DRUG BUSTS

NINE WAYS THE WAR ON DRUGS HURTS BUSINESS

ERIC STERLING, CRIMINAL JUSTICE POLICY FOUNDATION - First, the
consequences of drug enforcement and convictions reduce the purchasing
power of at least five million American consumers. Second, the crime,
violence, and disorder from drug prohibition make hundreds of urban
commercial districts undesirable for retail and other commercial
development. Third, the crime, violence, and disorder from drug
prohibition make hundreds of urban residential districts undesirable for
housing and housing development. Fourth, the direct costs of drug
enforcement, now exceeding $50 billion in federal, state, and local
spending each year, are a terrible opportunity cost—as taxation that
restricts investment and profits. This is taxation withdrawn from the
productive economy, a wasted public expenditure that does little to
improve public safety and the economic climate. There are substantial
indirect costs from enforcement that accrue to the business community
and hurt profits. These include, for example, fifth, the costs of
compliance with onerous and ineffective money laundering regulations;
sixth, the inflation of insurance premiums to pay for underwriting
losses attributable to drug-prohibition crime; seventh, the significant
costs of added security; and eighth, the slowing of international trade
to search for contraband and as a result of growing reporting
requirements in financial matters and shipments of industrial chemicals.
Ninth, still other costs are the lost productivity from drug
enforcement. Among the factors reducing productivity due to drug
prohibition is incarceration. Between 1992 and 1998, the productivity
loss due to incarceration grew by 9.1%, according to the White House
report on the economic costs of drug abuse issued in September, 2001.
http://www.cjpf.org/businesspersonsguide.pdf

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LOCAL HERO: 79 YEAR OLD CROSS GUARD FIRED FOR REFUSING DRUG TEST

CHANNEL 2, HOUSTON - 79-year-old school crossing guard was fired over a
drug test, but not because he failed it. Francis Light refused to take
it, violating Houston Independent School District policy. Light has been
a familiar face at Oak Forest Elementary School in northwest Houston for
16 years as the school's crossing guard. He was fired last month after
refusing to take a random drug-alcohol test.

"It hit me the wrong way. I'm old, old-fashioned. School's about out,
and here I am going on 80, why do they want to take drug test on me?" he
told Local 2. . .

Some in the community are uniting with Light, saying he did more than
just escort kids across the street. He was even nominated by some of the
children in a contest for heroes. "He's the only one with loving touch.
He knows you by name," said Kenneth Bonte, a student.

http://www.click2houston.com/education/4754696/detail.html

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SENSENBRENNER'S SENSELESS WAR ON DRUGS

DRUG WAR CHRONICLES - House Judiciary Committee Chairmen Rep. James
Sensenbrenner (R-WI) has long been a fan of anti-drug legislation and
ever-harsher prison sentences, in past years he has shown a willingness
to occasionally come down on the side of civil liberties instead of more
policing.

But this year, the suburban Milwaukee congressman -- he represents the
district that is the subject of the marijuana-friendly TV comedy series
"That '70s Show" -- has used his position as judiciary committee chair
to author draconian anti-drug legislation in the name of the children
and improperly browbeat federal judges he believes are too soft on
sentencing. His moves on drugs and sentencing come in the context of a
broader Sensenbrenner offensive on issues ranging from indecent
television programming to Internet porn to revising in the Patriot Act
to ramming through a national identification card program ostensibly
designed to "make America safer."

A year after finishing law school at the University of Wisconsin in
1968, the young heir to the Kimberly-Clark Kotex fortune won election to
the state legislature with family money paving the way, and in 1978
began his career as a US congressman. He got off to a quick start,
voting to block passage of a bill that would have helped judges around
the country reform bail procedures, then joining the House Criminal
Justice Subcommittee. In the late 1980s, amidst the congressional frenzy
to pass ever more stringent drug bills, he served on the House Select
Committee on Narcotics Abuse and Control. He has sponsored his own death
penalty bill, and in 1994 he said that Jocelyn Elders had "forfeited her
right to be surgeon general of the United States" after her remarks
about legalization of drugs and condoms.

Some indicative votes from the past decade include votes for:

More prisons, more death penalty (1994); Making death penalty appeals
more difficult (1995); Prohibiting Washington, DC, from enacting a
medical marijuana law (1999); Prohibiting federal funding for needle
exchanges (1999); Tougher prosecution and sentencing of juvenile
offenders (1999); Military patrols on the border to combat drugs and
terrorism (2001); and against: Replacing the death penalty with life
imprisonment (1994); Maintaining habeas corpus in death penalty appeals
(1996); Funding for alternative sentencing instead of more prisons
(2000).

