Are you concerned that our prisons are full of "nonviolent" drug offenders? If so, you are not alone. In recent years there have been a spate of newspaper editorials, op-ed pieces and television commentaries calling for the decriminalization of drugs because "over half a million" nonviolent drug offenders are wasting away in Ameerican prisons.
Well-meaning people believe that many lives have been and are being ruined, not through the illegal use of drugs, but because productive or potentially productive Americans are being arrested, proscecuted and convicted for violating our drug laws. And, some of those who feel this way are not necessarily of a liberal persuasion. One of my friends, a conservative law-and-order type who is a successful and respected civic-minded businessman, has disagreed with me on this issue since the beginning of our friendship.
Froma Harrop, a syndicated columnist, recently wrote that since its start in 1970, the "lunatic" War on Drugs has resulted in 38 million arrests for nonviolent drug offenses. She noted that, for those who evaded arrest, drug use has been no bar to high office, listing Al Gore, Newt Gingrich, Clarence Thomas, Bill Clinton, President Bush and Barack Obama as examples. Harrop's op-ed piece referred to the War on Drugs as a one trillion dollar failure which has left nonviolent drug offenders to "rot in jail."
Harrop and others of her ilk do not want nonviolent drug offenders locked up. Hey, why stop there? By keeping all nonviolent criminals (thieves, white-collar crooks, hot-check writers, unarmed burglars, drug offenders) out of jail we would solve the prison overcrowding problem in a hot New York minute. And, what about those numbers (half a million, 38 million, one trillion) Harrop and others are throwing around? I suspect they are rather well inflated.
Make no mistake about it; those who make a conscious decision to ignore or break our drug laws are criminals, any way you cut it. The drug offenders in our prisons do not deserve any pity. No one put a gun to their heads and forced them to smoke pot, pop pills, inject heroin, snort cocaine, smoke crack, or shoot-up crystal meth.
Decriminalization advocates like to compare the use of marijuana by minors to kids sneaking off to smoke a cigarette or to drink a bottle of beer in the years before pot smoking became popular. Marijuana is not the innocuous weed that many would have us believe. It is one of the most dangerous of all drugs because it is the "gateway drug" to the use of more harmful substances. When the habitual smoking of pot becomes prosaic, many of its users will switch to stronger drugs. That is why the penalties for marijuana possession are more severe than those for tobacco or alcohol violations.
I have personally seen the devastation that can result from the use of illicit drugs. I have arrested and also supervised a substantial number of parolees who were doctors, lawyers and other professionls. Their lives and health were ruined long before they were arrested and sent to prison.
Harrop and her fellow decriminalization demagogues would have us believe that all those poor druggies are behind bars only because they had the misfortune of getting caught, and their only sin was smoking pot or crack. Nothing could be further from the truth. Most of those nonviolent drug offenders "rotting away" in prison were also thieves, white-collar crooks, hot-check writers or burglars who preyed on innocent victims to support their drug habits.
Whether or not we are winning the War on Drugs is really irrelevant. So long as there are laws against the use, possession or sale of drugs, those who deliberately make bad choices should be prepared to face the consequences. And, if those consequences result in prison time, that's just tough. The "rule of law" must always prevail. That is why imprisoned nonviolent drug offenders do not deserve any pity.
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