Bill Richardson

I had a chance to meet Presidential candidate Bill Richardson today. He set aside a half-hour during his Seattle visit to meet with some bloggers and field some questions. I thanked him for his efforts to get the medical marijuana bill signed into law in New Mexico. There was a lot I wanted to ask him, but I just asked him for his thoughts on the drug war and whether it's something he would discuss in his campaign.

His answer was pretty standard for someone who has to win votes in both Seattle and Shreveport. He said the war on drugs is definitely failing and we need to focus more on treatment and education. He's particularly bothered by the meth problem, but was very critical of how money is being spent to combat it. He mentioned that our prison population is a concern, but he didn't explicitly advocate decriminalization. He did talk about the damage that it's doing overseas, referencing Plan Colombia, but he didn't get into specifics or say that he'd kill the program. I wanted to ask about a dozen follow-up questions (especially about Afghanistan), but didn't want to monopolize the short amount of time we had with him.

He didn't make any mention of whether he would discuss drug policy in his campaign. I have doubts that any of the major contenders will do so, even though I still believe that there are some platform positions that one of the leading Democrats could take to distinguish themselves from the pack. Just a few that entail very little controversy:

- End the federal effort to subvert state medical marijuana laws

- Allow the states to have more control over their own drug laws

- Stop wasting so much money on drug eradication schemes across the world

- Reform federal sentencing to cut down on the prison population for non-violent crimes

- Promote drug treatment as an alternative to prison for non-violent offenders

I've been leaning towards Richardson for a while among the Democrats, not just because of how he handled the medical marijuana bill in New Mexico, but also because of his very impressive foreign policy experience. Today's meeting really didn't change my mind in either direction. I'd still probably throw my vote his way in a primary, but I don't think I'll be blogging with Ken and Emmett any time soon either.