A Drug War Truce?

"There's an urgent need to end this mistaken drug war," says Kevin Zeese, head of Common Sense for Drug Policy. "This is just an example of an administration that says one thing and does another."

Political pressure to end the War on Drugs is building in surprising quarters. In recent months, three distinct rationales have converged to convince a growing number of politicians — including many on the center-right — to seriously consider the benefits of legalizing marijuana.

For Webb, a Democrat from Virginia who served as secretary of the Navy under President Reagan, it's a crisis of incarceration. "Incarcerated drug offenders have soared 1,200 percent since 1980," the senator says. "Yet the illegal-drug industry and the flow of drugs have remained undiminished." For Schwarzenegger, who says it is "time for a debate" about legalization, it's a crisis of cost: A bill in the California legislature to legalize and tax cannabis — the state's largest cash crop — would provide more than $1 billion annually to balance the state's busted budget. And for Terry Goddard, the attorney general of Arizona, it's a crisis of violence: With Baghdad levels of bloodshed raging in Tijuana and other border towns, legalization would deprive Mexican cartels of as much as 65 percent of their illegal income. "Much of the carnage in Mexico is financed because of profits from marijuana," Goddard told reporters in April. Last month, a Zogby poll that presented all three rationales found, for the first time ever, that a majority of Americans — 52 percent — say they support decriminalizing marijuana.

Legalization is also backed by a growing number of veteran drug warriors. "The War on Drugs is a constantly expanding and self-perpetuating policy disaster," says Jack Cole, a former undercover narcotics agent who now serves as president of a group called Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, which includes hundreds of former drug agents, police officers and judges. "If all drugs were legal and regulated we could have exactly the same demand for drugs in the U.S., but there wouldn't be any killings. Mexico's 7,500 deaths since the beginning of last year — all those murders just wouldn't exist."

For Tim Dickinson's complete report, check out the latest issue of Rolling Stone, on newstands now.

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