Groups Work to End Harsh Sentences for Addicted, Mentally Ill and Non-Violent Offenders WASHINGTON - You would have been hard-pressed to find a police chief in his office in the past few days. Dozens of them were in Washington, lobbying to get more people out of prison. They want to end the mandatory jail terms judges are forced to bestow for what are seen less as criminal acts than cries of desperation. America's prisons are overflowing. The United States has more people in jail than any other country, including some of the harshest, most backward nations. [continues 607 words]
You would have been hardpressed to find a police chief in his office in the last few days. Dozens of them were in Washington, D.C., lobbying to get more people out of prison. They want to end the mandatory jail terms judges are forced to bestow for what are seen less as criminal acts than cries of desperation. America's prisons are overflowing. The United States has more people in jail than any other country, including some of the harshest, most backward nations. Democratic and Republican presidential candidates may not agree on much, but they accept one statistic: With less than 5 percent of the world's population, the United States holds about 25 percent of the world's prisoners. For every 100,000 Americans, 716 are jailed - a far, far higher rate than anyplace else. [continues 566 words]
WASHINGTON - Coffee? Tea? Beer? Wine? A joint? The times, they are a-changin'. Fast. In Colorado and the state of Washington, it's legal for adults 21 and older to possess and use small amounts of recreational marijuana. In 20 states and the District of Columbia, it's legal to use weed for medicinal reasons. In Tuesday's election, three Michigan cities and Portland, Maine, legalized small amounts of marijuana in landslide votes with almost no opposition. In Colorado, about 65 percent of voters approved establishing a 15 percent tax on the wholesale sale of marijuana for adult use and a 10 percent sales tax on retail marijuana sales, in addition to standard state and local sales taxes. The money will be used in part to oversee the sale of grass in state-licensed stores. [continues 551 words]
WASHINGTON -- Worried that 1 in 5 eighth-graders admits to having tried marijuana, up from 1 in 10 a decade ago, the White House and the nation's top doctor, Surgeon General Richard Carmona, are beginning a campaign today to try to convince parents that this is a dangerous trend. "There's a myth that marijuana isn't as dangerous as smoking," Carmona said. "That's not true. It's dangerous and addictive." Noting that marijuana has three to five times more tar and carbon monoxide than many cigarettes, he said the number of emergency-room admittances of teen-agers because of marijuana has gone up 176 percent since 1994. [continues 671 words]
Addicts Would Go into Treatment, Not Jail WASHINGTON - Anti-drug heavyweights from the Bush administration yesterday fired volley after volley against proposed ballot initiatives Ohio and Michigan voters may face in November on whether to push many drug abusers into treatment instead of jail. At a conference that drew administrators from about 1,200 drug courts, the administration pooh-poohed an effort that reformers say would significantly reduce prison populations by putting nonviolent drug offenders in treatment instead of jail. The administration says it is a step toward legalization of illegal substances. [continues 695 words]
WASHINGTON -- The nation's new drug czar yesterday said the Bush administration is doing a thorough review of the concept of mandatory minimum sentences for drug possession and drug use, including crack cocaine and powder. John Walters said one motivation for the review is to try to find a way to accelerate the process of sorting out violent offenders from users or possessors of drugs who may be more deserving of treatment than of a 10-year mandatory minimum jail term. [continues 317 words]
Mandatory Sentences Seen As Too Restrictive WASHINGTON - The nation's new drug czar said yesterday that the Bush administration is doing a thorough review of the concept of mandatory minimum sentences for drug possession and drug use, including crack cocaine and powder. John Walters said a motivation for the review is to try to find a way to accelerate the process of sorting out violent offenders from users of drugs who may need treatment more than a 10-year mandatory minimum jail term. In office since December, he is a former deputy to William Bennett, drug czar in the George H.W. Bush administration. [continues 231 words]
WASHINGTON - Big Brother is back, peering in your bedroom window. Unmarried? The Bush administration wants to spend $100 million on ads and an educational campaign to encourage you to tie the knot. Considering divorce? The government will try to convince you to stay married. Pregnant? The Bush administration wants to discourage you from considering an abortion by providing insurance for your fetus, enabling you to get prenatal care. Do you light up a joint every now and then? If you watched the Super Bowl, you heard the government tell you that you are aiding and abetting terrorism by supporting domestic marijuana growers. [continues 603 words]
WASHINGTON -- And now for something completely different, to borrow a phrase from Monty Python. The three earnest young men burdened with plastic bags came to the office bearing food. Pretzels with seeds. A snack bar. An energy bar. Tortilla chips. Never mind the caloric sin. We're talking serious evil here. Or so the government says. Unless you are an avid reader of the Federal Register and perused the tiny print of almost undecipherable bureaucratese on pages 51539 through 51544, you might have missed it - but the government has returned to normal. [continues 655 words]
