Drug Czar being Demoted

President Obama is removing the position of Drug Czar from a cabinet ranking office. The position of Drug Czar was first a cabinet member in 1988, because of Anti-Drug Abuse Act. Vice President Joe Biden first coined the title in 1982; he was somewhat of a zealot in his campaign against drugs. Biden said of medical marijuana “We have not devoted nearly enough science or time to deal with the pain management and chronic pain management that exists. There’s got to be a better answer than marijuana.” Ironically in 1989 Biden criticized then President Bush’s downgrade of the position of Drug Czar from cabinet level position. George W. Bush again made Drug Czar a cabinet position in 2001, now in 2008 drugs are seemingly less of an issue than they have ever been. The vice president announced the nomination of Seattle Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske as the new Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy; his position will no longer be a cabinet level one. Of this downgrade the administration says that it is “is fortunate to have a vice president with an unrivaled breadth of knowledge about federal drug policy," says an administration official. "Never before has there been someone with this level of knowledge who is as close to the president as Vice President Biden”. Is the downgrade of the position of drug czar a sign of changing perceptions about drug use and the best ways to deal with it? Many illegal drugs such as Marijuana could and do have medical uses, maybe the administration is taking step to a more tolerant policy on drugs in general. President Obama himself has admitted he tried cocaine and marijuana. Another reason possibly for the change in position is that there is just too much else to worry about. The war in Iraq, a failing economy etc... Etc... Is a War on Drugs really that important anymore? With so much brutality in the drug trade i.e. the Mexican Border, legalization could possibly stop much of that violence. In the end a person’s body is their own and should the government really be allowed to tell one what to put in it?