THIS IS JIM HIGHTOWER SAYING
The Zenith of Drug-War Insanity
America's failed, multimillion-dollar drug war is a crazy collection of policy insanities, including the militarization of US drug policing, the routine seizure of innocent people's property, the intervention in Colombia's civil war, and the widespread use of illegal searches. But the zenith of drug-war insanity is the rigid policy of mandatory sentencing, which has imprisoned hundreds of thousands of Americans for nonviolent drug possession charges, just so politicians can look tough.
These "tough" politicians should have to spend 24 hours with Terrence Stevens. The New York Times reports that he was arrested on a bus in Buffalo in 1990 for possessing only five ounces of cocaine. He was in a wheelchair at the time of his arrest, suffering from muscular dystrophy. He had no previous drug convictions, but get-tough New York politicians had passed an inflexible mandatory-sentencing law, so Mr. Stevens was sent, wheelchair and all, to prison for a minimum of 15 years--a longer term than if he'd been convicted of rape or manslaughter.
Eight years into the sentence, the Times found Mr. Stevens in his cell, mostly paralyzed, his limbs limp, "and his muscles so atrophied that his body slumps to the left, squeezing his left lung," making the very act of breathing labored and painful. He has to rely on other prisoners for life's basics: "They've got to put me in and out of bed," he says--"On and off the toilet. Dress me. Bathe me." He's a threat to no one, but he's stuck in that prison for at least another seven years, costing New York taxpayers more than $30,000 each year to keep him there.
Even the judge who was forced to sentence him is appalled: "It's a sad commentary that the law doesn't permit for the proper relief that should be given a human being." To help stop this insanity, contact Families Against Mandatory Minimums at (202) 822-6700.
Crime and Punishment
Why should crime be a class issue? If you do the crime, you should do the time, right--no matter what your title is or how fat your wallet is?
Then explain to me the very different treatment of two men caught up in America's drug war. One is Col. James Hiett--the army big shot who headed the Pentagon's entire anti-drug operation in Colombia . . . until the embarrassing discovery recently that Col. Hiett's wife was smuggling packages of heroine from Colombia into the US, using the official diplomatic mail pouch to make her deliveries. Col. Hiett himself confessed that he helped to launder and spend her drug money. His punishment? Less than 18 months in jail. Plus, he gets to retire from the Army, drawing a fat monthly retirement check from us taxpayers for the rest of his life.
Terrence Stevens, on the other hand, doesn't have much life left. When caught for simple possession of 5 ounces of cocaine, he was already in a wheelchair from the painful, debilitating disease of muscular dystrophy. His punishment? A mandatory sentence of 15 years or more in a New York prison. His breathing labored and painful, his bodily functions out of control, Mr. Stevens doesn't expect to get out of prison alive, much less get a pension from taxpayers.
What about mass murderers? They're considered satanic and usually get the death penalty. So why is Paul Norris walking around pretty as you please, living in luxury and treated like a respectable citizen? He's CEO of W.R. Grace & Co., and already nearly 200 people in Libby, Montana, are dead at the hands of Mr. Norris' corporation. W.R. Grace's mining operation in Libby knowingly poisoned the whole area with deadly asbestos, neither protecting nor informing the residents because that would have hurt corporate profits and the paycheck of the CEO.
Why should we respect the law if elite drug profiteers and corporate killers get privileged treatment?
Drug Czar Gets Loopy On Hemp
We're number 1, we're number 1, we're number 1! Yes, the US of A continues to hold onto its top ranking in the world: We're the country with the most citizens in prison! We're up to 1.86 million inmates, well ahead of number 2 China, with 1.2 million of its people in the pokey. The US Justice Department predicts that we could top 2 million incarcerated Americans by next year if we keep striving.
The thing that makes us such a model imprisoner for the rest of the world is our "Drug War." Get-tough politicians of both parties have mandated lengthy mandatory sentences for simple users of marijuana and other drugs. Instead of taking a martini, these unfortunate citizens took a toke . . . of an illegal drug . . . so they're in the slammer, while politicians toast their own "toughness" with a martini.
