By Tony Newman

Change is undeniably in the air when it comes to our country’s disastrous war on drugs. After 40 years of failure, it seems that people are waking up and demanding change. Voters in Colorado and Washington state dealt an unprecedented blow to marijuana prohibition when they voted to tax and regulate it in November 2012. And the American public is backing them up, with the latest polls showing a solid majority of Americans supporting marijuana legalization.

What has been shocking until now is that politicians have been so far behind the American public when it comes to the drug war. While a majority of Americans support legalizing marijuana, not a single one of the 100 U.S. senators and only a small handful of the 435 U.S. representatives in the House support it.

But there’s reason for hope. Recently, President Obama, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie all made major news by speaking out for drug policy reform.

In an interview with the New Yorker, President Obama spoke more candidly about the need for drug policy reform – and his own past drug use – than at any time during his presidency. While his statement that marijuana is no more dangerous than alcohol grabbed all the headlines, he also talked about racial disparities in marijuana arrests and said the new laws legalizing marijuana in Colorado and Washington are “important.”

Recently, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid became the highest ranking elected official to support medical marijuana. “If you’d asked me this question a dozen years ago, it would have been easy to answer – I would have said no, because (marijuana) leads to other stuff,” the Senate majority leader told The Sun. “But I can’t say that anymore.”

“I think we need to take a real close look at this,” Reid went on. “I think that there’s some medical reasons for marijuana.”

When asked about legalizing marijuana like alcohol, which Colorado and Washington state have done, Reid stopped short of endorsing legalization but said, “[w]e waste a lot of time and law enforcement going after these guys that are smoking marijuana.”

And New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie spoke out against the failed drug war in his inauguration speech: “We will end the failed war on drugs that believes that incarceration is the cure of every ill caused by drug abuse. We will make drug treatment available to as many of our nonviolent offenders as we can and we will partner with our citizens to create a society that understands that every life has value and no life is disposable.”

We are at a paradoxical moment in our country. We are clearly moving in the right direction, toward a more rational drug policy based on science, compassion, health and human rights. But the drug war remains entrenched in federal, state and local policies – in the U.S., more than a million people are still arrested every year simply for drug possession, and more than a half a million people are behind bars for nothing more than a drug law violation.

We need to step up our efforts, grow our numbers and continue to win hearts and minds, because the casualties from the war on drugs continue to mount every day. And if the people lead, the leaders will follow.

Tony Newman is the director of media relations at the Drug Policy Alliance (drugpolicy.org).

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