Several recent articles make the case that we would notice few changes in drug policy if voters were to oust Bush in favor of a Kerry administration.

Mike Krause and Dave Kopel, at Reason magazine today, question what, if any, difference would exist:

For those who oppose the federal government's disastrous war on drugs, there are many things to dislike about the Bush Administration, not the least of which is its shameless -- and dangerous -- use of the war on terror to prop up the failed drug war and the accompanying $18 billion dollar bureaucracy. And there is no indication that four more years of a Bush presidency will offer anything but more of the same.

But anyone who thinks a vote for John Kerry means a vote for a more liberalized approach to drug policy should think again. Candidate Kerry's choice for Homeland Security Advisor, Rand Beers, is a seasoned drug warrior who has already shown his loyalty to the well being of the drug war, no matter how many lives it destroys, or how many narco- terrorists are enriched along the way.

Then Krause and Kopel rightly rip Beers (a former Clinton and Bush II official) a new one:

The "starve an Andean peasant to save an American cokehead" policy Beers defends has done nothing to protect the national security of the U.S., but rather is creating new political instability and terrorist alliances that can only serve to help along narco-terrorism in the Andean Ridge.

Robert Collier of the San Francisco Chronicle concurs:

Little change would be likely in the war on drugs in a Kerry administration, because Bush has essentially adopted the Clinton administration's Plan Colombia, a program of military and economic aid to the Andean nations to fight drug trafficking and leftist guerrillas. Under the plan, about 400 U.S. military advisers and special forces troops, along with hundreds of employees of U.S. private military firms, are stationed in Colombia.

As does Radley Balko at Fox News:

There are also very little practical differences between the candidates on the war on drugs, the federalization of crime or the death penalty.

You can read more about the candidate's drug-policy positions at the Alliance's Election 2004 site.