Posted on 12/28/2002 1:22:49 PM PST by ex-Texan
Congressman Dan Burton Slams Drug War, Hints at Legalization of Street Drugs
Rep. Dan Burton We’ve been fighting this fight for 30 to 40 years, and the problem never goes away....
Don't just talk about education. Don't just talk about eradication. Don't just talk about killing people like Escobar, who’s gonna be replaced by somebody else.
Let's talk about what would happen if we started addressing how to get the profit out of drugs.
>>> The Government Reform Committee of the US House of Representatives held a full hearing on 12 December 2002. Called "America's Heroin Crisis, Colombian Heroin and How We Can Improve Plan Colombia," it was, for the most part, the normal funding-boosting blather about increasing death and destruction being caused by more drugs, purer drugs, etc., etc.
Then something amazing happened. After an anonymous narcotics detective finished giving his prepared statement, Republican Representative Dan Burton--the head of the Committee--bemoaned the fact that the War on Drugs isn't working, hasn't worked, and apparently never will work. He then puts forth the idea that perhaps the situation can best be dealt with by taking profits out of illicit drugs. He won't say "legalization," but it's obvious that the only way to get the criminal element out of the drug trade is to make the drug trade legal.
Please understand that you are not about to read a forceful, logical argument for legalization. Burton is obviously ill-informed on the issue of illegal drugs and isn't familiar with the arguments (and counter-arguments) for various forms of drug-law reform.
His adversary in this impromptu debate, Tom Carr--director of the Baltimore-Washington High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area--is likewise clueless. His arguments for the current Prohibition range from muddled to absolutely absurd and surreal.
Watching these two spar is embarrassing. Basically, this is a discussion between two half-wits. What's so vitally important, though, is that one of the half-wits is starting to wake up. He doesn't know what the answers are, and he doesn't even know how to phrase the questions, but he has realized that the current course of action is pathetically unworkable. Luckily, this half-wit is a powerful US Congressman, and he has aired his thoughts in a congressional hearing with cameras rolling.
Government Reform Committee, US House of Representatives, 12 Dec 2002. "America's Heroin Crisis, Colombian Heroin and How We Can Improve Plan Colombia":
["Matt", an undercover narcotics detective in the Howard County, Maryland, Police Department, finishes his canned presentation.]
Senator Dan Burton, Chair of the Committee (Republican - Indiana): Thank you, detective, we really appreciate that. First of all, I wanna thank all of you, and I know you lay your lives on the line on a daily basis trying to deal with this crisis. I’ve been in public life, off and on, for about 35 years. I know I look a lot younger, but it’s 35 years. I’m glad you didn't laugh at that, cuz I [trails off].
But I wanna tell you something. I have been in probably a hundred, a hundred and fifty hearings like this at various times in my political career. And the story’s always the same.
This goes all the way back to the Sixties. You know, 35, 40 years ago. And every time I have a hearing, I hear that people who get hooked on heroin and cocaine become addicted and they very rarely get off of it. And the scourge expands and expands and expands.
And we have very fine law enforcement officers like you go out and fight the fight. And you see it grow and grow and grow, and you see these horrible tragedies occur.
But there’s no end to it.
And I see young guys driving around in tough areas of Indianapolis in cars that I know they can't afford. And I know where they’re getting their money. I mean, there’s no question. A kid can't be driving a brand-new Corvette when he lives in the inner city of Indianapolis in a ghetto. And you know that he’s gotta be making that money in some way that’s probably not legal and probably involves drugs.
Over 70 percent of all crime is drug-related. And you alluded to that today.
We saw on television recently Pablo Escobar gunned down, and everybody applauded that and said, "That's the end of the Medellín cartel.” But it wasn't the end. There’s still a cartel down there. They’re still all over the place. When you kill one, there's 10 or 20 or 50 waiting to take his place. You know why? It’s because of what you just said a minute ago, Mr. Carr and Mr. Marcocci.
And that is: There’s so much money to be made in it--there’s always gonna be another person in line to make that money.
And we go into drug eradication, and we go into rehabilitation, and we go into education, and we do all these things--and the drug problem continues to increase. And it continues to cost us not billions, but trillions of dollars. Trillions!
And we continue to build more and more prisons, and we put more and more people in jail, and we know that the crimes that they’re committing are related--most of the time--to drugs.
So I have one question I’d like to ask all of you, and I think this is a question that needs to be asked. I hate drugs. I hate people who have to--who succumb to the drug addiction, and I hate what it does to our society. It’s hit every one of us in our families or friends of ours.
But I have one question that nobody ever asks, and that’s this question: What would happen if there was no profit in drugs?
