001 called The Clinton Drug War Legacy which points out that forfeiture and incarceration for drug-related offenses expanded during the Clinton years, while needle exchange programs and medical marijuana were shut out. As early as 1993, not-so-high Time declared Clinton's Drug Policy is a Bust, contrasting his empty rhetoric about treatment with his smackdown of Surgeon General Jocelyn Elders for suggesting that decriminalization should be studied.

Clinton Drug Czar Barry McCaffrey may not have pursued the War on Drugs with quite the zeal that William Bennett did, but easing off the accelerator is not the same as stepping on the brakes.

@Ben:  It sounds like I'm not grokking something.  An NPR article by Nina Totenberg seemed pretty clear that SCOTUS took out the mandatory part:

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-medpot7-2009mar07,0,5710770.stor...

Can you elaborate?

@Riley:  When I said Obama's drug policy seemed to be "a cautious, Clintonian, incremental approach", I was unclear:  I meant Clinton's overall approach (think of the micro-initiatives borne of Penn's polling), not his drug policy specifically, of which I was no fan.  Agree with your take.

cheers

I believe Obama will have to continue the drug war as business as usual for the most part whether he wishes to or not; one reason is he has to maintain the support of the public; he's a new President, and he has to keep a status quo until people see positive and lasting results coming from his administration, in particular his handling of the economic crisis. Coming out and ending the drug war would be political suicide at this time, even though he's indicating to some degree that the hard handed interdiction tactics may be softened on users, in particular for marijuana users, but overall I agree with most of the previous posts it's too costly to make any radical changes in regards to drug policy.

He does mention treatment, which concerns me for two reasons the religious element in the majority of treatment programs, and that the rehab industry in the US depends greatly on prohibition since most of the public health issues related to drug use are a direct result of prohibition, and since the rehab industry is in both the public and private sector he'll have to maintain or expand some of these programs politicly, even though the 12-step rehab model, the primary method used in the US, is not very successful, and according to some studies worse than no treatment at all. Treatment in the US is an area where science has been ignored for ideology and profit, and must be addressed seriously and scientifically to be effective, as well as the constitutional issues regarding religious freedom since rehab is often a part of our legal system. Once again when I hear him say better access to treatment as part of the solution I can't think that much change is possible, particularly after the horrific crimes committed against children during the rehab boom of the 70s' 80s' and 90s.

There is also the money issue of narco dollars, which may be needed to help boost or at least prevent parts of the economy from collapsing. The UN Crime Chief stated earlier this year that drug money had become the only liquid capital banks had at their disposal last Fall, which stopped many banks from total collapse. Did drug addicts actually save some banks, and is their spending on the black market more beneficial to society than the so called costs of abuse, another reason this war won't end. So, how much the drug war money is helping our economy will depend on how some decisions are made since ending prohibition at this time could be a financial disaster. The narco dollar system is something we have to ween ourselves off, which may take years. For the moment I don't see any sweeping reforms in US drug policy, but a softer rhetoric from a new administration. Hopefully with political success we will see a slow dismantling of current drug war policy.

I have been to Mexico. I have taken some time to understand the politics and the everyday people that live there. See "Mexico Unconquered" if you want to read a nuts and bolts, on the ground report, warts and all, about Mexico and the USA.

Unless he's making deliberately nuanced political comments Obama sounds naive and uninformed about the situation. The "Drug War" will continue until enough people are brave enough to properly inform themselves about some difficult and uncomfortable issues about the relationship between Mexico and the USA.

You have me thinking Alberto. Education on the War on Drugs is essential for understanding and delivering message on immigration issues. I'm trying to get there. Trying to bring others out here in the suburbs with me.

The drug war and immigration will be huge topics at the upcoming Summit of the Americas (starting April 17, Trinidad and Tobago). Obama will be attending and is bringing a massive delegation (1000 people) and several countries will be trying to influence Obama and other delegates' views. I'd imagine there will be clearer policies in the aftermath of this.

Al, is there anyone we can harass to ask the right questions there? Will you be blogging this event and giving us the inside scoop? I would be happy to do it if you can arrange an all-expenses-paid trip to Trinidad for me, paypal accepted

:-)

So Obama is determined to help Mexico suppress organized violence, which Lopez Obrador would also have had to deal with if he were president instead of the conservative Calderon. It's interesting that this may give Obama a chance to teach Americans that promiscuous gun trafficking from bedroom furniture America is part of this problem -- as the president said -- and that could be a big change from Bush, who did nothing to restrain America's gun exports.