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"Obama on Drugs: Should reformers dare to hope?"

By Douglas A. Berman

The title of this post is the title of this piece by Jacob Solum at Reason. It is mainly focused on marijuana policies, though it ends with this notable realpolitik reminder of administrations past: The main danger with Obama is that his history of drug use, instead of making him more open to reform, will make him anxious to show he's tough on drugs. Something like that seems to have happened with Bill Clinton, who bragged about ever-escalating drug war budgets and threatened doctors who recommended marijuana to their patients with jail, trampling the First Amendment in his rush to prove his anti-drug bona fides. "We are going to continue to find ways within the administration to fight legalization and the notion of legalization," a key Clinton drug policy adviser said in defense of this unconstitutional policy, which ultimately was overturned by a federal appeals court...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on November 12, 2008 (boomark / email).