From: "Peter McWilliams" To: "Peter McWilliams" Subject: Newsweek beats the Bush Date: Tue, 31 Aug 1999 14:55:47 -0700 There seems to be something of a Drug War meltdown taking place in the press. Let's hope it continues. We can do more than hope, of course. We can send letters to the editors applauding their courageous, truthful stands. Enjoy, Peter Pubdate: Mon, 30 Aug 1999 Source: Newsweek (US) Contact: letters@newsweek.com Website: http://newsweek.com/ Author: Stuart Taylor, Jr. Note: Taylor is a senior writer at National Journal and a Newsweek contributing editor. Related: http://www.mapinc.org/alert/0121.html WHY THE STORY MATTERS The most important cocaine question for George W. Bush is this: would you seek long prison terms for today's 18- year-olds for doing what you say you may or may not have done as a young man -- and when you now suggest that whatever you did was a mere youthful indiscretion, and thus irrelevant to your candidacy? Countless thousands of people are rotting in prisons all across America -- many in Texas -- for being caught with small amounts of cocaine or crack, its smokable variant. Many were only peripherally involved in drug sales. Some were mere users. As governor of Texas, Bush -- like most other politicians in both parties -- has joined in this orgy of punishment with enthusiasm, signing laws that toughen penalties for drug users as well as pushers, and that send juveniles as young as 14 to prison for especially serious crimes, including some drug crimes. How can he square this with his position that whether he used drugs is irrelevant to his candidacy? If Bush won't tell us whether he used cocaine or other illegal drugs in his first 28 years -- and there's no evidence that he did -- he should at least tell us whether his admitted but unspecified "young and irresponsible" escapades would have landed him in prison had the drug laws he supports been enforced against him. In 1997 Bush signed a measure authorizing judges to give jail time to people convicted of possessing (or selling) less than one gram (one twenty-eighth of an ounce) of cocaine. Texas sentencing guidelines had previously prescribed mandatory probation for such small quantities. And in 1995, Bush pushed through the new law expanding the list of crimes for which juveniles as young as 14 (down from 15) can be tried and imprisoned as adults. It's not that Bush has been exceptionally tough on drug crimes. Most national Democrats, including President Clinton and Vice President Gore, support mandatory federal penalties for small-time drug offenders that are far harsher than the laws in Texas, where judges at least have discretion to show leniency to nondangerous abusers. Still, there is strong journalistic justification for confronting any drug use in Bush's past. That would foster debate on a vital issue of national policy: should Congress and the next president (as well as the states) revise the draconian drug-sentencing regime that has packed prisons with nonviolent, small-time drug offenders -- mostly poor and nonwhite -- and helped send the number of Americans behind bars soaring above 1.8 million? As James Madison wrote in Federalist 57, one of the Constitution's safeguards against "oppressive measures" is that Congress "can make no law which will not have its full operation on themselves and their friends, as well as on the great mass of society." The same logic argues that politicians should be pressed to say -- and voters should be spurred to think about -- how they would have fared if they had committed their own youthful indiscretions in the presence of (say) an undercover cop. Any Bush admission that he used cocaine when he was (say) 25 years old -- if he did -- should force him, his supporters and the rest of us to do some hard thinking about whether today's 25-year-olds (and 18-year-olds) should go to prison for doing the same thing. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Pubdate: Sun 29 Aug, 1999 Source: Dallas Morning News (TX) Copyright: 1999 The Dallas Morning News Contact: letterstoeditor@dallasnews.com Website: http://www.dallasnews.com/ Forum: http://forums.dallasnews.com:81/webx Author: Rose Kelleher WHY IS GARRETT IN PRISON? George W. Bush's sideways admission that he himself may have taken illegal drugs in the 1970s makes Charles Edward Garrett's continued incarceration particularly ironic. Mr. Garrett, a black man, was sentenced to life imprisonment by an all-white Texas jury in 1970 for possession of a small amount of heroin. Mr. Garrett, who fortunately had the foresight to jump bail at the time, was apprehended last year after nearly 30 years of freedom. During his three decades as a fugitive, Mr. Garrett turned his life around, freeing himself of his addiction and becoming a law-abiding, productive citizen. Now the state of Texas wants to keep him behind bars for life. As if that weren't unjust enough, now Mr. Bush has added insult to injury by pointing out the incredible hypocrisy of the Texas criminal justice system: One Texas man takes drugs in the 1970s and he is expected to die in jail. Another Texas man may have taken drugs in the 1970s and he is expected to run the country. It's hard to imagine a more striking comparison. Please protest the absurdly harsh sentencing of Charles Edward Garrett. The state of Texas should not uphold racist sentences that were handed out by jurors of a less enlightened era. Charles Edward Garrett has already served 10 months in prison and should be released immediately. ROSE KELLEHER, Gaithersburg, Md.