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November 25, 2008

(Predictable) Disappointiment

If the euphoria following Barack Obama’s unprecedented election seems to be fading a bit, one reason may be that power won’t actually be transferred from the feckless incumbent for another two months. Another is that we’re in the midst of an economic crisis that continues to dominate the news, even as it demands urgent, far-reaching decisions, for example: should we attempt to rescue the American Automobile Industry?

Drug policy reform is seldom discussed because it’s a subject regarded by most as barely respectable; yet a number of us have been waiting patiently since 1992 for even the possibility of “change (we) can believe in.” Sadly, neither the early appointments nor the short list of those being considered for key drug policy posts in the Obama Administration have been encouraging. While Eric Holder would clearly be an improvement over either Ashcroft or Gonzales in most respects, his stated opinions on drug use and the prosecution of “drug crime” have been neither enlightened nor hopeful.

The most visible drug policy icon in any administration has become the drug czar, a position that grew out of the unlikely selection of psychiatrist Jerome Jaffe as Richard Nixon’s “drug adviser” after surreptitious testing revealed opiates in the urine of an alarming percentage of GIs returning from Viet Nam. Fears of mass urban addiction turned out to be overblown, but Jaffe's appointment did result in federal adoption of methadone maintenance, ironically the very notion a benighted Supreme Court had condemned when it upheld the Harrison Act a half-century before.

But I digress; the job of Presidential Drug Adviser quickly devolved into drug war shill over the course ensuing administrations until it was suddenly elevated to cabinet level under George H.W. Bush. Bill Bennett, the first such “czar,” only served 18 months, but remains a compelling example of his own serial compulsions: first for cigarettes, then food, and later high stakes gambling, while relentlessly preaching morality to any who will listen.

Dubya’s “czar,” the colorless John Walters (a Bennett acolyte), will have to be replaced as a matter of course; the person rumored to have the inside track is a little-known Republican Congressman from the Midwest. That he is better known for his AA “sobriety” than as a drug hawk, and was also a leading edge baby boomer tells me a lot: first, he almost certainly was never a pot user and probably never even tried it. Second, he is not among Obama’s intimate circle, and is not likely to have much clout, which also suggests that the status of the position has already been further diminished.

Finally, because I definitely see the American Presidency as having become progressively more imperial since Lincoln saved the Union, it has become more important than ever that we have an intelligent educable incumbent (the very opposite of Reagan), one that can serve eight years (as Carter couldn’t). Clinton was close, but was undone by the same personal weaknesses that eventually allowed Dubya to sneak in and hang around for two disastrous anxiety-producing terms.

Doctor Tom

Posted by tjeffo at November 25, 2008 07:06 PM

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