Kurt Schmoke promotes drug sanity

We've heard almost nothing during the presidential campaign about drug policy. Most politicians think it's the "third rail" of American politics that will kill your career if you even talk about it, although almost all the politicians who have suggested drug-law reform have been re-elected handily.

One of them is Kurt Schmoke, former mayor of Baltimore, a former prosecutor who came to believe the drug war was not just futile but harmful and said so back in the late 1980s -- and was re-elected. In this article he urges the presidential candidates to take an incremental step -- promising to increase the number of drug courts in the country. Even better would be to appoint somebody who takes the name of the "Office of Drug Control Policy" seriously enough to appoiint somebody open-minded enough to consider the most effective methods of controlling the harm of drugs rather than being a knee-jerk prohibionist. Or am I dreaming? Anyway, kudos to Kurt for trying to in jecty the issue into the campaign.