If there was no profit in drugs, what would happen?
I’d like for any of you to answer that.
If they couldn't make any money out of selling drugs, what would happen?
Tom Carr, director, Baltimore-Washington High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area: I would like to comment. If we took away all the illegal drugs today, we’re still gonna have a drug problem.
Burton: I understand that.
[crosstalk]
Carr: OK. The question is--what you’re arguing then is complete legalization.
Burton: No, I’m not arguing anything. I’m asking the question.
Because we’ve been fighting this fight for 30 to 40 years. [Carr starts to speak.] No, no let me finish. We’ve been fighting this fight for 30 to 40 years, and the problem never goes away.
New generations, younger and younger people get hooked on drugs. Kids in grade schools are getting hooked on drugs. Their lives are ruined. They’re going to jail. They’re becoming prostitutes and drug pushers because they have to make money to feed their habit, and these, these horrible drug dealers, many of whom aren’t using drugs, they’ll send free drugs into schools and schoolyards and everything else to hook these kids. And the problem increases and increases and increases. And nobody ever asks this question, and I’m not inferring anything cuz I hate drugs. I hate the use of it. I hate what it’s done to our society.
But the question needs to be addressed at some point: What would happen if they don’t make any money out of it? ****
(Excerpt) Read more at thememoryhole.org ...
These idiiots know what they are doing is not working but they keep on doing it to maintain their jobs and their power at the expense of millions of us mortals.
The drug war is right up there as one of the great crimes against humanity. We need to get all the drug users out of jail and all the drug warriors into jail.
Perspective.....
Very well said.
Do you mean the government giving it away for free if you meet some bureaucratic conditions? I don't think that will work because they will put too many conditions on it. The medical users will still have to jump through hoops instead of just getting a prescription. The people who are addicted from the old days would have to declare their addiction and suffer some degree of stigmatization.
There will probably still be a black market to avoid this. Just sell it over the counter for cash like everything else in this world and let people run their own lives.
I could not disagree more. Many of the people in jail for drugs are their becasue they have committed other crimes such as dealing drugs or stealing to support a habit. This has always been a problem even before the the war on drugs.
On the other hand the drug warriors are a resource, much akin to trained attack dogs. That resource is currently being wasted on a useless enterprise, i.e. the war on drugs.
I went to high school in San Francisco before the war on drugs began in 1973. The city was one of the places where the modern drug culture had its beginings with the hippies and such. Drugs and drug users were a problem before the war on drugs but it was a confined problem.
Like all government programs directed at correcting what was then a social program, the war on drugs grew disproportionly to the problem it sought to solve. And like all government social programs it began to do more harm than good.
Police departments became corrupted as did many of the government agencies that were tasked with ending the drug problem. Higher risk led to higher profits and huge international criminal enterprises sprang up, some of which took over entire countries. Today drug profits fund terrorist groups and we have another war that was caused in part by the first war.
Faced with the failure to achieve stated goals, the U.S. government began to erode civil liberties guarenteed in the Constitution, becuase after all, "we were in a war" where the end justified the means.
Dan Burton has guts to critize the drug war. In the turf wars for drug war money and power critizing this waste can be a career limiting move. The drug war has powerful allies and all are "HOOKED" on the power and money that this war gives to them. It's not just the LE world that is "HOOKED", it encompassed groups as diverse as the drug treatment industry, the companies and clinics that "SCORE" $300 everytime you pee in a bottle, and the prison construction industry.
With some luck you will smoke a joint that has been laced with crack and pcp. I have heard comming down is a real bummer.
Burton might be getting at that. Someone should ask.
Okay folks, the "Dark Lord" solution to the drug problem.
(1) Anyone caught with any seed, leaf, stem, powder, pill, liquid, or compound; in any quantity detectible by the naked eye, and we take them to the police station, shoot them in the back of the head, and charge their nearest relative for the bullet.
(2) If a lawyer or civil liberties type objects, we take them to the police station, shoot them in the back of the head, and charge their nearest relative for the bullet.
(3) If a family member or relative objects, we take them to the police station, shoot them in the back of the head, and charge their nearest relative for the bullet.
(4) If a newpaper reporter or editor objects, we take them to the police station, shoot them in the back of the head, and charge their nearest relative for the bullet.
(5) If anyone objects on a weblog or forum, we track down who they really are, and we take them to the police station, shoot them in the back of the head, and charge their nearest relative for the bullet.
(6) Oh yeah -- we also seize all their property, kick anyone living there out into the street, and if anyone objects, we take them to the police station, shoot them in the back of the head, and charge their nearest relative for the bullet.
There. That list ought to make the WOD warriors just ecstatic.
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