Originally Posted by Washington Free Press
The War on Poor Drug Users
The war on drugs is really a war on poor drug users. Estimates of the US drug trade vary widely from $100 to $600 billion a year. The most obvious conclusion is that this money is not all coming from America's poor who, by definition, don't have a lot of money. At any given time, at least 400,000 people are imprisoned in American prisons or jails based on drug crimes alone (possession, sale or trafficking). But if rich and poor alike use drugs, and the law, in its majestic equality punishes drug use by both, why do only the poor go to prison? In 1997 Randall Cunningham was busted smuggling 400 pounds of marijuana from California to Boston. Despite confessing to smuggling two other drug shipments and being part of a huge drug smuggling operation, Cunningham was only charged with one drug possession offense, to which he pleaded guilty. Out on bond before sentencing, he tested positive for cocaine use three times. In November 1998, he was sentenced to 30 months in federal prison, despite statutes calling for a mandatory minimum sentence of 5 years for possessing the 400 pounds of pot. Cunningham's father, who made a tearful plea for mercy at his son's sentencing, happens to be Randy "Duke" Cunningham, a US Republican congressman from California. Four months before his son's arrest, Cunningham Sr. was saying "we must get tough on drug dealers." At his son's sentencing, he told the judge "My son has a good heart, he's never been in trouble before." The same plea made by the parents of poor criminals falls on deaf ears.
In July 1998, Claude Shelby was arrested smuggling a half-ounce of hash from London into Atlanta. He was fined $500 by US Customs, which he paid on the spot. His father is Republican senator from Alabama Richard Shelby who has long championed draconian drug penalties. In response to a constituent whose son was imprisoned on federal drug charges, senator Shelby said: "Any person who is caught with drugs should spend the rest of his life in prison. I have no sympathy for them." Senator Shelby lacks the courage of his convictions.
Dan Burton is best known as the Republican congressman from Indiana who pursued president Clinton like a modern day Ahab tormenting Moby Dick. He has called for the death penalty for drug dealers. In 1994 his son, Dan Burton II, was arrested transporting eight pounds of marijuana from Texas to Indiana. While out of bail awaiting trial on those charges, Burton II was arrested five months later growing 30 pot plants in his Indianapolis apartment, with a shotgun to guard them. He never faced federal prosecution, despite it being a federal offense to possess a firearm both while awaiting trial and during a drug offense. Prosecuted on state charges, he received house arrest, probation and community service. Federal law calls for a mandatory minimum of five years for possessing a firearm during a drug offense. For whatever reason, federal prosecutors decided this crime wasn't worth prosecuting.
In 1992 Richard Riley Jr., the son of the former governor of South Carolina, Richard Riley, who was Clinton's secretary of education, was indicted on federal charges of conspiring to sell marijuana and cocaine. He faced ten years to life in prison. Ultimately Riley Jr. was sentenced to six months of house arrest. Riley Jr. was later pardoned as President Clinton was leaving office in 2001.
In 2002, Noelle Bush, daughter of Florida governor Jeb Bush and niece of President George Bush, was arrested on drug charges. Placed in a treatment center, she was found in possession of crack cocaine, but treatment staff would not cooperate with police, so charges were dropped.
Darlene Watts is the sister of black Republican congressman from Oklahoma Julius Caesar Watts. She received a seven-year suspended sentence (i.e. no actual prison time) in 1998 after pleading guilty to possession and distribution of marijuana and methamphetamine and drug paraphernalia and maintaining a property where drugs were kept. Political connections seem to have outweighed race.
