Is Rick Perry ‘More Liberal’ on Marijuana Than Barack Obama?

During a drug policy panel at the
World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, today, Texas Gov. Rick
Perry
said states have a right to go their own way on marijuana,
although he personally continues to oppose legalization. “I am a
staunch promoter of the 10th Amendment,” Perry said, explaining
that states should be free to set their own policies in areas such
as abortion, gay marriage, and marijuana, and “then people will
decide where they want to live.” At the same time, he declared that
Texans “certainly would never jump out in front of the parade”
toward legalization, although he
said he supports “policies that start us toward a
decriminalization and keep people from going to prison and
destroying their lives,” which is “what we’ve done over the last
decade.”

What Perry means by “decriminalization” is pretty much what New
Jersey Gov. Chris Christie
means when he says he will “end the failed war on drugs”:
giving nonviolent drug offenders a choice between a treatment slot
and a prison cell. In other words, it’s not really
decriminalization, which at the very least means eliminating
criminal penalties for users, not using those penalties as a hammer
to reform them against their will—which is also what Barack Obama’s
drug czar, Gil Kerlikowske, had in mind when he declared that “we
certainly ended the drug war.”

Still, Perry’s federalism is one of the few things I like about
him, although I would argue
that he is not quite as committed to that principle as he claims to
be. U.S. News reporter Steven Nelson says
Perry’s willingness to let 50 cannabis flowers bloom (or not, as
the case may be) is “a more liberal position than the one held by
the Obama administration,” since “the Justice Department said in
August it will conditionally allow Colorado and
Washington to open state-licensed stores, but reserved the right to
shut them down for violating federal law.”

Nelson has a point, although President Obama’s recent
comments about legalization in Colorado and Washington suggest
he is willing to learn from state policy experiments even if he is
also prepared to squash them. Yesterday White House Press Secretary
Jay Carney
said Obama, who
told The New Yorker “it’s important” for
legalization in those states “to go forward,”  is “not
endorsing any specific move by a state.” Rather, “he’s talking
about the issue of disparities in prosecution of our drug laws that
an experiment like this may be addressing.” For now, at least, the
laboratories of democracy are up and running.