On Tuesday, I participated in a panel discussion at the University of California Davis coffee house on the role of marijuana reform in the larger drug policy reform movement.

At the outset, I invited the audience to visit www.whitehousedrugpolicy.gov, the website of the ONDCP, if they wanted to see regular doses of sugar-coated government mendacity.

I addressed the latest example: the Drug Czar's snarky booklet-length assertion that there aren't that many (enough?) people in jail solely for marijuana, claiming that "legalizers" like NORML, MPP, and DPA willfully exaggerate the impact of the law on marijuana smokers. However, the hard reality is that over 700,000 persons are brought into the criminal justice system because they are arrested for a marijuana offense.

I also noted that there is a distinction within the drug reform community between those who want to decriminalize, those who want a tax-and-regulate regime, and those who want a more laissez-faire approach.

The ONDCP is ramping up its War on Marijuana in order to prop up its flagging performance. Even those organizations that are not left-of-center -- from the American Enterprise Institute to Citizens Against Government Waste -- are increasingly finding that so much of US drug policy is ineffective and an injudicious use of taxpayer dollars. I highlighted the Information Brief from Carnevale Associates issued earlier this year that found not one federal drug control program was effective, and that only one program (treatment-oriented) could be rated as moderately effective.

One good aspect of the Bush Administration's policy is that ONDCP funding has generally leveled off, compared to the rapid increases during Bush I and the Clinton years. Bill Clinton always viewed drug policy as a prime opportunity for triangulation with the GOP Congress. His December 7, 2000 "exit interview" with Rolling Stone, where he claimed he should have done more on sentencing reform, was patently disingenuous. He expressly rejected the proposal of the United States Sentencing Commission to decrease the 100-1 disparity between powder and crack cocaine sentences.

I then outlined the obstacles to reform in the political process, and the biggest ones I noted were (1) the natural tendencies of political actors to be risk-adverse, and (2) the lack of good science-based information getting to decisionmakers and their staff. On this second point, reformers are facing a landscape where individuals are uncomfortable about the subject of drugs precisely because they have not had prior access to good information. Instead, many get their information from stakeholders (like law enforcement interests) who utilize incendiary sloganeering and broad moralist proclamations to perpetuate the veil of confusion. Also, even for the most reform-minded politician, drug policy is but one item on a larger policy agenda.

The lack of good drug education has broader implications: it keeps the citizenry largely in fear of the unknown, which makes them more malleable to direction from self-proclaimed "experts" who also have the imprimatur of government status.

My main prognosis: In the short term, we'll see more of the same and we must also take the view that history is not on the side of reform. For as Jefferson once noted, "It is the natural progress of things for liberty to yield and for government to gain ground."

I was also interested to learn that the campus Republican group was unwilling to talk about drug policy. As a registered (libertarian) Republican since the conceptual dawn of ClintonCare, I took that to be a good sign: it is tantamount to a vote of "no confidence" in the policy and rhetoric of the established GOP hierarchy. I hope that they too will follow the analysis and conclusions of intellectuals like Milton Friedman over the ribald harangues of statist scolds like Bill Bennett (and the coterie of Straight, Inc./Drug Free America Foundation authoritarians).

Thanks to James Schwab and Jonathon Leathers for organizing the event, hosted by the Davis College Green Party.