Date: Mon, 09 Apr 2001 19:27:41 -0700
From: zoomama@SWLINK.NET ("Sharon B.")
Subject: Hurray for the drug war
To: LIBERTARIANS@LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0401/labbe.html
Jewish World Review April 6, 2001 / 13 Nissan, 5761
Jill "J.R." Labbe
Female inmate illustrates folly of drug policy
(excerpted)
Ahh, the benefits of a "drug-free America" --- warehousing so many
nonviolent drug offenders that we have to build more and more prisons for
violent criminals.
In 1986, when Congress passed themajority of the drug mandatory minimums,
38 percent of the federal prison population consisted of drug offenders. By
December 1998, the number was 60 percent. Of those, 57 percent were
first-time offenders; 88 percent of them had no weapons.
As Julie Stewart, president of Families Against Mandatory Minimums, wrote
in a paper delivered at a 1999 drug conference sponsored by the Cato
Institute, America isn't locking up the drug kingpins.
"We are catching the little guys, the girlfriends, the mules, and we are
sending them to prison for five years, 10 years, and often much longer,"
Stewart wrote. "And politicians largely don't give a damn."