Pubdate: Sat, 8 Aug 2009
Source: Huffington Post (US Web)
Copyright: 2009 HuffingtonPost com, Inc.
Website: http://www.huffingtonpost.com
Author: Stanton Peele, addiction expert, psychologist, raconteur
Bookmark: http://mapinc.org/people/Kerlikowske
Bookmark: http://mapinc.org/find?258 (Holder, Eric)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/people/Obama
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/hr.htm (Harm Reduction)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?137 (Needle Exchange)

THE FIVE STAGES OF GRIEF OVER OBAMA'S DRUG POLICIES

Like the stages people who experience grief due to a personal tragedy 
pass through, people concerned about modifying American drug policies 
have dialed through these five stages since Barack Obama was elected 
President of the United States:

1. Unbounded enthusiasm. Drug reform advocates, along with other 
progressives, were wild with anticipation when Barack Obama was 
elected President. Aside from his remarkable background and 
intelligence, he was extremely well-informed about drug reform 
initiatives -- including clean needle programs, discrepancies in 
sentencing for crack and powder cocaine (which punish minorities 
disproportionately), and noninterference with states that have 
enacted medical marijuana (MM) statutes. Moreover, he called the war 
on drugs an "utter failure."

2. Anxiety. During the run-up to Obama's selection of a Drug Czar, a 
name often mentioned was Jim Ramstad, former Congressman and a 
recovering alcoholic who opposed all major drug reforms (e.g., needle 
exchange, methadone maintenance). Why would Obama even consider such 
a Neanderthal, his supporters wondered. Where was he coming from in 
all of this, they asked themselves through sleepless nights.

3. Cautious optimism. Instead, the President selected Gil 
Kerlikowske, who was not known for being out front in reforming drug 
policies as Seattle Police Chief, but who also didn't fight the 
city's needle exchange program and low priority on marijuana 
possession enforcement, nor Washington state's MM laws. Ethan 
Nadelmann, director of the Drug Policy Alliance and the country's 
leading reform advocate, declared himself "cautiously optimistic" due 
to Kerlikowske's middle-of-the-road stance, even as he was 
disappointed that Obama had chosen a law enforcement officer rather 
than a public health advocate to be Drug Czar.

4. Euphoria. Not all drug policy change originates in the Office of 
National Drug Control Policy. And a number of local and state 
initiatives came to the fore, including continuing support by states 
for MM, some harm reduction measures, and - as the economic downturn 
hit hard - active contemplation of legalizing marijuana in order to 
tax revenues from its massive sales in California and around the 
country. Furthermore, the House Judiciary Committee eliminated the 
crack/powder cocaine sentencing disparity. Although he pushed none of 
them, these actions were all consistent with Obama's enunciated 
positions on drugs.

5. Disillusionment. But, from the start, Kerlikowske sounded like 
anything but a drug reformer. Shortly after his installment as Drug 
Czar, he brashly announced that any type of drug decriminalization 
would be "waving the white flag" and that the "legalization 
vocabulary doesn't exist for me and it was made clear that it doesn't 
exist in President Obama's vocabulary." Since then, belying his own 
state's policy and Obama's and Attorney General Eric Holder's 
statements, Kerlikowske has consistently maintained that marijuana 
has no medical value. All in all, Kerlikowske's orientation towards 
drug policy seems like, well, a cop's. And yet he seems to reflect 
Obama's position on reform.

Where oh where are you Mr. President? Hoping against hope that 
Kerlikowske is going rogue, the Drug Policy Alliance has started a 
letter-writing campaign to the President asking him to reassert the 
progressive views he had previously endorsed, and to rein in his 
recalcitrant Drug Czar. Of course, it seems unlikely that a control 
maven like Obama would really allow his Drug Czar to repeatedly defy 
the President's own inclinations in this area.

A more realistic scenario is that the President - facing opposition 
to his key policies from not only red states and hard core 
Republicans, but increasingly also independent voters and moderate 
Democrats - is unwilling to forge ahead on drug reform. Liberalizing 
policies towards currently illicit drugs would strike Americans as 
intensely alien - even as young and old Americans are turning more 
and more to prescription pharmaceuticals for their highs (and lows), 
so that there is increasingly little space between substances deemed 
"illicit" and "legal."

But Obama is not committed enough to drug policy reform to incur the 
symbolism taking any steps towards liberalization would convey. Can 
you imagine what the Congressional hearings, town hall 
conflagrations, and shrieking of people calling "I want my country 
back" would be like if he tried? American prudery about drugs, 
alcohol and whatever else will not be reversed any time soon. 
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake