Pubdate: Tue, 02 Oct 2001
Source: Columbia Daily Tribune (MO)
Copyright: 2001 Columbia Daily Tribune
Contact:  http://www.showmenews.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/91
Author: James Bovard
Note: Bovard is policy adviser at The Future of Freedom Foundation, a 
libertarian organization in Fairfax, VA

ADDICTED TO PRISON

DEA Director Hints At Future Of Drug Policy

"I would hope that we are judged by the lives that are touched and the hope 
that we give America," declared Asa Hutchinson, President George W. Bush's 
new Drug Enforcement Agency chief, during a news conference on his first 
day in his new job.

Considering that the DEA seeks to maximize the number of people that it 
sends to prison each year for drug offenses, such "touching" rhetoric 
should be chilling. But Hutchinson is barreling forward with page after 
page from Bill Clinton's rhetorical playbook.

At the same Aug. 20 news conference, Hutchinson announced, "I think part of 
my mission is to give hope to America." A few weeks earlier, Hutchinson 
made a stunning announcement: "I am excited to have the opportunity to 
serve Arkansas and the country by beginning our great national crusade 
against illegal drugs."

Perhaps Hutchinson has been too busy to tour any prisons recently. Prisons 
are overflowing with hundreds of thousands of drug offenders. In the same 
week in which he took over at the DEA, a federal report bragged that the 
number of people convicted in federal drug courts had doubled since 1986.

Hutchinson's talk about "beginning" a "crusade" against illegal drugs 
signals the Bush administration's intention to ratchet up the drug war. Yet 
the evidence of the failure of the punitive approach is overwhelming.

Despite conservative caterwauling during recent years, President Clinton 
actually greatly intensified the drug war. Four million Americans were 
arrested for marijuana violations, the vast majority for simple possession, 
during Clinton's reign. The number of people arrested for drug offenses 
rose by 73 percent between 1992 and 1997, according to the American Bar 
Association.

But Clinton's crackdown was a dismal failure. More Americans died of drug 
overdoses and more Americans went to hospital emergency rooms for 
drug-related problems in 1998 than ever before. More high-school students - 
90 percent - reported that marijuana was "fairly easy" or "very easy" to 
get than ever before. The prices of heroin and cocaine were near all-time 
lows at the end of the 1990s - signaling the total failure of U.S. 
interdiction policies.

Like a good Washingtonian, Hutchinson is responding to these debacles by 
redefining the baseline: "I think you have to put this in perspective; that 
whenever you look at national social problems, whether you look at child 
abuse, whether you look at teen violence, whenever you impact people's 
lives, it's a victory."

Thus, as long as the DEA continues sending tankerloads of people to prison 
each year, the drug war is going just fine and dandy.

Hutchinson was asked by the Philadelphia Inquirer what action he would take 
to stem the flow of fraudulent arrest statistics from the DEA - which, in 
the past, has routinely seized credit for drug busts made by other police 
agencies or other nations. He responded: "We have to have the correct moral 
compass and the proper training to make sure we gather our statistics in a 
correct and truthful fashion."

But Hutchinson seems far too infatuated by the righteousness of the law to 
exert the effort to make the DEA go straight.

At his inaugural news conference as DEA chief, Hutchinson proclaimed, "I 
believe that law enforcement sets the right tone for America."

During his time as a congressman, he was perennially hysterical about any 
proposal to limit the power of law enforcement.

In 1998, when Congress was considering a law to require federal prosecutors 
to cease violating the ethics code of state bar associations, Hutchinson 
exploded:

"This would jeopardize our fight in the war against drugs. The winner would 
be the drug cartels, fraudulent telemarketing operations and Internet 
pornographers."

In 1999, when Congress was considering a law to restrict federal agents' 
power to confiscate private property, Hutchinson proposed a substitute bill 
that would have greatly increased government's power to grab. Hutchinson 
whined on the House floor, "How does disarming law enforcement fit into the 
war on drugs?"

Thus, decreasing a DEA agent's power to seize someone's car is the 
equivalent of taking away his sidearm.

Apparently, the main "armament" in the war on drugs is the sweeping power 
of law enforcement over nonviolent, private citizens.

In his new job, Hutchinson sounds like a bleeding-heart liberal, declaring 
that the DEA must embark on "a compassionate crusade." Unfortunately, 
people suffering from the side-effects of chemotherapy are outside the 
bounds of Hutchinson's compassion.

The new DEA chief declared, "It is very important that we understand that 
we don't want to do anything to take pain medication away from people. We 
all have sympathy for folks that need medication, but we have to listen to 
the scientific and medical community, and they're saying that marijuana has 
no legitimate medical purpose."

According to Hutchinson's view, Americans should pretend that recent 
studies in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the 
American Journal of Psychiatry and the British medical journal Lancet on 
marijuana's medical benefits and risk were never published.

Perhaps it is impossible to fight a "war on drugs" without 
institutionalized dishonesty. Hutchinson's comments signal that drug policy 
is likely to be the area where the Bush administration does the most harm 
to civil liberties.

Regardless of how much the "great crusade" is ratcheted up, the government 
will continue losing its war to control the daily lives and habits of every 
citizen.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Beth