by Steven B. Duke

About the author: Steven B. Duke is a Yale law professor and the coauthor, with Albert C. Gross, of America’s Longest War: Rethinking Our Tragic Crusade Against Drugs, published by Jeremy P. Tarcher/Putnam.

In her assertion that legalizing drugs would markedly reduce crime, [former U.S. surgeon general] Dr. Joycelyn Elders was clearly correct. Given the enormity of the nation’s crime problem, her suggestion that legalization should be “studied” was also plainly right. In asserting that the matter should not even be thought about, the Bill Clinton Administration behaved like religious rulers decrying heresy. What should be embarrassing to an Administration elected on a promise of “change” is not what its surgeon general said, but her White House colleagues’ contemptuous dismissal of what she said...