Drugs and Hypocrisy

Attorney General Eric Holder recently made news when he came out against mandatory minimum sentences for nonviolent drug offenders. Speaking to the American Bar Association, he went on to say that low-level offenders should be diverted to drug treatment and community service programs, rather than languish for years in prison. The outright release from prison of some elderly, nonviolent offenders, who presumably have been incarcerated for most of their adult lives merely because they sold or ingested substances deemed not suitable for ingestion by our rulers, was also mentioned by the AG.

The policy changes advocated by Holder are not simply long overdue. They are in fact far too timid. The War on Drugs, declared some 30 years ago, has devastated the lives of millions of individuals and families. Drug users and their families are not the only ones who have been hurt by this government campaign against individual choice and behavior. We all have suffered. By driving up the price of illegal drugs, this war has contributed directly to crime and violence in our society, as gangs and mafias vie for control of the lucrative trade, and users turn to crime to pay for their habits. Our constitutional rights have been eroded by increased surveillance, confiscation of property without due process, and other law enforcement abuses. Worst of all, we have allowed the state to dictate how we supposedly free men and women should behave in private.

Inmates in federal prisons now number 219,000. The number of federal inmates has grown by almost 800% since 1980. Almost half of these prisoners are doing time for drug-related crimes. Has Holder recognized the sheer perversity of these figures? Not really. What bothers him is the fact that the federal prison system is operating at almost 40% above officially estimated capacity. Rising prison costs have led to less spending on cops and prosecutors and various government programs connected to the War on Drugs. It’s a resource issue for Holder, rather than a matter of recognizing that a fundamental injustice is being perpetrated by the state against its own citizens. The War on Drugs was lost the day it was declared, yet 30 years later we continue to accept the casualties it creates. The AG’s response is to tweak things a bit and hope for the best.

Most legislators on Capitol Hill have welcomed Holder’s initiative, but not one that I know of has taken the bold step of calling for an end to this unwinnable war. Moreover, federal action will not affect citizens being persecuted by the individual states. About 225,000 people are sitting in state prisons for drug offenses. According to the best studies available, 60% of them are nonviolent offenders. What sort of madness is this? What words are there to describe such iniquities in our so-called free republic?

One would love to see this president, any president, come out and speak the truth on this issue. Admit what any thinking person knows — that suppressing private drug use by adults is a hopeless endeavor, with bad outcomes abounding, and that furthermore it is no business of government even to attempt to do so. What really rankles with me is that the current occupant of the Oval Office, like his two predecessors, used illegal drugs in his youth. Obama at least has been rather forthright about his drug use. Clinton, you will recall, “didn’t inhale.” Bush, well known as a drunkard in his twenties and thirties, denied using illegal drugs, but was caught admitting marijuana use in a private conversation (he almost certainly used cocaine as well). But forthright or not, how does Barack sleep at night when tens of thousands of people who behaved just as he once did have been deprived of their liberty, had their lives ruined? What sort of man can become the leader of a nation and yet remain silent in the face of such injustice?