Is the war on drugs ending?

Slowly but surely, America is abandoning its failed war on drugs, beginning with marijuana. Voters in 18 states and the District of Columbia have approved the medical use of marijuana, and on Nov. 6 Washington and Colorado became the first states to legalize marijuana for personal use.

It’s about time.

Since its inception in 1971, as Katrina vanden Heuvel points out in The Washington Post, the war on drugs has resulted in 45 million arrests but no discernible decrease in drug use. “The result of this trillion-dollar crusade?” she asks. “Americans aren’t drug free—we’re just the world’s most incarcerated population. We make China look like Woodstock.”

The American public is finally starting to agree—hence the liberalization of marijuana laws.

The question now is how the federal government will respond to the new state laws, since they conflict with federal restrictions. So far the Obama administration’s response has been inconsistent at best. In October 2009 the Department of Justice announced that it would not prosecute medical-marijuana providers who were following state laws, but two years later federal prosecutors in California began large-scale raids on cultivators and distributors, shutting down 600 dispensaries.

Recently, during an interview on CNN, Gov. Jerry Brown was asked his opinion on the new laws in Washington and Colorado. He came down firmly on the side of states’ rights.

“I believe the president and the Justice Department ought to respect the will of these sovereign states,” Brown said. “[They] shouldn’t try to nullify a reasonable state regulation. The measures that have gotten so far have gotten there after vigorous debate. … We don’t need some federal gendarme to come and tell us what to do….”

Not that the medical-marijuana business in California is benign, as Butte County residents well understand. Timothy Egan, writing in The New York Times, notes, “This chaotic and unregulated system has resulted in price-gouging, phony prescriptions and outright scams. No wonder pot dispensaries have opposed legalization—it could put them out of business.”

Moving marijuana from the black market into legitimate retail stores, where it can be regulated and taxed just as liquor is, is a necessary precondition to having a serious discussion about use and abuse. As Egan says, “The model is the campaign against drunk driving, which has made tremendous strides and saved countless lives at a time when alcohol is easier to get than ever before. Education, without one-sided moralizing, works.”

It will be interesting to see how Washington’s and Colorado’s experiments in legalization play out. Clearly, the historical trend is toward increased loosening and abandonment of marijuana and other drug restrictions. If nothing else, we can’t afford to keep 500,000 people behind bars, and costing up to $60,000 a year each, for drug offenses.

President Obama has positioned himself as a transformative leader. He has an opportunity now to live up to his promise by ending the war on drugs. If he chooses not to do so, at the very least he should leave the states alone to try new approaches.

Robert Speer is editor of the CN&R.