Yesterday’s post on the conflicts between the Drug War and the War on Terror seems more timely today – as the New York Times has a prominent article by Thom Shanker on the Afghan narcotics trade and Esquire has an article by John H. Richardson claiming that sources in the Obama transition team are suggesting that marijuana be decriminalized and the Drug War ended by Obama’s second term.
From Richardson’s article:
Marsha Rosenbaum, the former head of the San Francisco office of the Drug Policy Alliance, who quit last year to become a fundraiser for Obama…remains confident that those recommendations would call for an end to the drug war. “Once everything settles down in the second term, we have a shot at seeing some real reform.”
From Shanker’s:
[A] number of NATO members have in broad terms described their reluctance publicly, including Germany, Italy, Poland and Spain. Their leaders have cited domestic policies that make counternarcotics a law enforcement matter — not a job for their militaries — and expressed concern that domestic lawsuits could be filed if their soldiers carried out attacks to kill noncombatants, even if the victims were involved in the drug industry in Afghanistan.
End the Drug War. Focus on stopping terrorism. It’s the only sane choice.