It is the summer of 2011, and Campus Progress is coming to Washington July 6 and 7! Should any one care?
The U.S. is at war in Afghanistan -- the longest war in U.S. history. In our newest "not war," the U.S. is bombing Libya under the flag of NATO (but the President says this is not "hostilities" because there are no American forces on the ground and only few casualties). And the U.S. is sending drones to attack targets in Pakistan, Yemen and the Somalia. Is this conforming to an oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution that provides that Congress declares war? (Query: Could Japan have said that there were no hostilities when it bombed Pearl Harbor in 1941 because it had no troops on the ground and only 55 casualties?)
The national rate of unemployment remains at levels comparable to those last seen in the Reagan recession of 1981-82 -- thirty years ago!
American families have lost about $9 trillion in their wealth -- value of their investments such as their home, their pension fund, their savings.
June has been one of the hottest in history. Floods ravage the American heartland. The evidence of global climate change, abetted by human activity, smacks us in the face.
America is the home to one-quarter of all the world's prisoners -- not China, not Russia, not Iran, not Cuba.
America wields its drug policy like a scythe among young people of color -- imprisoning them and imposing life long criminal records by the hundreds of thousands that stop the opportunities of higher education, of lawful employment, of credit, of housing, of advancement, of creating opportunities for family and children, and deny the right to vote!
The Congress is in a state of partisan gridlock. Accomplishing the most basic tasks seems to require a Herculean effort -- to confirm the President's nominees to run government agencies, to adopt a budget, to appropriate the funds for government programs and agencies, to oversee the activities of the government.
Fortunately, what in modern decades has been America's most politically dynamic class -- its progressive students -- are meeting in Washington on July 6 and 7 under the auspices of Campus Progress.
Are the students poised to adopt a resolution, on behalf of America's youth or the families that sent them, that sets forth their demands for economic, political and social reform?
Will these political savvy and aware students present, debate and adopt a manifesto outlining their vision of a vital America: a nation moving toward to a sustainable future, protecting civil liberties and human dignity, and balancing opening opportunities for entrepreneurs with assuring that private and public resources are adequately devoted to care for those who have handicaps, illness, and who are unable to have their needs met by their own hard work and savings?
Here's a link to the agenda of Campus Progress.
Does this look like healthy debate or preaching to the choir?
Does this look like an opportunity to stand for something or for the off-spring of the affluent to add to their resumes in support of becoming apparatchiks for the professional progressives?
On the conference program there is no congress of students.
On the program, there is no opportunity for students to adopt an agenda for action.
Does this look like an occasion for progress? Or does the agenda read like a festival for the passive absorption of the assorted wit, outrage, cant, and self-congratulation by a few bright lights of the progressive left?
Can these students breakout of the straight jacket of the agenda? Can they tap the outrage of our current condition? Or are they lining up to get autographs, distribute resumes, and to out-hustle one another for a job?
Thursday, June 30, 2011
Student Conference in Washington, July 6 & 7 -- Any consequences?
U.S. Sentencing Commission approves retroactive crack sentencing guidelines
On June 30, 2011, the U.S. Sentencing Commission unanimously adopted proposed sentencing guidelines that, effective Nov. 1, 2011, would allow prisoners to petition to modify their sentences. This is good news because some law enforcement groups had opposed this move. This is good news because perhaps 12,000 current federal prisoners may get their very long sentences reduced by an average of three years! This is good news because this is one of the biggest steps that the Sentencing Commission could take.
But, sadly, this step is only a small step in the longer journey for justice. First of all, this change will have no effect on the statutory mandatory minimums. Those who are serving a 10 year sentence because they were convicted of distributing, or conspiring to distribute 50+ grams of crack cocaine, will still have to serve the 10 years. Even though the new mandatory minimum sentence starts at 280 grams, because Congress did not make the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010 retroactive, the statutory minimum sentence in effect at the time of the defendant's crime is not going to change. Congress may have recognized that sentences of 10 years for less than 280 grams were unjust, by contemporary standards, by changing the law but they did nothing about those cases already decided over the previous 24 years.
