Could Bush Change Drug Policy Stance? May 24, 2001
News Summary
In a commentary in the May 18 Los Angeles Times, Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the Lindesmith Center/Drug Policy Foundation, said it is possible for President Bush to "pull a 'Nixon goes to China'" and make some unexpected changes in national drug-control policy.Nadelmann noted that when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against medical marijuana, Justice John Paul Stevens stated that Bush had supported state self-determination on medical-marijuana use.
Further, Nadelmann recalled that last January, Bush said, "I think a lot of people are coming to the realization that maybe long minimum sentences for first-time users may not be the best way to occupy jail space and/or heal people from their disease."
"Admittedly, for those who think the war on drugs is doing more harm than good, Bush's appointment of John Ashcroft as attorney general was a disaster," continued Nadelmann. "Ditto for John P. Walters, Bush's choice for drug czar. It's hard to find someone more bellicose when it comes to the war on drugs ... Ashcroft and Walters are the temperance warriors of today, intent on punishing people for the 'sin' of using drugs."
On the other hand, Nadelmann noted that a number of Republican governors "who once rode the drug-war bandwagon are beginning to sing a different song for any number of reasons." Among those singled out by Nadelmann were Connecticut Gov. John Rowland, New York Gov. George Pataki, New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson, and Tommy Thompson, the former Wisconsin governor who now heads the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
"The fact is, there's a libertarian streak that runs deep in the Republican Party that understands the futility of trying to prohibit what are essentially global commodities markets," said Nadelmann. "Many of these libertarians recoil -- just as do many Democrats -- at the drug war's assault on personal freedoms. Look for some of them to speak their minds."
Nadelmann also is keeping a close watch on John J. DiIulio Jr., Bush's "faith czar." In the mid-1990s, he wrote a book with William Bennett and John Walters defending the lock-'em-up approach to drug crimes.
"But DiIulio changed his tune a few years ago, moved in part by his own empirical studies of who was being incarcerated and in part by his own personal religious transformation," said Nadelmann. "Now DiIulio says that mandatory-minimum drug laws need to be repealed, that drug-only offenders should be released, and that drug treatment should be available both behind bars and in the community. One would hope that this strikes a chord with Bush."
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