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<\/a>\n<\/a>\n\nGary Fields writes in the Wall Street Journal:<\/a>\n\nThe 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.\n\nIn his first interview since being confirmed to head the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, Gil Kerlikowske said Wednesday the bellicose analogy was a barrier to dealing with the nation’s drug issues.\n
\n“Regardless of how you try to explain to people it’s a ‘war on drugs’ or a ‘war on a product,’ people see a war as a war on them,” he said. “We’re not at war with people in this country.”\n<\/blockquote>\nThat’s a refreshing change, given that the\n\n5% of the population that’s incarcerated<\/a> and their families and friends\nmight well wonder if the government is at war with its own people.\nThere are indeed some nasty sociopaths out there who need to be locked up\nto protect everyone else.\nBut there aren’t enough of those to account for the U.S. prison population.\nThe “war on drugs” accounts for many of the rest.\n
\nIt’s interesting that this article was published in the WSJ,\nnot generally known as a left-wing rag.\nKerlikowske, for that matter, is a former police chief.\nAs is customary with newspaper articles, it ends with a counter view:\n
\nJames Pasco, executive director of the Fraternal Order of Police, the nation’s largest law-enforcement labor organization, said that while he holds Mr. Kerlikowske in high regard, police officers are wary.\n\n“While I don’t necessarily disagree with Gil’s focus on treatment and demand reduction, I don’t want to see it at the expense of law enforcement. People need to understand that when they violate the law there are consequences.”\n<\/blockquote>\nIndeed, even people at the highest levels of government need to learn that\nfor themselves.\nBut the solution to Pasco’s conundrum for the “war on drugs” is to change\nthe laws.\nThat alone won’t do it, however. Just throwing convicts back on the street\nafter being in prison with real criminals wouldn’t be nearly as good as\nimplementing programs to reintegrate them into the community and to\nprevent others from getting drug habits in the first place.\nKerlikowske’s approach is needed at the same time,\nand even before, changing the laws.\n