by Joseph A. Califano Jr.

About the author: Joseph A. Califano Jr. is the president of the Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University in New York City and was the secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare in the Carter administration.

When high priests of America’s political right and left as articulate as William F. Buckley Jr., founding editor of National Review, and Anthony Lewis, a columnist for the New York Times Op-Ed page, peddle the same drug legalization line, it’s time to shout caveat emptor—let the buyer beware. For the boom- let to legalize drugs like heroin, cocaine and marijuana that they—and magazines like National Review and New York—are trying to seed among the right and left ends of the political spectrum, is founded in...