If the question is whether the Obama Administration will incrementally redefine drug laws, an indicator is how Obama redefines the drug czar’s office. He gave us a clue today. Vice President Joe Biden, not Obama himself, made the official announcement this morning that Seattle Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske is the official nominee for drug czar. And Obama is inching back; the drug czar post is being demoted from the president’s cabinet.

The position, formally the director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, has historically involved persuading Congress to grant more money to the office than the budget prior, running rhetorical anti-pot ads, and lobbying against state initiatives to relax marijuana laws. In other words, the drug policy is set—drugs are illegal—and the office’s goal is to keep them that way. But Obama’s goal might be, at long last, to change them.

Here are some of Biden’s comments earlier today:

[Kerlikowske] has been recognized as one of the most innovative minds in law enforcement and he's been called a "fierce defender of community policing principles." What I find most appealing about the Chief is that he says we can't operate in "silos" — with barriers thrown up between the criminal justice system, the prevention and treatment community, and the recovery components of this problem. They can't be separated. He knows we need a comprehensive answer.

And that's exactly what the vision we had in mind when we first — many of you in this room who helped — when we first created that office. That was the idea from the outset.

We know we needed tough laws, and we have tough laws. But that wasn't enough. We needed a balanced approach in combating drugs — one that included prevention, treatment and enforcement.

It’s important to note that for Biden, the drug war is his pride and nightmare. He created the drug czar position. And despite being a progressive Democrat on most issues, he’s pushed the most draconian laws in recent American history, including mandatory-minimum sentencing guidelines and other policies that packed prisons with brown nonviolent drug-dealers. So recent talk of comprehensive approaches and other statements represents a mild mea culpa.

Also, connecting Biden with the appointment of a progressive candidate for the position gives the nomination political cover. Biden, as the former chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which is tasked with confirming Kerlikowske’s nomination, can convincingly argue that we experimented with the extremes of enforcement, threats of prison, and penalties—and now it’s time try something else. (Don’t expect any radical statements to this effect, of course.) No one is better positioned to gingerly retreat from the drug war. When he does it, he can say he/we/the nation was wrong. A cop like Kerlikowske can say the same thing—about providing more treatment and actually doing it, funding needle exchange, running reasonable anti-drug ads, and reforming sentencing guidlines. Anyone else just seems like an idealistic scofflaw.

These were Kerlikowske’s comments:

The success of our efforts to reduce the flow of drugs is largely dependent on our ability to reduce demand for them. And that starts with our youth. Our nation's drug problem is one of human suffering, and as a police officer but also in my own family, I have experienced the effects that drugs can have on our youth, our families and our communities. […]

Already this administration has expanded commitments to critical programs, ones that we've seen such as drug courts, better treatment, prisoner and reentry programs, border security, and counternarcotics initiatives, both domestically and internationally. This is a real commitment to strengthening the tools we have to reduce trafficking, illegal drug manufacturing, and drug-related crime and violence.

City Council Member Tim Burgess issued this statement today:

Traditional drug enforcement methods aimed at first-time and casual users do not work. New approaches are needed. Chief Kerlikowske will lead this policy debate at the national level quite effectively.

Fox News, of course, wonders if this administration is going overboard with “czars”; never mind that the drug czar post was first appointed by the canonized and infallible GHW Bush Administration.