New Drug Czar May Be Worse Than McCaffrey PLEASE COPY AND DISTRIBUTE DrugSense FOCUS Alert #209 Tuesday May 8, 2001 There's a new drug czar in town, and warning alarms are being sounded by those who understand drug policy. Columnist William Raspberry, who has written many enlightened pieces on the drug war in recent months, noted that former ONDCP employee John P. Walters will likely push drug policy in the wrong direction (see http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v01/n762/a04.html?15547). Another reason to be wary of Walters is the strong support shown for him by professional anti-drug huckster William Bennett, a former failed drug czar himself. Bennett attempted to rebut Raspberry's assessment of Walters in the Washington Post (see article below). A careful reading of the column actually shows Bennett's willful ignorance and his deceptive way of discussing drug problems. Please write a letter to the Washington Post to refute Bennett's slippery appraisal of the situation and to remind editors that Bennett's own tenure as drug czar was a disaster that helped push the US drug war to the wasteful and destructive level we find it at today. PLEASE SEND US A COPY OF YOUR LETTER OR TELL US WHAT YOU DID (Letter, Phone, fax etc.) Please post a copy your letter or report your action to the sent letter list () if you are subscribed, or by E-mailing a copy directly to Your letter will then be forwarded to the list with so others can learn from your efforts and be motivated to follow suit This is VERY IMPORTANT as it is the one important way we have of gauging our impact and effectiveness. Contact Info Source: Washington Post (DC) Contact: ARTICLE US DC: OPED: A Superb Choice For Drug Czar URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v01/n803/a11.html Newshawk: Jo-D and Tom-E Pubdate: Mon, 07 May 2001 Source: Washington Post (DC) Copyright: 2001 The Washington Post Company Contact: Website: http://www.washingtonpost.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/491 Author: William J. Bennett Note: The writer, co-director of Empower America, was in charge of drug policy for President George Bush in 1989-90. A SUPERB CHOICE FOR DRUG CZAR William Raspberry devoted his April 30 column to President Bush's reportedly imminent nomination of a new federal "drug czar," the position I held in his father's administration. Raspberry has a long and distinguished record of well-written and thoughtful columns on a variety of public policy issues. His column of last Monday therefore was out of character: incautious in its choice of "experts" on whom to rely for evidence about the drug war status quo and doubly incautious -- bordering on irresponsible - -- in its use of such distorted testimony to tar the reputation of an unusually conscientious public servant. John P. Walters, the president's apparent choice to lead the White House drug-policy office, has been a friend and colleague for 20 years. He is not the man Raspberry imagines. Raspberry has persuaded himself that Walters is a Torquemada on the question of drug addiction, someone who believes "we can incarcerate our way out" of the problem -- indeed, someone who is "on record" asserting that "we'd be better off" if the nation sent a still greater number of "nonviolent drug offenders" to prison automatically, even on first convictions for simple possession. Every bit of this is ridiculous, and Walters believes none of it. He is "on record" that not just first-but second-time arrestees carrying small quantities of drugs should be routinely diverted from the criminal justice system to treatment and prevention programs. Which, despite popular mythology and Hollywood's pseudo-docu-drama "Traffic," is pretty much what happens already. In the federal system and nearly every state, the law now generally refuses to imprison defendants for simple small-time possession violations. In 1999, for example, the federal law enforcement programs that John Walters would supervise as the drug czar secured roughly 23,000 courtroom drug convictions, fewer than 700 on simple possession charges. And it is only a subset of this already small group of arrestees who are even theoretically subject to a mandatory prison sentence. Nonviolent first offenders, in particular, face mandatory federal prison terms for possession only if they have been arrested with crack cocaine and then only when the quantities involved are those associated with retail, street-level drug dealing. This, then, is the crux of the matter: Should street-level drug dealers go to prison? John Walters says yes. I would have expected William Raspberry to agree with him. But Raspberry listened instead to people who advocate a sweeping relaxation of penalties against drug offenders -- up to and including the proprietors of open-air crack markets. Raspberry has naively accepted the word of one such fringe advocate, Ethan