And now for something completely different, to borrow a phrase from Monty Python. The three earnest young men burdened with plastic bags came to the office bearing food. Pretzels with seeds. A snack bar. An energy bar. Tortilla chips. Never mind the caloric sin. We're talking serious evil here. Or so the government says. Unless you are an avid reader of the Federal Register and perused the tiny print of almost undecipherable bureaucratese on pages 51539 through 51544, you might have missed it - but the government has returned to normal. [continues 627 words]
The Drug War Blunders On: The DEA Is Cracking Down On Hempseed Oil In Tortilla Chips WASHINGTON - And now, for something completely different, to borrow a phrase from Monty Python. The three earnest young men burdened with plastic bags came to the office bearing food. Pretzels with seeds. A snack bar. An energy bar. Tortilla chips. Never mind the caloric sin. We're talking serious evil here. Or so the government says. Unless you are an avid reader of the Federal Register and perused the tiny print of almost undecipherable bureaucratese on pages 51,539 through 51,544, you might have missed it -- but the government has returned to normal. [continues 656 words]
WASHINGTON -- The head of the Drug Enforcement Administration says that since Sept. 11's terrorist attacks, his agency has felt a major impact as the FBI's resources have been "spread thin" and diverted from investigating illegal drug cases to terrorism, even though he said the two are increasingly related. DEA Chief Asa Hutchinson yesterday said: "Certainly, it's having an impact when FBI agents are pulled off drugs for terrorism [investigations] in Boca Raton [Fla.] and Boston. We have to make up the slack." [continues 535 words]
WASHINGTON - The head of the Drug Enforcement Administration says that since Sept. 11's terrorist attacks, his agency has felt a major impact as the FBI's resources are "spread thin'' and diverted from investigating illegal drug cases to terrorism, even though the two increasingly are related. Asa Hutchinson, who resigned as a congressman from Arkansas to take the DEA job Aug. 8, said yesterday, "Certainly, it's having an impact when FBI agents are pulled off drugs for terrorism [investigations] in Boca Raton [Fla.] and Boston," he said. "We have to make up the slack.'' [continues 269 words]
Narrow House Vote Upholds Bush Budget. WASHINGTON - Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur of Toledo locked horns with the Bush administration yesterday over its effort to end a program aimed at eliminating drugs in public housing but lost a narrow vote on the House floor. The program funnels up to $800,000 a year to Toledo for such things as community policing in housing projects. It is not included in President Bush's $1.7 trillion proposed budget. "America, I hope, will regain her footing through the Senate," which is narrowly controlled by Democrats, Miss Kaptur, a Democrat, said after the House voted 197 to 213 to defeat her amendment to spend $175 million to continue the program set up in 1988 in the Reagan administration to eradicate drugs in public housing. "Why anybody would be against crime and getting rid of drugs is beyond me," she said. [continues 416 words]
Bush Takes A Hard-line, Old-Fashioned Approach To An Intractable Problem WASHINGTON - The White House drug wars are heating up again. Woe is us. Having scolded the previous administration for laxness in fighting the war on drugs - a tired cliche that means kids go to jail, missionaries' planes are shot out of the sky, politicians get quick-and-easy sound bites and Hollywood has more movie fodder - the Bush administration is going back to the future. When in doubt about how to get a handle on the scourge of drugs by reducing demand, the ready solution seems to be to get tougher by building more prisons and filling them up with addicts and small-time dealers, although the pitiful case of actor Robert Downey Jr. shows that the threat of jail is not always the solution for addicts. [continues 689 words]
(Ann McFeatters covers the White House and national politics for Scripps Howard News Service. She may be reached by e-mail at mcfeattersa@shns.com) ON THE CUSP OF THE MILLENNIUM, Americans seem to be getting more liberal, more prickly, and more determined not to be told what to do or think. Look at the social issues voters passed last Tuesday. Alaskans, who generally vote conservatively, decided they want patients suffering from such diseases as AIDS, cancer, multiple sclerosis, and glaucoma to have the right to use marijuana legally to control their pain or their symptoms. Arizonans, also a conservative lot, did the same thing. So did Nevadans, Washingtonians, and Oregonians. [continues 637 words]
WASHINGTON - On the cusp of the millennium, Americans seem to be getting more liberal, more prickly and more determined not to be told what to do or think. Look at the social issues voters passed last Tuesday. Alaskans, who generally vote conservatively, decided they want patients suffering from such diseases as AIDS, cancer, multiple sclerosis and glaucoma to have the right to use marijuana legally to control their pain or their symptoms. Arizonans, also a conservative lot, did the same thing. So did Nevadans, Washingtonians and Oregonians. [continues 633 words]
