Leave Bill Bennett Alone by Scott McPherson May 9, 2003 Public revelations of former drug czar William J. Bennett’s penchant for high-stakes gambling has produced immediate reform for the Book of Virtues author: “It is true that I have gambled large sums of money.... I have done too much gambling, and this is not an example I wish to set. ...
Book Review: Bad Neighbor Policy by Richard M. Ebeling May 1, 2003 Bad Neighbor Policy: Washington’s Futile War on Drugs in Latin America by Ten Galen Carpenter (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003); 282 pages; $24.95. The U.S. government’s war on drugs has been going on since 1914, when new federal regulations were imposed making many narcotics illegal. Through most of the 19th century, opium and cocaine were obtainable legally from pharmacies with few ...
Racism and the Drug War by Jacob G. Hornberger March 1, 2003 Its all fine and good that Trent Lott is no longer Senate majority as a result of his praise for Strom Thurmonds 1948 race for president, in which Thurmond endorsed segregation. Its also fine and good that Lotts fellow members of Congress, both Democrats and Republicans, overwhelmingly condemned his racial insensitivity and elected Bill Frist in his stead. But given ...
Air Force: Fly High by Scott McPherson January 7, 2003 A popular bumper sticker reads, “Don’t Steal. The Government Hates Competition.” A new bumper sticker should read, “Don’t Deal Drugs. The Government Hates Competition.” According to an Associated Press report in the January 3 issue of the Washington Times, David Beck, attorney for Maj. William Umbach, one of the ...
Drug-War Justice for the Rich and Powerful by James Bovard December 1, 2002 Even in these difficult times, a few simple rules can take some of the peril out of everyday life. For instance, if you’re planning to become a crackhead, make sure that you are the president’s niece. And a governor’s daughter. And that your family is rich enough to hire three lawyers to ply every legal ...
What Dionne Warwick Reveals about the Drug War by Sheldon Richman September 13, 2002 The American Inquisition got another one last month. Singer Dionne Warwick, who was found with nearly a dozen marijuana cigarettes at the Miami airport recently, had her charges dropped in return for promising to undergo “drug treatment” and to make anti-drug public-service announcements. Let’s not dwell on the fact that a ...
Is the Prison-Industrial Complex on the Ropes? by James Bovard July 1, 2002 PRISONS HAVE BEEN THE most reliable growth industry in America over the last two decades. The surge in lockups in this country in recent times is spawning a prison-industrial complex, hungry to rig the political system to ensure the continued delivery of legions of bodies along with their related financial profits. But the boom could finally be coming to ...
A Positive Development in the War on Terrorism by Jacob G. Hornberger June 1, 2002 There might be one positive development arising from the U.S. government’s reaction to its failure to prevent the 9/11 attacks. The Washington Post reported today (May 29) that “the FBI will shift 480 agents from drug and other criminal investigations to counterterrorism posts....” Doesn’t that imply that if FBI agents weren’t spending their time prosecuting ...
Bill O’Reilly and the Conservative War on Drugs by Thomas L. Johnson June 1, 2002 BILL O’REILLY IS HOT. He is a broadcast journalist who has a very popular cable-news program on the Fox News Channel called The O’Reilly Factor, and a widely read book of the same title. His latest book, The No Spin Zone, has been number one on the nonfiction bestseller list for many weeks. O’Reilly is intelligent and loquacious and a ...
The Bush Administration’s “Drugs = Terrorism” Fraud by James Bovard April 1, 2002 The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy spent more than $3 million for two TV ads during Sunday’s Super Bowl. One ad asked viewers: “Where do terrorists get their money?” The answer: “If you buy drugs, some of it might come from you.” Drug users are portrayed as terrorist financiers — practically ...
The Wars on Drugs and Terrorism Meet in Afghanistan by Jacob G. Hornberger April 1, 2002 The U.S. government’s wars on drugs and terrorism are now coming together in Afghanistan, a nation famous for the production of opium. Prior to the Taliban regime, Afghanistan had been the world’s largest producer of poppies. But under the Taliban regime, the Afghan government waged a war on drugs as fiercely as the U.S. ...
Bush’s Opium Boom by James Bovard April 1, 2002 Last year saw what is probably the single biggest one-year increase in opium production in world history. Since the Bush administration toppled the Taliban regime, opium production in Afghanistan has increased from 185 tons in 2001 to 3,700 tons in 2002 — an increase of twentyfold. Afghanistan has historically produced more than two-thirds of the world opium supply and ...