Given that a band of guerilla hemp farmers (including the president of hippie-ish soap magnate Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soaps) was arrested planting cannabis on the lawn of DEA headquarters, the context of yesterday’s announcement by Congressman John Yarmuth, D-3, of federal funding for a community-based approach to the War on Drugs is made all the more relevant.

“Reducing drug abuse in Louisville is a problem that requires a comprehensive solution. Of course, it takes strong law enforcement work, but also great schools, strong families, and unified communities to ensure we keep our kids away from drugs,” said Congressman Yarmuth. “This funding will support a community-based effort that will work to guarantee a strong foundation of support exists for young people throughout Louisville.” [Press Release]

Of the $21 million Drug Free Communities Support Program grant, $625,000 will be funneled to the PAL Coalition’s 7th Street Corridor over a period of five years, and will augment PAL’s ability to reduce youth alcohol and drug abuse through direct outreach and education in the Parkland, Algonquin and Old Louisville neighborhoods. According to the Center For Neighborhoods’s website, the grassroots community action/planning organization administering the funds, the money couldn’t have gone to a more worthy cause:

Despite some economic revitalization efforts the Seventh Street Corridor still has the twin urban problems such as concentrated poverty and crime. The community has a poverty rate of 29%. This rate is 2.3 times high than the Louisville-Jefferson county rate of 12%.

This marks a change in direction for Yarmuth — insofar as monetary allocation is concerned — who just this summer threw his weight behind a tried-and-true Nixon/Regan approach. But low impact buy-and-bust drug raids, overcrowded prisons and enormous taxpayer burden have yielded little (if any) tangible benefit. Then again, the funds ultimately find their place of origin within the bipolar Office of National Drug Control Policy, whose “drug czar,” Gil Kerilkowske, has pledged support for two diametrically opposed methods for dealing America’s love affair with drugs, so in many ways Yarmuth is just the conduit.

Instead of breaking down doors and arresting potheads, however, expect more public arts projects, increased surveillance of area liquor stores to prevent illegal sales to minors and pretty much anything else you can think of that doesn’t involve a taser or K-9 unit. The more of the former approach, though, the better, because time — and national drug policies — have not been kind to the 7th Streets across this nation.