But Sensenbrenner has also sometimes departed from a predictably
hard-line approach to crime and drugs. In 1998, he voted against
subjecting federal employees to random drug tests. More recently, his
was the key vote in removing the censorship and secret search provision
in House Judiciary Committee vote on the 2000 methamphetamine bill, and
in deleting a clause from the RAVE Act that would have subjected venue
owners and event organizers to substantial criminal penalties. That
seems to have changed in the last few years. "It's goofy, from 2000 to
2003 he was helpful in stripping drug war bills of their worst
provisions and in fighting Ashcroft on surveillance of political
dissent," said long-time Wisconsin activist and gadfly Ben Masel. "I
don't get what flipped him."

And with this year's introduction of the "Safe Access to Drug Treatment
and Child Protection Act, even some of Sensenbrenner's colleagues are
wondering if he has flipped out. That bill, stalled for the moment,
would make it a federal crime punishable by a two-year mandatory minimum
sentence to fail to report certain drug crimes to the authorities. If
people are using drugs in a home with children, you must snitch. If you
know someone who has ever been in treatment and is seeking drugs, you
must snitch. Even if they are members of your own family.

The bill also creates harsh new penalties for a variety of nonviolent
drug offenses, including a mandatory minimum five years for anyone who
passes a joint to someone who has ever been in drug treatment, five
years for someone who has been in treatment who asks a friend to find
them drugs, and ten years for mothers who have been in treatment who
commit certain drug offenses at home -- even if their kids aren't there.
. .

The House Judiciary Committee chairman attempted to intimidate a federal
appeals court into altering a drug case sentence he felt was not
sufficiently harsh. In that case, the trial judge had sentenced the
defendant to a term below the mandatory minimum, and while federal
prosecutors could probably have gotten the sentenced increased with an
appeal, they did not.

Sensenbrenner lit out after the appeals court that ruled on the case.
They were wrong, Sensenbrenner wrote in a letter to the US 7th Circuit
Court of Appeals, and needed to "promptly remedy" the error. But as the
appeals court pointed out, it was Sensenbrenner who was wrong, and as
countless commentators have pointed out, it was Sensenbrenner who
committed an improper act by attempting to influence a pending court
case.

"It is perfectly appropriate for the Congress to concern itself with
instances of miscarriage of justice," said Sterling, citing cases where
the Justice Department failed to act aggressively against corporate
crime. "But when the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee sends a
letter to a court trying to get it to change the outcome of a case, it
violates the procedures the courts are to follow and is done with either
an intent to improperly intimidate the court or with reckless disregard
of its tendency to intimidate the court," said Sterling, who served as
counsel to that committee from 1979 to 1989.

Sensenbrenner's effort to intimidate the federal courts comes in the
context of a broader congressional offensive against the judiciary, a
nearly two-decades long process manifested in numerous mandatory minimum
sentencing bills removing discretion from judges, and most recently in
the 2003 Feeney Amendment, which seeks to further tighten the
straitjacket around federal judges by requiring the Justice Department
to investigate any judge who issues sentences that depart downward from
the sentencing guidelines.

http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/396/drugwarextremist.shtml/

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BILL PIPER, ALTERNET - A senior congressman, James Sensenbrenner
(R-Wis.), is working quietly but efficiently to turn the entire United
States population into informants--by force. Sensenbrenner, the U.S.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman, has introduced legislation that
would essentially draft every American into the war on drugs. . .

Here's how the "spy" section of the legislation works: If you "witness"
certain drug offenses taking place or "learn" about them, you must
report the offenses to law enforcement within 24 hours and provide "full
assistance in the investigation, apprehension and prosecution" of the
people involved. Failure to do so would be a crime punishable by a
mandatory minimum two-year prison sentence, and a maximum sentence of 10
years.

Here are some examples of offenses you would have to report to police
within 24 hours:

You find out that your brother, who has children, recently bought a
small amount of marijuana to share with his wife; You discover that your
son gave his college roommate a marijuana joint; You learn that your
daughter asked her boyfriend to find her some drugs, even though they're
both in treatment. In each of these cases you would have to report the
relative to the police within 24 hours. Taking time to talk to your
relative about treatment instead of calling the police immediately could
land you in jail.

In addition to turning family member against family member, the
legislation could also put many Americans in danger by forcing them to
go undercover to gain evidence against strangers.

Even if the language that forces every American to become a de facto law
enforcement agent is taken out, the bill would still impose draconian
sentences on college students, mothers, people in drug treatment and
others with substance abuse problems. If enacted, this bill will destroy
lives, break up families, and waste millions of taxpayer dollars.

http://www.alternet.org/drugreporter/22048/