Two items of note in the past week have given some hope that maybe, just maybe, the unending folly that is the U.S. war on drugs — and the vast anti-drug edifice keeping it in place — are beginning to show signs of fatigue.

First, consider the about-face that CNN’s medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, performed on Aug. 8 when he opined that he was totally wrong about medical marijuana, which he had previously opposed. Indeed, Gupta went so far as to apologize for his past opposition to marijuana, stating, “I have apologized for some of the earlier reporting because I think, you know, we’ve been terribly and systematically misled in this country for some time.”

While Gupta’s turn-around is not quite akin to Walter Cronkite coming out against the Vietnam War, it is nonetheless important. Gupta was once considered by the Obama administration for the position of Surgeon General, the nation’s highest-ranking medical position. Meanwhile, he is watched by millions of people, albeit on the milquetoast CNN — and isn’t a celebrity entertainer (though some would dispute that characterization).

The second item came four days later, on August 12, from the office of the U.S. Attorney General. It appears that Eric Holder, Obama’s man at the Department of Justice, will issue a directive to U.S. federal prosecutors to ignore mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenses that do not involve “violence, a weapon, or sale to a minor,” or defendants with “a significant criminal history,” or ties to “large-scale” criminal organizations. Ostensibly meant to ease overcrowding in America’s over-full prisons, the move is nonetheless one that will reduce pressure on law enforcement to crack down on petty drug offenses as ruthlessly as they might take down a suspected terrorist or mob boss.

So, what do Americans actually think?

While these moves are all to the good, it should be noted that this relatively minor change in direction by national level institutions and influencers on drug policy is way, way behind many state lawmakers and public opinion. Half of U.S. states have either legalized pot outright, legalized medical use of marijuana or effectively decriminalized possession of small amounts of the drug by making it a finable civil offense rather than a criminal matter. While most of these pro-pot states are concentrated in more liberal parts of the country, even rock-red Mississippi has lightened penalties for pot possession.

Public opinion, as usual, is even further out than state legislatures. In April the Pew Center for the People & the Press announced that, for the first time in basically forever, more Americans now favor marijuana legalization than oppose it. While this change in attitudes is mostly led by the young, since 2000 all age groups have shown increasing acceptance of the wisdom of pot legalization. Members of the so-called ‘Silent Generation,’ for instance – the oldest age group polled by Pew – has seen a huge increase in support, going from a low of 17 percent in support of marijuana legalization in 2002 to 32 percent today. All other age categories are now either split evenly on legalization (baby boomers) or have shown outright majority support (Gen-Xers and Millennials).

Why we should be seeing such a rapid shift in support for marijuana legalization is not hard to fathom, and is similar to the rapid change in public opinion and public policy that has been demonstrated on another culture issue of note – gay marriage. In short, the arguments against criminalizing pot are so pointedly wrong and have been demonstrated to be so in any number of reputable, scientific studies that, as Gupta pointed out, official policy is only understandable as being supportable via massive cognitive dissonance — or financial interest in seeing certain policies continue.

Moreover, this evidence can no longer be denied. The internet has made information like this ubiquitous and impossible to censor while users of all ages mimic the effect that gays and lesbians who have come out of the closet have had on the opinions of their peers. Proof, it would seem, is in the pudding of experience and easily obtainable scientific corroboration – something dreary-looking anti-drug bureaucrats spouting off moral cliché’s from the Dragnet era can never hope to replicate or keep under wraps.

Anti-reefer madness

Thus, if Michael Phelps can win a chestful of Olympic medals one day and then smoke marijuana on the next to no apparent ill effect, it would certainly appear that harsh pot laws are absurd. If, in fact, there are actual medical benefits to using pot, its classification as a Schedule I controlled substance is not just absurd, it is evil. Throw in the de facto racist implementation of drug laws and you have a policy that is literally tearing the country apart. No sane person could possibly support our current drug policy – it’s that crazy.

To be sure, pot is no super-weed capable of solving the world’s ills as some of its more committed advocates would tell us, but it is also not the “highway to heroin” or pathway to social degeneracy as suggested by anti-marijuana propagandists such as the long-dead producers of “Reefer Madness” or the Nixon White House. As such, pot seems little different than far more dangerous alcohol and nearly as socially accepted – and government is only now, slowly, catching up to this fact.

Far more needs to be done, however, than merely changing federal mandatory-minimum sentencing guidelines, especially now given that the past three occupants of the White House, including the current one, have admittedly dabbled with drugs when they were younger. It is absolutely galling to see powerful men who but for bad luck might have ended up in prison for the “crime” of smoking pot refusing to budge on a policy as ruinous for so many people as this one.

Indeed, current policy erodes faith in the system and lessens the legitimacy of all our law enforcement and legal institutions as a result. Like with the Wall Street bailouts, if the powerful and the connected needn’t worry about laws actually affecting them then it is evidence – as if we need more – that America is a deeply divided, unequal society where law is more often used as a punitive measure meant to preserve a certain social hierarchy than to establish justice or promote the general welfare.

The Obama White House therefore has an opportunity to lead on an issue that the public is well out in front of. Given Barack Obama’s own frequent demand to his supporters to force him to follow them, he should take his own advice by doing a lot more to end the drug war than he is presently doing. On marijuana legalization, Sí, se puede… but only if our leaders – especially the one domiciled at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue – let us.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Mint Press News editorial policy.