NATIONAL REVIEW
April 11, 2001
Out of Colombia
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By Dave Kopel and Mike Krause
America's certification process for determining which countries are doing their part in the international drug "war" turned fifteen this spring, and the certification program is showing its age: experienced enough to know the difference between fantasy and reality, but lacking the self-control to act on that difference.
Senators from both sides of the aisle have been introducing bills to suspend, amend, or otherwise rethink certification. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson of Texas states, "The drug certification ritual results in resentment and is counterproductive." Sen. Joe Biden, an original sponsor of the certification mandate, says that some certification in Latin America should be temporarily suspended because some Latin American officials are "laying their lives on the line" in the drug "war."
Although the purpose of the certification process was to get the drug-producing nations of the world to address the wholesale corruption within their own borders, the tumult surrounding the certification process has turned the spotlight on America's own failure in combating drugs and corruption.
One criticism of the certification process is to point out that the U.S. is the world's largest consumer of drugs. (This is hardly surprising, since the U.S. is the largest consumer of almost every other consumer product, especially expensive ones.) Yet the American government has hardly been slack in attempting to suppress U.S. drug demand. Indeed, when it comes to tossing people in prison for drug crimes, the U.S is second to none.
A new report from the Justice Policy Institute shows that during the eight years of the Clinton administration, the federal prison population roughly doubled, to more than 147,000 as of February 2001. In fact, the federal prison population during Clinton's watch grew more than under the Bush and Reagan years combined, with 58% of those prisoners serving time for drug offenses. State prison populations have also soared, with many state prisons taking in more drug offenders than violent criminals or property felons.
Overall, there are two million Americans in prison, and another 4.5 million on probation or parole. Two million more people work in the prison business - making prison employees (like government school teachers), one of the most powerful lobbies in many state legislatures. Some of the prison-population increase is attributable to sterner attitudes toward violent and property crimes, but the explosive growth of the prison population over the last two decades would have been impossible without the massive incarceration of people for victimless crimes, primarily drug offenses.
While Clinton oversaw a doubling of the federal prison population, the federal black prison population tripled. This has mostly been based on the brutally severe mandatory-minimum sentences for crack cocaine. Mere possession (not sale) of very small amount of crack for personal use - 5 grams (which weighs less than a George Washington quarter) - triggers a 5-year mandatory federal sentence. Unfortunately, the main congressional response to the unfairness of this sentence has been to move toward imposing similarly inappropriate sentences for powdered cocaine.
Yet despite America's "success" in turning the United States into the world's largest jailer (and thus, into the world's largest employer of de facto slave labor), illegal drugs are as available today as they were 15 years ago and both heroin and cocaine are purer and cheaper than when we began the certification process.
Complete story:
http://www.nationalreview.com/kopel/kopelprint041101.html