comments_image -

Moral Poverty and Body Counts

Drug-czar nominee John Walters is a veteran of drug policy shambles. In other words, he's the perfect man for the job.
 
 
LIKE THIS ARTICLE ?
Join our mailing list:

Sign up to stay up to date on the latest headlines via email.

 
 
 
 

John Walters is a veteran of drug policy shambles. As the deputy director under former drug czar William Bennett, he helped craft drug war policies that have shattered millions of lives, wasted billions of dollars and exacerbated America's drug crisis. He's a hard-core ideologue who misrepresents the facts and spouts tough-on-crime rhetoric.

In other words, John Walters is the Bush administration's perfect choice to be the next drug czar.

If Walters wins confirmation as the director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), as he is expected to do, don't expect many concrete changes. Like the recently departed drug czar, General Barry McCaffrey, Walters is dedicated to more drug testing and zero-tolerance regimens, misrepresenting drugs as "an affliction mostly of the young," and funneling ever more cash to public relations, interdiction, police, prisons and -- if Walters has his way -- churches.

But unlike McCaffrey -- a dutiful soldier, but one who bumbled when off script -- Walters has a sophisticated understanding of drug issues and articulates them skillfully. This, combined with his unyielding ideology, makes him more dangerous than his predecessor.

ONDCP's goals, established in Bennett's 1989 National Drug Control Strategy when Walters was his deputy director, specifically targeted drug "use itself," not abuse or addiction. Policies stigmatized and punished "casual users ... because it is their kind of drug use that is most contagious." Conversely, the Strategy de-emphasized treating addiction because drug addicts are "a mess" who "make the worst possible advertisement for new drug use."

Bennett's strategy of neglecting drug abusers while punishing casual users worked exactly as designed. In the 1980s and early 1990s, arrests and imprisonments for drug law violations skyrocketed, self-reported drug use fell and drug abuse exploded. Federal Drug Abuse Warning Network reports showed overdoses and hospitalizations skyrocketing, especially for those drugs most targeted by the drug war. In 1980, when Reagan took office, 28,000 Americans were hospitalized for abuse of heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine. In 1992, when Bush left office, the number was 175,000. In 2000, the latest figures available, 250,000 were hospitalized.

Normally, such a monumental policy disaster would invoke calls for fundamental reform from the highest levels, especially after voters in a dozen states have signaled their support for reform. However, because drug abuse is financially and politically profitable for drug war interests, the czar's only permissible role is promoting tougher policies and further escalation. Walters' record reveals the consummate doubletalk skills necessary to fulfill the office's task of redefining disaster as success while simultaneously warning that worse disaster looms.

Walters' claims of success, like McCaffrey's, rest upon limited portions of indexes of drug abuse and rely heavily on the most unreliable measure, self-reporting use surveys. From 1979 to 1992, the National Household Survey on Drug Abuse reported, the percentage of people who said (truthfully or not) that they used illicit drugs in the past month dropped from 16 percent to 5 percent among teenagers and from 14 percent to 6 percent among adults. In a 1996 Heritage Foundation critique of Clinton drug policies, Walters credited "strong presidential leadership" for "a decade of consistent progress during the Reagan and Bush Administrations" that "helped rescue much of a generation." Yet, in President Clinton's first term, "the United States is losing -- some would say surrendering -- in the prolonged struggle against illegal drugs." Drug use is rising, and "the number of cocaine- and heroin-related emergency room admissions has jumped to historic levels" driven by falling prices and "increased availability of such relatively cheap drugs."

submit to reddit

-
Email
Print
Share
LIKED THIS ARTICLE? JOIN OUR EMAIL LIST
Stay up to date with the latest AlterNet headlines via email
Advertisement
Most Read
Most Emailed
Most Discussed
On REDDIT
On DIGG
 
loading most read content ..
Advertisement
Fox, Breitbart, and Ricketts Try to Bring Back D'Souza's Pseudo-Birtherism

By Steve M | No More Mister Nice Blog

 
 
Activists Speak Out Against Lack of Access to Bradley Manning

By Agence France Presse

 
 
NYPD Catches Sexual Assailant, Then Lets Him Go Free Because He Didn't Feel Like Being Questioned

By Jill F | Feministe

 
 
Gov. Scott Orders Purging of Florida’s Voter Rolls - Just in Time For Prez Election

By Adele Stan | Washington Monthly

 
 
Abortion Clinics Across Country Put On Alert In Wake of Georgia Clinic Arson Cases

By Robin Marty | RH Reality Check

 
 
Former GOP Congresswoman Blasts New GOP Women’s Caucus: ‘They’re Not Voting In Best Interest Of All Women’

By Josh Israel | ThinkProgress

 
 
Debbie Wasserman Schulz is Wrong on Wisconsin

By LaFeminista | DailyKos

 
 
Pro-Coal Group Pays People to Wear Its Shirts at EPA Hearing

By Heather Moyer | Sierra Club

 
 
Kids Inundate NY Governor With Concerns About Fracking

By Seth Gladstone | Food and Water Watch

 
 
Shareholders, Top Doctors Demand McDonald's Assess its Health Impacts

By Sara Deon | Civil Eats

 
 
 
 
 
loading ...
POWERED BY DIGG'S USERS
 
[ page served from web 1 ]