No one has a more bizarre neurosis about marijuana than the Kingpin of our Drug War himself--Gen. Barry McCaffrey. He's so wigged out by the possibility of someone, somewhere getting high on the stuff that he refuses to allow the production of industrial hemp in America. Hemp is a cousin of marijuana, but you can't get high on it. It's a crop that George Washington proudly produced, that could help family farmers, and that's environmentally sound.
But the little general is so loopy that he's even trying to ban the importation of hemp oil, seeds, or stalks from Canada or other countries that gladly produce this profitable crop. He tried to do this by bureaucratic fiat, seizing a load of Canadian hemp seed to be used by a company making bird seed. It was ruled, however, that he had no legal authority to do this, so now he's quietly circulating draft legislation that would authorize the Drug Czar to imprison people who bring bird seed and other hemp products into our country.
To stop the little general, contact NORML at (202) 483-5500
Say No To Drug-Price Gouging
Shirley Kindle of East Hartford, Connecticut, keeps getting robbed. The New York Times reports that life is precarious enough for this retired clerical worker, who suffers from diabetes and other life-threatening ailments, without the added burden of getting mugged on a regular basis.
Ms. Kindle's robbers are not street thugs, but the profiteers running America's pharmaceutical giants. They 've artificially jacked up the price of drugs so outrageously that they threaten the very lives of people like Shirley Kindle. She receives a monthly social security check of $496. But the price of the pills she has to take just to stay alive has skyrocketed to $506 a month.
There's a technical term for what's going on here: gouging. Drug companies, which get their basic research done courtesy of us taxpayers, are gouging American consumers--especially the elderly on fixed incomes who have to have their medicines. The 50 drugs most used by seniors have gone up in price by a third in just the past six years-drugs that can cost $10 a dose, or even more.
Can't something be done? Yes, and State Senator Chellie Pingree of Maine is doing it, along with others. She sponsored the Fairer Prescription Drug Prices Act, which passed the Maine legislature overwhelmingly. Citizens of Maine and many other border states are learning that Americans are charged the highest drug prices in the world. For example, an ulcer drug that costs $110 for a month's supply in Maine, costs only $55 in Canada, and $29 in Mexico.
Why the difference? Because other nations don't tolerate drug company ripoffs of their citizens, so they negotiate lower prices. The companies still make a profit . . . but not a killing.
Sen. Pingree's bill simply says that drug prices in Maine cannot be higher than in Canada. To learn how your state can join Maine , call Sen. Pingree's office: (207) 287-1515.
A Deadly Pentagon Boondoggle
Nineteen people are dead, but the gang that killed them will not be prosecuted. The 19 dead were Marines flying in a recent test of the V-22 Osprey--an experimental aircraft that's supposed to take off and land like a helicopter, then tilt its propellers down in mid-air to fly like a regular airplane. The gang of killers consists of members of Congress, top brass of the Marine Corps, and honchos of Boeing and Bell Helicopter Textron--all of whom have demanded for their own selfish reasons that the Osprey fly . . . even though the experts have said that it's "an engineering impossibility" to make it work and that it has been rushed into production for political and profit reasons without concern for the safety of those commanded to fly it.
The V-22 Osprey is a technological novelty that's bedazzled a wide-eyed Congress, which also was seduced into financing this fantasy because production of various parts of the plane is spread out to factories in 40 states, allowing senators and House members to brag that they brought Osprey money and jobs to the home folks. Lots of money--the boondoggle has been in development for 18 years at a cost, so far, of $37 billion. The New York Times reports that senior Pentagon officials have tried to cancel the plane--too iffy, too costly. But Boeing and Bell lobbied hard to keep the manna flowing, Marine commanders have their careers pegged to getting the Osprey, and lawmakers want to keep the money and jobs in their districts . . . so the funding continues.
Of the five planes actually produced for testing, two have crashed, killing seven soldiers the first time, and now 19 more. A Congressional supporter of the boondoggle told the Times: "Two crashes do not tell us anything . . . . They are to be expected in testing a new military system like the Osprey."
This is Jim Hightower saying . . . Great, how about we use him--along with the corporate lobbyists, the Marine brass, and members of Congress--to serve as the test crews from here on out?