Nadelmann, that rates of drug abuse in America "are roughly equal for blacks and whites." And that racial disparities in drug-crime arrest rates must reflect institutional bias in the nation's justice system. And that Walters's reluctance to abandon the federal minimum mandatory sentence for crack possession represents an extremist's endorsement of such bias. It does African Americans no favor to twist the numbers this way. It is beyond serious dispute that cocaine and crack addiction disproportionately plague black people. It is similarly beyond serious dispute that retail cocaine distribution is disproportionately concentrated in inner-city black neighborhoods -- which is why the protection of those neighborhoods remains an object of special effort for federal and state law enforcement agencies and why the resulting pool of criminal defendants looks the way it does. Yes, there is a racial skew in the statistics. But I cannot see the "bias." What I can see is the disaster that would befall our urban centers were the Nadelmann's of this world to get their way. In 1995 John Walters opposed a proposal by the U.S. Sentencing Commission to raise the threshold quantity of crack necessary to trigger a mandatory federal prison term. Had this "reform" been adopted, as Nadelmann wishes, drug dealers arrested with 50 grams of crack -- enough for 1,500 sales -- would be escaping prison entirely. Fortunately, the idea was rejected by bipartisan majorities in Congress and by President Clinton. It pleases Nadelmann to discern racial insensitivity in this decision. I would have thought it beneath Raspberry to imply that he is right. As a senior drug policy official during and after my tenure as drug czar, Walters did as much as anyone to ensure enactment of five consecutive federal budgets in which spending on direct drug treatment services nearly tripled, spending on drug treatment research more than tripled and general funding priorities were redirected to those effective "demand reduction" efforts Raspberry properly endorses. It is an unprecedented record; eight succeeding Clinton administration drug budgets haven't come close to matching it. And it should more than confirm Walters's commitment to a humane, sensible and comprehensive federal drug policy. John Walters would make a superb drug czar. Neither President Bush nor the country could hope to do better. The writer, co-director of Empower America, was in charge of drug policy for President George Bush in 1989-90. SAMPLE LETTER To the editor William Bennett's "A Superb Choice For Drug Czar" response to William Raspberry's excellent column condemning the choice of John Walters for Drug Czar was a predictable if disappointing piece. Bennett claims that Walters will not go after first- and second-time users in his quest to end the drug war. Yet Walters has said as much, claiming that the prisons are not filled with users, but rather big-time dealers. This despite the fact that an American citizen is arrested every 45 seconds for simple marijuana possession. John Walters may indeed one day be regarded as a capable drug czar. But this will only happen if he has the courage to open his eyes and realize that the nation's drug laws are far worse for the average American than the illegal drugs themselves. If he is willing to regulate currently illegal drugs in a manner similar to alcohol and tobacco (which kill ten times as many people every year as illegal drugs), he will be one day regarded as a great drug czar. Until this happens, though, John Walters must be looked at with suspicion, if you love America and the Constitution in your heart. Sincerely, Kevin M. Hebert contact info IMPORTANT: Always include your address and telephone number Please note: If you choose to use this letter as a model please modify it at least somewhat so that the paper does not receive numerous copies of the same letter and so that the original author receives credit for his/her work. TARGET ANALYSIS Washington Post Circulation 1.15 MILLION - Advertising Value Of A 150 Word Published Letter - $2,587 The Washington Post is an influential newspaper that has 71 published letters in the MAP archive. A sampling recently published letters shows the average length tends to be about 160 words, with some as short as 90 words and others as long as 280 words. The published letters can be viewed here: http://www.mapinc.org/mapcgi/ltedex.pl?SOURCE=Washington+Post+(DC) ADDITIONAL INFO to help you in your letter writing efforts 3 Tips for Letter Writers http://www.mapinc.org/3tips.htm Letter Writers Style Guide http://www.mapinc.org/style.htm TO SUBSCRIBE, DONATE, VOLUNTEER TO HELP, OR UPDATE YOUR EMAIL SEE http://www.drugsense.org/hurry.htm TO UNSUBSCRIBE SEE http://www.drugsense.org/unsub.htm Prepared by Stephen Young - http://www.maximizingharm.com Focus Alert Specialist

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