"Experimenting with drug programs"

CURRENT EVENTS

Maybe my radar is oversensitive, but it seems the Murdoch-era Wall Street Journal gets a little weird when handling drugs. Writing up the new drug czar's expressed desire to quit using that tired, unhelpful, "bellicose" analogy--'War on Drugs'--we got the poor, partisan, punny and plaudit-worthy all in a bundle.

First there was the misleading headline (that got me briefly hopeful):

Whie House Czar Calls for End to 'War on Drugs'

Next there was the passive aggressiveness (my italics):

The administration also said federal authorities would no longer raid medical-marijuana dispensaries in the 13 states where voters have made medical marijuana legal. Agents had previously done so under federal law, which doesn't provide for any exceptions to its marijuana prohibition.

It seems this deserves a fuller explanation (are there other laws that are willfully ignored?) or a different handling. From the left (my territory), failing to explain this leaves an important issue without context. But from the right, the case is equally obvious for explaining why the feds can just ignore the law.

Maybe it is no wonder that things then got giggly:

Mr. Kerlikowske was most recently the police chief in Seattle, a city known for experimenting with drug programs.

Hey, how do you know what they're like if you don't, you know, experiment a bit?

But there is still some of that old sharpness:

"The average rank-and-file officer is saying, 'He can't control two blocks of Seattle, how is he going to control the nation?' " Mr. O'Neill said.