NORML E-Zine April26

[ReformMaryJaneLaws]

NORML E-Zine
Volume 4
Issue 18
April 26, 2001

The NORML E-Zine is a free weekly compilation of major news
items regarding marijuana policy. Text of archived stories
are available on NORML's website at:
http://www.norml.org/news/archives/index2001.shtml

Drug Czar Candidate's Record Out of Step with Public, Health Professionals

Bush Pick Supports Jailing Marijuana Smokers, Peruvian
Shoot-Downs; Criticizes Drug Treatment, Medical Marijuana

Washington, DC: Innocent citizens, seriously ill patients
and minor marijuana offenders are among those most likely to
become caught in the crossfire of the war on drugs under
strategies endorsed by leading Drug Czar candidate John P.
Walters, who was named yesterday by The New York Times as
Bush's top choice for the job.

"The expected appointment of John P. Walters as the next
Drug Czar is a serious mistake," warned NORML Executive Director
R. Keith Stroup, Esq. "Instead of finding a 'compassionate
conservative' to lead our anti-drug efforts, President Bush
has selected a man whose views are regarded as harsh and
extreme, even among drug warriors. Walter's views favoring
incarceration over drug treatment and education runs contrary
to the American public, 74 percent of whom now say that our
current 'do drugs, do time' strategies are a miserable
failure."

Walters, who served as Deputy Director of the Office of
National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) under the previous Bush
administration, is a staunch proponent of incarcerating drug
offenders - including recreational and medical marijuana
users - and has lobbied Congress to stiffen federal penalties
for marijuana. He also opposes state laws that exempt medical
marijuana patients from criminal penalties, despite the fact
that 73 percent of the public support legalizing the drug for
medical purposes, according to a March 2001 Pew Research
Center poll.

In addition, Walters is a major proponent of militarizing
the drug war, and is a longtime advocate of a controversial
US/Peruvian program that shoot downs unarmed, civilian
airplanes suspected of carrying drugs. Government officials
abruptly suspended the program last week after the Peruvian
air-force fired upon a plane carrying American missionaries
in which a woman and her infant daughter were killed. U.S.
and Peruvian officials mistakenly believed the plane was
transporting cocaine.

In a 1996 background paper written for the Heritage Foundation,
a conservative Washington, DC think-tank, Walters praised
the program and urged Congress to expand the use of military
force in drug interdiction. "Foreign programs are cheap and
effective," he wrote. "An example: America's chronically
underfunded program in Peru ... has managed to shoot down
or disable 20 ... airplanes since March 1, 1995. ... [We]
have an opportunity to save American lives by helping the
Peruvians press their attacks on traffickers." He added:
"The U.S. military cannot solve the drug problem, but it
can make a profound contribution to cutting the flow of
drugs through interdiction. The budget needs to reflect
this national priority."

Walters is also a vocal proponent of mandatory minimum
sentencing for drug offenders, a tactic opposed by the American
Bar Association, Supreme Court Justices William Rehnquist
and Stephen Breyer, and recently criticized by President
Bush who told CNN in January that "long minimum sentences
for first-time users may not be the best way to occupy jail
space or heal people from their disease." In 1996, Walters
testified before Congress in opposition to recommendations
made by the U.S. Sentencing Commission that would have removed
the existing mandatory minimum criminal disparities between
crack and powder cocaine sentencing. In various editorials,
Walters has repeatedly dismissed the notion that certain drug laws
and drug law enforcement tactics disproportionately incarcerate
minorities as one of "the greatest urban myths of our time."
Walters has also argued that the Sentencing Commission "should
be barred from proposing changes in criminal penalties in
cases where Congress has established mandatory minimum
sentences."

Although there are now more drug offenders serving time
behind bars than the entire U.S. prison population of 1980,
Walters rejects accusations that the drug war excessively
targets and prosecutes drug users and minor offenders. "The
idea that our prisons are filled with people whose only offense
was possession of an illegal drug is utter fantasy," he wrote
in a March op-ed for The Weekly Standard. However, according
to the Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics,
roughly 25 percent of America's 2 million prisoners are serving
time for drug offenses.

Walters remains one of the lone critics of expanding drug
treatment strategies. While he supports "coerced treatment"
and "faith-based treatment programs" for convicted drug offenders,
he has called voluntary treatment ineffective - recently mocking
the reoccurring drug problems of actor Robert Downey Jr. "It's
hard to imagine a worse advertisement for the effectiveness of
drug treatment than Robert Downey Jr.," he wrote. Recently,
McCaffrey sharply criticized Walter's disregard for drug
treatment in The New York Times. "Some of his positions in
my own view need to be carefully considered by the confirmation
committee," he said, referring to Walter's resistance to embrace
treatment over incarceration.

"Walters is another white male from the conservative Washington,
DC think-tank crowd who supports the 'shoot-first-and-ask-
questions-later' approach to the drug war," Stroup summarized.
"He is out of touch with the attitudes of the American public
and an extraordinarily poor choice to serve as the nation's
Drug Czar."

For more information, please contact Keith Stroup, Executive
Director of NORML, at (202) 483-5500 or Allen St. Pierre,
Executive Director of The NORML Foundation, at (202) 483-8751.


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