Same as it ever was.
I know a lot of people like blackwaterdog's diaries. I also know it's good to have a variety of opinions. Diversity is a strength, not a weakness. Democracy is messy, not sanitized.
Last November, I read a blackwaterdog diary with which I disagreed strongly enough to write a specific response. I discovered during Meta Wars: BWD edition that this diary ultimately got taken down. In that diary, I was disappointed by the use of some specific language.
Here, I have a substantive beef. Drug policy is an issue that means a lot to me. It's what you might call my 'pet' issue or a 'litmus' test issue or a 'moral obligation'. Like hundreds of thousands of Americans, I applied for a job in the Administration; the ONDCP is where I'd like to be, a chance to be involved on 'the inside' at the heart of our war on drugs. Unfortunately, even though we're on our third consecutive baby-boomer President who has used controlled substances illegally, those of us advocating for sensible drug policies are still treated to derision and scorn.
Despite consistently ranking highly on venues such as change.gov, despite questions about drug legalization being posed directly to the President of the United States, Obama has been pretty consistently clear.
...I don't know what this says about the online audience...the answer is no, I don't think that is a good strategy...
In case you didn't get it then, then there was this
I have to say this...I appreciate the boldness of your question...that will not be my job strategy...
Is Obama better than Bush? Is Gil Kerlikowske a superior ONDCP head? Yes. And that's good. That's why we voted for Obama. But those aren't the questions.
The question is why do we arrest more drug users every day than the total number of war criminals and financial crooks who have been arrested over the past decade?
Blackwaterdog titled the diary WH new drug policy. If the Administration was actually charting a new course, shifting from police action to harms minimization, that would be excellent. But what you won't find in the two articles that make up that section of the diary is what exactly the war on drugs actually is, in real life, what the criminalization of drugs does - a criminalization that the Administration has repeatedly, and strenuously, refused to reconsider.
Blackwaterdog doesn't usually add much policy analysis to what's discussed, so sometimes there's not really anything to add to the discussion. But here, there's a video that's received some attention recently that touches upon one bit of the drug war that I think serves as a really good compliment or counterpoint to the notion that a few dollars put toward treatment is equivalent to a new drug policy. I don't know if you own a dog. If you do, be forewarned before you watch this video. But do watch the video. To paraphrase those classic heroin commercials, this is your (family) on (the war on drugs).
From the heartland, with love.
You can watch this all over again at The Seminal at FDL - and everywhere from YouTube to Fox.