But the second, and bigger, point is that the enormous focus on the sentencing of crack cocaine cases has been tragically misplaced, because it has focused on the wrong "end" of the justice system. The heart of the problem is that U.S. Attorney offices around the country bring small-scale cocaine cases in federal courts where they can get extraordinarily harsh sentences because of the small quantity triggers (now 28 grams and 280 grams for minimum sentences of 5 and 10-years). A boatload of cocaine seized by the Coast Guard might contain one ton, that is, 1,000,000 grams! The team that organized that shipment is a large scale dealer and they belong in federal court. Small cases do not belong in federal court.
The thousands of small cases brought every year mean that DEA agents and other federal investigators and prosecutors are not working on major cases. Sadly, it seems everybody in Justice and Congress is satisfied with the handful of agents bringing a handful of major cases in a year.
Major cases are vitally important because the people involved are often involved in assassinations of police and political leaders, wholesale bribery and corruption, extensive money laundering, fabulous tax evasion and so forth. But federal agents are unavailable to do those cases when they are busy with thousands of neighborhood crack dealers (and their girl friends) -- dealers who are easily, quickly, and usually replaced soon after their arrests.
People concerned about the "injustice" of the excessively long "crack" sentences should focus their outrage on the U.S. Justice Department which tolerates wasting expensive federal anti-crime resources on unimportant criminals, not be outraged at the federal judges or the sentencing guidelines that have nothing to do with case selection.
Many fewer that one in a hundred American "criminals" go to federal court. The offenders who go to federal court should be those who commit terribly serious crimes. The federal cases should be those involving very complex schemes that require the smartest attorneys and investigators to unravel, and those that have nationwide or international implications.
A guy selling crack cocaine out of a local crack house does not belong in federal court. The crack was probably made in the back room of the crack house or a few blocks away. Local cases belong in local courts. Even the guy who is the biggest crack dealer in the city typically does not belong in federal court. If the Justice Department succeeded in shutting down the operators of the international cocaine pipeline that has been keeping every crack house in America fully supplied then it might be appropriate for it to work on totally local cases.
I commend the U.S. Sentencing Commission for having the courage to make the changes that it can in the face of continued political grandstanding about "crack dealers." Today, a lot of minor criminals selected almost at random by the Justice Department and now serving inordinately long sentences will have a shot at getting home to their families a few years sooner. This is not trivial.
But I fear that too many justice advocates and legal commentators will behave as though this is a problem of the justice system that is now largely solved.
In a way, this is kind of the like distinguishing those who are hurt and those who are responsible in the current financial crisis that has been going on for the past three years. American families lost $9 trillion in wealth in the lost value in their homes, pension funds, investments, etc. Tens of millions of Americans lost their jobs and are still out of work. So unable to pay bills, they are getting evicted from apartments and homes, and being foreclosed on. But the leaders and players in the financial industry who were responsible for the decisions that brought about the calamity are getting record bonuses and salaries, and not being brought into court to fight for their life savings.
Why does our political system not demand accountability from the powerful when they misbehave, but harshly punishes the the low-level people when they go bad?
Friday, June 24, 2011
Ending Federal Marijuana Prohibition Act of 2011
On June 23, 2011, U.S. Representatives Barney Frank (D-MA), Ron Paul (R-TX), Steve Cohen (D-TN), John Conyers (D-MICH.), Barbara Lee (D-CA) and Jared Polis (D-CO) introduced H.R. 2306, a bill to end the federal prohibition on the possession, cultivation, distribution, importation and exportation of marijuana.
This is a remarkable bill for several reasons. First, the bill would truly and completely decriminalize marijuana under federal law. Unlike state laws that reduce the penalty for possession of marijuana from a criminal offense to a summary offense or violation like a traffic offense, there would be no federal violation for possessing or growing marijuana. For example, it is not a federal offense to drive too fast on a federally-funded highway -- it is only a violation of state law. Under this bill, it becomes solely a matter of state law whether one can possess or grow or sell marijuana.
Second, by removing marijuana from the Controlled Substances Act, one of the major impediments to state medical marijuana laws would be removed! If enacted, there could no longer be any argument that the state medical marijuana law is in "conflict" with federal law. The bill does not address any issues of regulation of marijuana as a "drug" under the Federal Food, Drug, Cosmetic and Device Act.
Third, I can recall no bill introduced in Congress to end federal marijuana prohibition since the enactment of the 1937 Marijuana Tax Act effectively created marijuana prohibition. There may have been such a bill before I came to Washington in 1979, but I don't think so. And there certainly has not been such a bill since 1979 when there were still proposals to reduce the penalties for marijuana possession to a summary offense.
