Clinton's War On Drugs: Cruel, Wrong, Unwinnable: Rolling Stone

President Clinton's proposed drug-control budget will cost America $16 billion. This is the largest federal anti-drug expenditure in our nation's history, up from $I billion in 1980. When all is said and done, it is a continuation of failed policies and an exercise in deceit.

As the first president of the post-World War II baby-boomer generation, President Clinton should have some insight into drugs and human behavior ? many of his peers, his largest contributors and the staff around him have had some experience with illegal drugs. It is obvious that few of them are addicts or criminals, and they shouldn't be thrown in jail or forced to submit to testing. And it is also obvious that after more than 25 years and hundreds of billions of dollars squandered on interdiction and punishment ? in California, more state money is now spent on incarceration than on higher education ? the "war on drugs" is wasteful and socially destructive.

It is disappointing that Clinton has chosen to take part in this hypocrisy. The real problem is the war itself and the unwillingness, or inability, to look for new options. In fairness, this year's drug strategy put forth by Gen. Barry McCaffrey is softer in tone than those issued by the first frug czar, William Bennett. There's even a nod to education, treatment and compassion.

But beneath the rhetoric, the federal government is still waging war on citizens, 70 million of whom have used illegal drugs. Though voters in both California and Arizona have taken their disapproval of the nation's drug policies to the voting booths, the Clinton administration continues to pour funds into a campaign that is cowardly and dishonest, and is starting to become comparable to the ugly government excesses of the McCarthy and Vietnam eras.
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The Clinton administration is waging a more intensive war on marijuana smokers than any other presidency in history. Presently, law enforcement arrests a marijuana smoker every 45 seconds in America at a tremendous cost to society. This represents a 60 percent increase in marijuana arrests since Clinton took office. Over ten million Americans have been arrested on marijuana charges since the National Commission on Marijuana and Drug Abuse issued its recommendation to Congress in 1972 to decriminalize marijuana.

Because of harsh federal and state penalties, marijuana offenders today may be sentenced to lengthy jail terms. Even those who avoid incarceration are subject to an array of additional punishments, including loss of driver's license (even where the offense is not driving related), loss of occupational license, loss of child custody, loss of federal benefits, and removal from public housing. Under state and federal forfeiture laws, many suspected marijuana offenders lose their cars, cash, boats, land, business equipment, and houses. Eighty percent of the individuals whose assets are seized are never charged with a crime.

Marijuana prohibition disproportionately impacts minorities. Blacks and Hispanics are over-represented both in the numbers of arrests and in the numbers of marijuana offenders incarcerated. Blacks and Hispanics make up 20 percent of the marijuana smokers in the United States, but comprise 58 percent of the marijuana offenders sentenced under federal law last year.

yawn.

Who cares that we have a higher incarceration rate than some of the worst regimes on Earth, thanks to our wonderful war on drugs?

:sarcasm:

I know she will be surrounded by the same people that advised Bill to do this shit.

One factor I've been hearing cited on Black radio for the increasingly bitter criticisms of the Clintons, is that Bill's tenure led to a big increase in incarceration rates for simple drug possession crimes. FWIW I blame the Republicans in the statehouses more for this, but Hillary's plans on federalizing this broken policy are concerning.

(originally posted by Mythsaje)

I despise them from top to bottom. The drug war is, from its inception to its implementation, a racist war against the people of this country, financed in great part by the producers of alcohol who don't like competition, and by other industrial giants who wanted to take the possibility of industrial hemp completely out of the picture. Now it's financed in great part by the Prison-Industrial complex that wants to take our money for housing ordinary folks unlucky enough to be swept up in their endless "war" and sent to institutions that may not be hell, but certainly within rock-throwing range.

I despise drug warriors from the very core of my being. And that will never change.


One of the things that pissed me off the most about Clinton is that, after leaving office, was to say that he thought marijuana should be legalized.

My response? "Fuck you, Bill. You're a fucking coward. How many people were tortured, raped, and killed in prison because you were afraid to stand up and say that earlier?"
What if, indeed? The Infinity Project
http://www.sajewilliams.com

I think my first reaction to that was quite measured - "Why, you two faced motherfucker!" or somesuch.
Was that a Rolling Stone article?
He will say ANYTHING to be liked or considered "cool"
Ugh.


I have not heard ANY of our "big three" discuss this 3rd rail topic.
The best we can hope for is cessation of federal raids for medicalclubs and hopefully, individuals, growing in states that have more sane laws.

They SHOULD dissolve the DEA, use those resources to fight arms dealing, or at LEAST only focus on meth labs.
Gonna happen? Sadly, no.

Why don't the rest want him in the debates?

How could they be the "change agents" if that troublemaker is there, making them all look oh so status quo?

sigh.

You put a dad in jail for smoking pot, fine.

What about his kids, his wife, his mother, his father while he is in prison? Do you have any idea of the ripple effects of incarcerating someone? Think about it. Ruined careers, ruined marriages, ruined lives -but not just that one person, no! Maybe the next generation as well. Maybe even the one after that. Think about it.

For smoking cannabis, a little plant flower that eases pain for chronic pain sufferers, helps anxiety, menstrual cramps, slows cancer, works for some types of asthma, gives healthy appetites to cancer and AIDS patients, and many, many other ailments.
Oh, and Bill smoked it too.

It's more than a bit hypocritical to push for 3-strikes laws on drug crimes, when he was involved in one himself. Methinks this would demand a better level of respect.

It was the predecessor term the for physical invasion of our privacy, the new and improved "War Against Terror", another literally impossible to win war is being added to it. I imagine in another thirty or forty years, they will have "The War Against Naughty Thoughts" and people's brains will need to be planted with chips to monitor them.

It's also a tremendous waste of taxpayer money, especially the way it's now waged. We should do like the Netherlands-- give people who are abusing drugs treatment, not prison sentences.

is against too much freedom for the American People, as the Ferengi would say where is the profit in that?

Millions of lives damaged, not by pot, but by the insane law.
At least Bill got to look "tough", while appeasing the drug warriors.

In 1999, 704,812 people in the United States were arrested for marijuana "crimes." This was an increase of over 85% from the 380,399 arrested in 1993, Bill Clinton's first year in office.

I have a friend who is from the southern islands of the Phillipines, the Muslim area near Mindanao, and is very knowledgeable and political.

He told me that in the Phillipines, it was once the law that a farmer had to reserve 1/4 of his land for the growing of hemp. Marijuana was a big part of their indigenous culture too.

Last time he returned, when he went through the many tiny, impoverished villages, he saw so many young children whacked out of their brains on horrible man-made drugs like crank or crack or some evil shit. Their eyes, he said, were like white ping pong balls in their heads-they were so screwed up on the shit.

Tell me this is a good thing, as opposed to consuming what the Earth gave us for that purpose. Tell me.

Marijuana wouldn't be illegal all over the world, chopping off people's arms or imprisoning them for decades, if it weren't for our insidious influence.