Tag: War on Drugs

Robert Chambers, convicted of the infamous New York "Preppy Murder" of Jennifer Levin, was released from prison in 2003 after serving his full 15 year sentence.

In 1986, Robert Chambers, a young and handsome guy who had dropped out of college, met Jennifer Levin, a student at an elite private high school in Manhattan, at a trendy bar on the Upper East Side. They then went to Central Park, had sex, and she ended up strangled to death. Chambers said it was an accident, they had been having consensual rough sex.

In 2005, Chambers made the news again when he was busted for cocaine residue on a straw and an empty tin foil packet found during a traffic stop.

Now, they are sending Chambers to jail for 19 years for a small time drug deal. As Anthony Papas argues, this is not a sentence for drugs, it's a second sentence for the Jennifer Levin murder. [More...]

Mississippi mayor Frank Melton has been indicted on federal civil rights violations over a crack house raid.

In August 2006, Mr. Melton and his two police bodyguards, Michael Recio and Marcus Wright, ordered the occupants out of the house at gunpoint and directed a group of youths to attack the house with sledgehammers, the indictment said. The mayor, who ran for office on an anti-crime platform, himself broke out the windows with a large stick, the indictment said.

No drugs were found in the raid. [More...]

Libertarian candidate for President Bob Barr has written his first post at Huffington Post. He says he was wrong about the war on drugs. He now realizes it has been a failure.

I'll admit it, just five years ago I was "Public Enemy Number 1" in the eyes of the Libertarian Party. In my 2002 congressional race for Georgia's Seventh District, the Libertarian Party ran scathing attack ads against my stand on Medical Marijuana.

....For years, I served as a federal prosecutor and member of the House of Representatives defending the federal pursuit of the drug prohibition.

Today, I can reflect on my efforts and see no progress in stopping the widespread use of drugs. I'll even argue that America's drug problem is larger today than it was when Richard Nixon first coined the phrase, "War on Drugs," in 1972.

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I noticed a lot of drug warriors on tv yesterday talking about a bust in San Diego. I'm not sure why that's such big news. What should be news is this drug war outrage in Arkansas.

Excellent news...Congress cut funding for Byrne Grants and local cops say the war on drugs will suffer.

Congress in January cut funding for the Byrne Justice Assistance Grant by two-thirds, from $520 million to $170 million for fiscal 2008. Local agencies say that's a threat to the officers who do much of the law enforcement spadework.

One of the results of Byrne Grants: Tulia, Texas.

Best-known is a case in Tulia, Texas, where a 1999 Byrne-funded investigation led to the cocaine arrests of 46 people, most of them black, on evidence so flimsy that 38 were pardoned by Gov. Rick Perry in 2003. The undercover agent responsible for the arrests was convicted of perjury and the defendants got a $5 million settlement from the state.

The Texas ACLU has identified more than a dozen other Byrne-funded operations it says were abusive and several other states have investigated similar complaints. Texas has imposed strict limits on Byrne-funded drug task forces.

The meth busters are upset. They probably don't need to worry, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton will help them out. They support Byrne Grants. Here's record on anti-meth bills. Of course, the problem with these meth bills is they end up increasing the supply from Mexico. [More...]

New in Rolling Stone, Ben Wallace-Wells has a six page article on How America Lost the Drug War.

Last week, Columnist Froma Harrop exposed the failure of the war on drugs.

If two people do it, is it a movement?

Providence, Rhode Island columnist Froma Harrop today exposes some of the statistics from the War on Drugs, calling it a failure:

Since it started in 1970, American law enforcement has arrested 38 million people for nonviolent drug offenses, nearly 2 million last year alone. The number of people jailed for violent crimes has risen 300 percent, but the prison population of nonviolent drug offenders has soared 2,558 percent.

The culprit, as Harrop says, is mandatory minimum sentences. [More...]

First the cheers. San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom has declared the war on drugs a failure.

"If you want to get serious, if you want to reduce crime by 70% in this country overnight, end this war on drugs," he told reporters at City Hall on Thursday. "You want to get serious, seriously serious about crime and violence end this war on drugs."

