Joe Biden Has A Serious Drug Policy Problem

Joe Biden carries into any presidential run the burden of his own history -- in particular, his complicity in crafting a generation of drug policies now synonymous with failure. The vice president's long record of advocating laws that helped fuel the drug war and mass incarceration could serve as an early stumbling block in a White House campaign.

In the 1980s and 1990s, then-Sen. Biden and other lawmakers enacted a wave of tough-on-crime measures, driven by record spikes in violent crime and a crack epidemic that was ravaging major...