Obama's Biden Pick Signals 'More of the Same' Stupid Drug Policies

By Paul Armentano, AlterNet. Posted September 6, 2008.

Voters who hoped that Barack Obama's call for "change" would include revamping U.S. drug policy are finding themselves with reasons to be skeptical.

First there was Obama's flip-flop-flip-flop on the subject of decriminalizing marijuana. Speaking at Northwestern University in January 2004, Obama called America's so-called "war on drugs" an "utter failure," and recommended, "(W)e need to rethink and decriminalize our (nation's) marijuana laws." (Obama's candid remarks, though out of step politically, echo public sentiment. Nearly 3 out of 4 Americans endorsed the policy in a 2002 CNN/Time Magazine poll, and 12 state legislatures have already enacted versions of pot decriminalization -- replacing criminal penalties with fine-only sanctions.)

Nevertheless, Obama reversed his pro-pot position during a televised November 2007 MSNBC debate, raising his hand to indicate his opposition to the policy. Following the debate, a spokesman for Obama claimed that the candidate had misunderstood the moderator's question and declared that Obama had, in fact, "always" supported decriminalization. Hours later, however, when presented with video footage of Obama's 2004 statements, the campaign reversed course once again, stating to the Washington Times that the Democratic nominee opposed decriminalizing weed.

Since being elected to the U.S. Senate in 2004, Obama has voiced almost no criticism regarding America's punitive drug policies (despite his previous "utter failure" evaluation). As senator, Obama has championed popular anti-drug legislation like the "Combat Meth Act" and has lobbied in favor of increased funding for drug courts and U.S. drug interdiction efforts south of the border.

Nevertheless, many progressives believe -- perhaps rightly -- that Obama's prior admissions of illicit drug use (which the candidate now describes, without further elaboration, as a "mistake"), coupled with his apparent nonideological, holistic approach to public policy, indicates a willingness to move American drug policy away from the moralist, "do drugs, do time" attitudes associated with the Bush administration. If so, then the sudden pairing with Democrat drug war hawk Joe Biden becomes that much more distressing.

During his 35 years in Congress, political observers note that no Democrat has sponsored "more damaging drug war legislation" than Joe Biden. Biden led the charge in the Senate for passage of the 1986 Anti-Drug Abuse Act, which -- among its numerous notorious provisions -- re-established mandatory minimum sentencing for drug crimes, expanded the use of federal asset forfeiture laws, and established the racially biased 100-to-1 sentencing disparity for the possession of crack versus powder cocaine. (During the mid-'80s, it was hardly unusual for "liberals" such as Biden to endorse punitive drug policies, which at the time enjoyed virtually unanimous support from Congress.) Biden recently offered a mea culpa regarding his former support for the disproportionate sentencing provision, rationalizing, "Our intentions were good, but much of our information was bad."

Biden was also a key architect of the 1988 Anti-Drug Abuse Act, which enacted mandatory sentences for minor crack cocaine possession (five years in prison for possession of more than 5 grams), redefined low-level drug mules as drug "conspirators" (allowing these defendants to face the same penalties as drug kingpins), instituted random workplace drug testing programs for public employees, and established the multibillion-dollar anti-drug propaganda wing of the White House known as the Office of National Drug Control Policy (the federal agency responsible for creating the television ads that claimed that pot smoking sponsors international terrorism -- or at least makes you pregnant). The executive director of the ONDCP, dubbed by Biden as America's "drug czar," was eventually elevated in 1993 to that of a presidential Cabinet position -- arguably the only U.S. Cabinet position that, by law, is mandated to lie to the American public.

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Paul Armentano is the senior policy analyst for the NORML Foundation in Washington, D.C.

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