The mayor maintained local jails are overcrowded with people incarcerated for drug offenses, taking up room that could be used to hold more violent criminal offenders. He said violent criminals with lengthy felony records are being turned loose, too often.

San Francisco Sheriff San Francisco Sheriff Mike Hennessey agrees with him.

Now the jeers. San Francisco is initiating a program of busting the homeless on "quality of life" crimes.

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This op-ed piece by Everett Ellis Briggs, former US ambassador to Panama about the machinations behind the US relationship with Manuel Noriega in Sunday's New York Times makes for interesting reading.

I tend to get a lot of e-mails from people who have found themselves on the wrong side of the justice system. This one I received today from a woman about to begin serving a 9 year federal sentence for selling 8 pain pills to an undercover operative (snitch) really typifies to me what is wrong with the war on drugs.

In 2 months I have to self-surrender to prison for 9 years, for Conspiracy to distribute drugs, near a school. (You cannot even see the school from my house..) I am a 46 year old single mother of 4, grandmother of 4. I have no prior record. I was a successful business owner and very active in my community for 20 years. I hurt my back, working hard to support my children. The doctor gave me prescribed pain medication and I got addicted. I was entrapped into a drug deal for buying and selling 8 pills, to a snitch. They raided my home and locked me up. I spent a horrible week detoxing in jail. The judge sent me to addiction treatment center, suggested by the prosecution, and I have over 1 year clean.

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Arianna Huffington has a good post up today asking why the Democratic contenders for President aren't discussing the second war, the war on drugs?

...a quick search of the top Democratic hopefuls' websites reveals that not one of them -- not Hillary Clinton, not Barack Obama, not John Edwards, not Joe Biden, not Chris Dodd, not Bill Richardson -- even mentions the drug war, let alone offers any solutions.

The silence coming from Clinton and Obama is particularly deafening.

So, let's look to the past. John Edwards put forth this position in 2004.

He also would have us shrink our bloated prison population and return its present members more successfully to society by better distinguishing non-violent drug crimes from other offenses; restoring abandoned treatment and training options; and re-enfranchising those who have done their time.

Yet, he also said:

.... he would not change marijuana laws, and he favors the Justice Department's arresting patients and caregivers who defy federal law.

Hillary addressed the war on drugs in her 2000 Senate campaign:

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DEA Administrator Karen Tandy testified before the House Committee on Appropriations regarding DEA's FY2008 budget request, describing DEA's significant "successes" over the past year, and of course, asking for more money.

Her proposed $2.4 billion budget represents an increase of $110 million over the FY2007 President's budget.

You can read her testimony here.

I guess the $205 million seized this week was just a drop in the bucket. $2.4 billion for the war on drugs? I bet there's a ton of pork in that amount.

[hat tip to Paul Armentano of NORML.}

While those with drug convictions are not able to get federal financial aid for college, the military is increasingly happy to welcome them into its ranks.

The elimination of student aid for drug offenders is unwise, unfair and as*-backwards. You can add your voice here.

As TalkLeft reported last year, the Mexican Congress passed legislation to decriminalize the casual possession of recreational drugs for personal use. Vincente Fox vetoed the legislation to placate Washington. A new version permitting possession of smaller quantities is on its way to Fox's successor, Felipe Calderon. The question is whether Calderon has the will to stand up to the "War On Drugs" crowd in the Bush administration.

Ruling National Action Party Sen. Alejandro Gonzalez, who heads the Senate's justice commission and supports the bill, said on Monday that decriminalizing possession of small quantities of drugs and taking some pressure off addicts would free up resources needed to pursue dealers.

As TalkLeft wrote last year:

Smart move. The U.S. should take a look at doing the same.

Via the New York City Independent Media Center and the DMI blog:

These are some statistics from the Department of Justice reflecting data through 2005.

What they tell us: America continues to be a prison nation. The drug war doesn't work. Over-incarceration doesn't work. Our elected officials in Congress need to spend time addressing these issues in 2007.

• the prison population grew 1.9% over the past year
• the United States has 2,320,359 people incarcerated
• in 1995, America sentenced 411 people per 100,000 residents; today it is 491
• there are around 600,000 more people in jail today than 10 years ago
• since 1995, the total number of male prisoners has grown 34%; female prisoners have risen 57%