Norm Stamper

Congratulations Gil Kerlikowske on your confirmation as director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy. Bit of an irony, isn't it? Two Seattle police chiefs on opposite sides of the drug war?

If one of these two drugs is implicated in dire health effects, high mortality rates, and physical violence -- and the other is not -- what are we to make of our nation's marijuana laws?

Our leader doesn't seem to understand that millions of his interlocutor-constituents are actually quite serious about the issue.

The nation's longest running armed conflict, the drug war, financed to the tune of about $70 billion a year, is an unmitigated economic disaster.