Drug War

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 ...

The War on Drugs and Police Funding

by Jacob G. Hornberger November 7, 2001

The following was published as a Capsule Commentary in the November 7, 2001 edition of the FFF Email Update. The October 14 issue of the Washington Post reported that Washington area police and sheriffs' departments garnered a bonanza of nearly $2.2 million last year from the war on drug's asset-forfeiture ...

Terrorism and the Drug War

by Sheldon Richman November 1, 2001

Americans no doubt would 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 ...

Our New National Chief Therapist

by James Bovard October 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 ...

The Most Dangerous Substance of All

by Sheldon Richman September 1, 2001

For all our preoccupation with ridding society of cocaine, heroin, and marijuana, little thought is given to the most dangerous mind-altering substance of all: ink. Do you doubters need proof? Take Rachel Carson’s famous book, Silent Spring. In 1963 Carson wrote a book claiming that the insecticide DDT was damaging ...

Update on the Drug War

by Sheldon Richman August 1, 2001

THE U.S. SUPREME COURT has ruled that “medical necessity” is not a permissible defense under the federal statute that outlaws distribution of marijuana. This has been widely interpreted as a lethal blow to the medical marijuana movement. The government had sought an injunction against an Oakland, California, cooperative that distributed marijuana to people whose ...

A Modest Proposal for the Next Drug-War Shootdown

by James Bovard August 1, 2001

THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION and federal agencies are still struggling with the backlash from the shootdown by Peruvian jet fighters of a Cessna airplane in which five Americans were traveling. Everybody regrets the fact that a CIA surveillance plane notified Peruvian jets that a plane carrying Baptist missionaries might contain drug traffickers. But unless the U.S. government is to suffer ...

The Drug War Is Doomed

by Sheldon Richman July 1, 2001

The announcement that we have a new drug czar (a nice term for a government official in America, no?) reminded me of a recent appearance on CNN of the previous drug czar, Gen. Barry McCaffrey, and U.S. Rep. Bob Barr, Republican of Georgia. They were discussing the need to be tough ...

Drug-War Killings in Peru

by Jacob G. Hornberger June 1, 2001

IN APRIL, two more innocent people were killed in the U.S government’s 30-year war on drugs. This time, the victims were a 35-year-old missionary named Veronica Bowers and her 7-month-old baby, Charity, who were flying in a small Cessna from Brazil to Peru with Bowers’s husband, another of their children, and the pilot. After a CIA plane issued an alert ...

Another Drug-War Lesson in Peru

by Jacob G. Hornberger April 1, 2001

The war on drugs has now taken two more casualties — 35-year-old missionary Veronica Bowers and her 7-month old child Charity. Last Friday, April 20, a Peruvian interceptor jet attacked and shot down a defenseless single-engine Cessna in which Bowers and her baby were traveling. Surviving the attack were her ...