Drug War

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 ...

Drug Laws: Terrorists Best Friends

by James Bovard February 1, 2002

PRESIDENT BUSH, when signing the Drug-Free Communities Act on December14, announced: If you quit drugs, you join the fight against terror in America. Bush could also have added: If you quit drug laws, you join the fight against terror. How many more Americans should die in order to perpetuate the fiction that the U.S. government can completely control every farmer ...

The Drug War and Terrorism

by Sheldon Richman January 1, 2002

AMERICANS NO DOUBTwould be distressed to learn that the U.S. government helped finance the terrorist attacks that killed so many people in New York and Washington. It’s not such a far-fetched thought. According to House Speaker Dennis Hastert, terrorist organizations are financed in part by profits from trading in drugs. “The illegal drug trade is ...

The Hopped-Up DEA Chief

by James Bovard December 1, 2001

“I WOULD HOPE that we are judged by the lives that are touched and the hope that we give America,” declared Asa Hutchinson, Bush’s new Drug Enforcement Agency chief during a press conference on his first day in his new job. Considering that the DEA seeks to maximize the number of people that it sends to prison each year ...