Federal drug policy has changed only slightly in the last 30 years, but Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the Drug Policy Aliance, an organization that promotes policy alternatives to the drug war, says he’s optimistic about the future.

He spoke at the Cato Institute this week to address the increasing violence in Mexico between the government and drug cartels. In today’s Cato Daily Podcast, Nadelmann discusses how the nation’s approach to drug policy could change under the new administration:

I’m feeling strangely optimistic these days. I think part of it is that Obama’s coming into office has just opened up a sense of something new being possible… These Democrats—Pelosi, George Miller, Henry Waxman, John Conyers, Barney Frank, and others—they understand that the drug war is a failure. They’re not going to show real leadership on this issue in the short-term future, but there’s at least an understanding about what’s so fundamentally wrong.