A quiet revolt has been taking place in courtrooms across America. It has been led by judges disillusioned with the country's war on drugs.

On April 29th Harold Greene, a prominent federal judge in Washington, ruled that important elements of the mandatory sentencing laws for drugs offenders were unconstitutional. Less than two weeks earlier, two senior federal judges, Jack Weinstein and Whitman Knapp, of New York had announced that they would no longer preside over drugs cases. In recent months, a number of federal judges have taken such a stance. It might be a sign, much further down the road, of a change in policy.

Lee Brown, the former New York police chief who was appointed as "drug tsar" by Bill Clinton on April 28th, is thought to be a good appointment. Apart from that, Mr Clinton has not done much with drugs policy. Granted, he has been in office a short while, and has had much to occupy him. But his drug policy staff has been cut, and the budget request he has sent to Congress looks just like the one sent by George Bush. He has asked for much the same amount of money, divided up in the same way: two thirds of the money to criminal enforcement efforts, one third to treatment.

Some had hoped for a change of emphasis. Although the "war on drugs" was first promoted by Richard Nixon in 1972, it was not until George Bush's term that the war began in earnest. Mr Bush appointed toughtalking drug tsars and spent $40 billion to attack traffickers abroad and punish pushers and users at home. The result has been disappointing. Cocaine is available about as freely and cheaply today as in 1989. Drug related violence in the cities is still high.

The most praiseworthy part of the Bush policy was a drop in overall cocaine taking. But hard core addicts, who account for four fifths of all consumption, are taking as much as ever. Mark Kleiman, of Harvard University, argues that Mr Bush's policies, put in place soon after the peak in cocaine's popularity, did little to affect a decline already under way. Changing fashion (including the recent surge in heroin taking) probably deserves the credit for that.

If casual consumption of cocaine is down, it may well be the result of education and treatment programmes rather than criminal enforcement. But enforcement has been, and remains, the core of American policy. Presidents, naturally, do not want to be seen to condone the taking of drugs; the public temper is for stiff penalties and the locking up of offenders, not tender care. But the effect of the policy, as the American Bar Association pointed out in a recent report, is that the country's prisons are filled not only with drug handlers but also with drug takers, and cannot cope with the numbers. Neal Sonnett, the head of the ABA's criminal justice section, notes with particular alarm the sharp rise in incarceration of low level drug offenders, which has hindered efforts to fight more serious, and violent, crime. He thinks the criminal justice system may be "on the point of collapse".

If it is, it will be for reasons to do with overall levels of sentencing for many sorts of crimes, not merely those related to drugs. But such arguments livened up a drugs meeting held in Washington on May 7th. to rethink America's policies. At the start of the day Janet Reno, the attorney general, admitted dissatisfaction with the present emphasis on enforcement efforts, and suggested the mandatory sentencing guidelines might be reviewed. The speech confirmed hints from Mr Clinton that, despite his status quo budget, he plans to cut back on enforcement efforts, especially overseas, in favour of trying to reduce demand at home.

Another significant aspect of the meeting was the openness of debate. Prohibition was not unquestioningly supported. Ethan Nadelmann, a drugs expert who heads the Princeton Working Group, which is developing alternative ideas to prohibition, notes that legalisation of drugs was given a serious hearing. The way forward, he believes, is towards "harm reduction". Such efforts, like the one supported by Kurt Schmoke, the mayor of Baltimore, build on programmes from parts of Europe and Australia which treat drug taking not as a criminal matter, but more as an issue of personal choice and public health.

A small chorus has applauded such a shift in resources, arguing that prohibition of drugs will always fail so long as Americans remain so determined to get hold of them. Mr Clinton, who got himself in plenty of trouble during the campaign for not inhaling marijuana, is unlikely to go that far.