It was intended to be "effective?"

Who could have foreseen?

MEXICO CITY — Despite claims by the United States and Mexico that drug traffickers are feeling the effects of the countries’ joint offensive, a review by the Government Accountability Office has found that millions of dollars have been spent without enough regard for whether the money is doing any good.

The office did say in a report to be released Wednesday that the Obama administration had done a better job in recent months of spending the roughly $1.6 billion set aside to fight drug traffickers in Mexico and Central America. Critics in the region have said bureaucratic hurdles have delayed the aid, which includes training and helicopters.

But the report said the State Department, which is overseeing the so-called Merida Initiative to combat drugs in the region, had failed to set specific targets to determine whether the money was having the desired effect of disrupting organized crime groups and reforming law enforcement agencies.

“Without targets to strive toward, State cannot determine if it is meeting expectations under the Merida Initiative,” the report said.

Officials in Washington and Mexico City typically point to the huge quantities of drugs, guns and money being seized and the number of arrests being made as evidence that traffickers are on their heels. Critics, however, point to the continued violence in Mexico as a sign that the traffickers remain strong.

Now there is an opportunity for deficit reduction and the potential job loss in the U.S. would be minimal.

No jokes

Paul Waldman has an encouraging piece on the growing support for decriminalizing marijuana possession. He also adds a postscript that is sadly necessary:

Postscript: You may have noticed that this was a column about the legal status of marijuana that contained no pot jokes. Unfortunately, many reporters (not to mention bloggers) who write about this topic can't help but start their pieces by saying something like, "Fire up the skull bong and get out your copy of 'Terrapin Station'" followed by a liberal sprinkling of puns about someone "blowing smoke" or gratuitous references to the munchies. Wouldn't it be nice if we could talk about this issue like adults?

Yes, yes it would.

Law enforcement against prohibition

Think of all the money that could be used for health care.

Legalization would not create a drug free-for-all. In fact, regulation reins in the mess we already have. If prohibition decreased drug use and drug arrests acted as a deterrent, America would not lead the world in illegal drug use and incarceration for drug crimes.

Drug manufacturing and distribution is too dangerous to remain in the hands of unregulated criminals. Drug distribution needs to be the combined responsibility of doctors, the government, and a legal and regulated free market. This simple step would quickly eliminate the greatest threat of violence: street-corner drug dealing.

We simply urge the federal government to retreat. Let cities and states (and, while we're at it, other countries) decide their own drug policies. Many would continue prohibition, but some would try something new. California and its medical marijuana dispensaries provide a good working example, warts and all, that legalized drug distribution does not cause the sky to fall.

Having fought the war on drugs, we know that ending the drug war is the right thing to do -- for all of us, especially taxpayers. While the financial benefits of drug legalization are not our main concern, they are substantial. In a July referendum, Oakland, Calif., voted to tax drug sales by a 4-to-1 margin. Harvard economist Jeffrey Miron estimates that ending the drug war would save $44 billion annually, with taxes bringing in an additional $33 billion.

Without the drug war, America's most decimated neighborhoods would have a chance to recover. Working people could sit on stoops, misguided youths wouldn't look up to criminals as role models, our overflowing prisons could hold real criminals, and -- most important to us -- more police officers wouldn't have to die.

Two former Baltimore police officers would know.

Drug law madness continues

Before the Wise Men get too eager to declare that every stinking pile of shit left by the last occupant of the White House is now owned by Obama, here's another thing he inherited from the Bush DoJ.

In imposing his sentence on Charles C. Lynch, who ran a dispensary in the surfing hamlet of Morro, Judge George H. Wu said the changed federal policy did not directly affect his ruling. But the judge talked at length about what he said were Mr. Lynch’s many efforts to follow California’s laws on marijuana dispensaries and the difficulty the judge had finding a loophole to avoid sending him to prison.

“I find I cannot get around the one-year sentence,” Judge Wu said of federal sentencing laws.

The judge said he had reduced the sentence from a mandatory five years because Mr. Lynch had no criminal record or history of violence, and did not fit the strict definition of a “leader” of a criminal enterprise.

Mr. Lynch, 47, was convicted last summer on five federal counts in connection with the running of his dispensary and the selling of medical marijuana to customers under 21.

Legal experts said the case highlighted the conflict between state and federal laws on medical marijuana. Federal law prohibits the cultivation, sale and use of marijuana for medicinal purposes, but 13 states allow it. In prosecuting for medical marijuana, the Bush administration had considered only federal laws.

Advocates of medical marijuana said the Lynch case would have a chilling effect on activities and undermine state laws. At his trial, and again in seeking leniency in his sentence, Mr. Lynch argued that he had complied with California’s law, which allows certain uses of marijuana with a doctor’s prescription.

“He is caught between California’s voter-approved medical marijuana system and the Bush administration’s single-minded effort to smother it,” said Stephen Gutwillig of the Drug Policy Alliance, an organization that favors a change in drug policy. “That Attorney General Holder changed federal policy three months ago only makes this miscarriage of justice all the more disturbing. Charlie is like a forgotten prisoner of war, abandoned after a truce was declared.”

Stopping the raids

More change we can believe in.

WASHINGTON — Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. on Wednesday outlined a shift in the enforcement of federal drug laws, saying the administration would effectively end the Bush administration’s frequent raids on distributors of medical marijuana.

Speaking with reporters, Mr. Holder provided few specifics but said the Justice Department’s enforcement policy would now be restricted to traffickers who falsely masqueraded as medical dispensaries and “use medical marijuana laws as a shield.”

In the Bush administration, federal agents raided medical marijuana distributors that violated federal statutes even if the dispensaries appeared to be complying with state laws. The raids produced a flood of complaints, particularly in California, which in 1996 became the first state to legalize marijuana sales to people with doctors’ prescriptions.

Graham Boyd, the director of the American Civil Liberties Union drug law project, said Mr. Holder’s remarks created a reasonable balance between conflicting state and federal laws and “seem to finally end the policy war over medical marijuana.” He said officials in California and the 12 other states that have authorized the use of medical marijuana had hesitated to adopt regulations to carry out their laws because of uncertainty created by the Bush administration.

Mr. Holder said the new approach was consistent with statements made by President Obama in the campaign and was based on an assessment of how to allocate scarce enforcement resources. He said dispensaries operating in accord with California law would not be a priority for the administration.

The new "drug czar"

Although I'd prefer Obama abolish the position altogether, or turn it into a public health position, all signs point to a pretty good choice.

How Kerlikowske will behave as drug czar is unclear. His has not been a loud voice on drug policy, but he has been police chief in a city, Seattle, that has embraced lowest-priority policing for adult marijuana offenses and needle exchange programs, and he has gone with the flow in regards to those issues. For a keen local look at Kerlikowske, Seattle activist turned journalist Dominic Holden's musings on Kerlikowske are well worth checking out.

Prior to being named Seattle police chief in 2000, Kerlikowske served as deputy director in the Justice Department, where he oversaw the Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) grant program. He also spent four years as Buffalo's police commissioner. The military veteran has a total of 36 years in law enforcement, where he has earned a reputation as a progressive.

While Kerlikowske has a national profile in law enforcement circles, it is not because of drug policy. His interests have been around gun policy, immigration, and electronic data mining of private records, which he has criticized as highly intrusive and not very useful.

Drug reformers had advocated for someone with a public health -- not a law enforcement -- background to head ONDCP. But a progressive law enforcement official who has a record of tolerating drug reform and harm reduction efforts may make for a decent drug czar from the reform perspective.

UPDATE: Alternet's link is misdirected. For more on the view from Seattle...