Fourth, the language of section 2 of the bill is fascinating. It is an almost word-for-word re-enactment of a famous bill from 1913, the Webb-Kenyon Act. That law, enacted over the veto of President William Howard Taft, was, curiously, a key political achievement of the "dry" forces in their drive to create alcohol prohibition. The Webb-Kenyon Act brought federal enforcement into support of state alcohol controls by making it a federal offense to bring alcohol into a state in violation of the state law. This was an early entry of federal law enforcement into the interstate commerce arena. President Taft vetoed it because he thought it was unconstitutional!
The Supreme Court upheld its constitutionality in 1917 in Clark Distilling Co. v. Western Maryland Railroad Co., 242 U.S. 320 (1917).
A question that the 1913 law created was whether states could become "bone-dry," and totally forbid the importation of alcohol to prevent possession and consumption of alcoholic beverages. Was this an interference by the States in "interstate commerce." It was upheld, and federal law enforcement could be enlisted to prosecute the shipment of alcohol into dry states.
In 2011, because of the global traffic in marijuana, this provision assures states that choose not to legalize marijuana, that federal resources will help them carry out their prohibitions regarding the interstate or international transportation of marijuana. The states would not be abandoned to having to fight the global traffic in marijuana by themselves if they want to continue to prohibit marijuana. This section would not authorize a federal prosecution for growing marijuana in a state, even when the state continues to prohibits marijuana.
Marijuana, in sum and substance, would be removed from the Controlled Substances Act!
The bill does not withdraw the U.S. from the United Nations Single Convention on Narcotics of 1961 and the other international treaties that purport to outlaw the non-medical use of Cannabis. But those treaties are not self-executing. The U.N. can't "enforce" violations of the treaties.
At this moment, the legislation has little immediate future. The Republican leadership of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce and the House Committee on the Judiciary to which the bill has been referred is unlikely to take up the bill. A companion bill has not been introduced in the U.S. Senate. The challenge for supporters of the bill is to get additional Members of the House of Representatives to co-sponsor the bill, to get newspaper editorial boards and columnists to endorse the bill, and to get the endorsement of the bill by a variety of organizations -- from police and medical organizations to Chambers of Commerce and Parent Teacher Associations.
Friday, June 17, 2011
Marking the 40th Anniversary of the War on Drugs
Alternet graciously published my overview of the war on drugs on the 40th anniversary of President Nixon's message to Congress that launched it.
My 1-hour interview on "Culture Shocks" radio with host Barry Lynn is now being played in a continuous loop.
Friday, June 10, 2011
Have you (or someone you know) been hurt by the war on drugs?
Have you or someone you know been raided, shot, maimed, killed, infected, deported, abandoned, orphaned, widowed, evicted, profiled, disenfranchised, robbed, burglarized, jailed or imprisoned, overdosed?
This message is from U.S. Rep. Jared Polis (D-Colorado):
The drug war is a waste of time, money, and resources. Worse, though, it ruins lives.Sphere: Related Content
The enduring legacy of the war on drugs will forever be the horrible impact it has had on the people and families who have seen terrible, outsized punishment for minor, non-violent infractions.
That's why I'm going to make a stand. On June 14th, I'm making a speech from the House floor demanding that we bring this counterproductive war to an end. To make my argument, though, I need your help.
Tell me how the war on drugs has negatively affected your life, or the life of a loved one, now.
I'll read some of the most compelling stories as part of my speech on the House floor. And, of course, I will not reveal any private information like your last name.
It's really important for me to have these stories to share. They can illustrate better than any statistic that this war isn't really a war on drugs. It's a war on the Americans who use drugs.
Drug addiction is a serious problem and, while there can be a criminal component, our lawmakers should address individual drug use as the health problem it is instead of investing billions to incarcerate with no intention to rehabilitate.
So, whether the war on drugs has caused you or a loved one to be put in jail, thrown out of school, or lose a job, please share that experience with me so I can include it in my speech. While it may be too late to undo the pain you've gone through, it's not too late to prevent it from happening to someone else:
http://www.fearlesscampaign.com/war-on-drugs
Thanks,
Jared
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