TRIANGLE OF TERROR

When it comes to leading the President's Drug War, "compassionate conservatives" need not apply. 
Last week, President George W.  Bush formally appointed a pair of the Drug War's staunchest fanatics to the federal government's highest ranking drug policy posts. 

On Wednesday, May 9, Bush nominated Republican moral crusader Asa Hutchinson to head the Drug Enforcement Administration.  Hutchinson, an Arkansas Congressman, cosponsored legislation in 1999 that sought to impose 10-year prison terms on individuals who post drug-related information on the Internet. 
The following day, Bush ended months of speculation by introducing John P.  Walters as the nation's new Drug Czar.  Walters is best remembered for his tenure as chief lieutenant to Bush's father's Drug Czar Bill Bennett.  He is replacing Gen. Barry McCaffrey, who fled the Beltway in January to direct an Internet-based drug treatment corporation, www.egetgoing.com. 

The duo, upon confirmation by the Senate, will join Attorney General John Ashcroft, a fellow Drug War hawk, as the point men in Bush's revamped War Cabinet.  Drug-policy reformers are calling the trio the triple threat: a threat to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. 
John Walters not only hates drug addiction, "he hates drug addicts, and he certainly hates drug users who are not addicts," asserts Eric Sterling, president of the Criminal Justice Policy Foundation, in Washington. 
Kevin Zeese, head of Virginia's Common Sense for Drug Policy, echoes similar sentiments.  "If you've liked the Drug War so far, you will like what's coming, because it's more of the same," he warns. 

Not According to the Prez:
On the contrary, announced Bush at the May 10 Rose Garden ceremony for the new Czar.  Rather than hyping his picks' tough-talking resumes, he claimed his appointments represent his administration's commitment to an "integrated Drug War strategy," one that focuses predominantly on treatment and demand reduction.  "The most effective way to reduce the supply of drugs in America is to reduce the demand for drugs in America," Bush announced.  "Therefore, this administration will focus unprecedented attention to the demand side of this problem."
Unprecedented? Bush better consult a dictionary.  According to the President's proposed drug budget, only $1 out of every estimated $20 spent on antidrug activities is earmarked for treatment programs.  By comparison, two-thirds of the budget goes to fund law-enforcement efforts, including a whopping 21% increase in spending for federal prisons. 

Moreover, Czar-to-be Walters is on record vociferously opposing the expansion of "federally funded treatment programs for addicts," a position so extreme that even McCaffrey balked at his nomination.  "Some of his positions, in my own view, need to be carefully considered by the confirmation committee," he told the New York Times, adding that he "remained hopeful" that "bipartisan support for treatment" would remain an integral part of the Feds' antidrug strategy, despite the Walters appointment. 

So Who Are These Guys?
Both Walters and Hutchinson are familiar, though far from friendly faces, to drug-law reformers.  In recent years, Walters has advocated expanding the use of the military in drug interdiction, including voicing support for the controversial US/Peruvian shoot-down program that took the lives of an American missionary and her child last month.  In 1996, he told Congress that the program, which is authorized to use deadly force against airplanes suspected of carrying drugs, and has shot down more than 100 planes, was "cheap and effective."

"The US military can make a profound contribution to cutting the flow of drugs through interdiction," he said.  "The budget needs to reflect this national priority."

Walters is also a vocal proponent of mandatory-minimum sentencing for drug crimes, supports the sentencing disparity for crack and powder cocaine, and claims "the idea that our prisons are filled with people whose only offense was possession of an illegal drug is utter fantasy," despite the fact that roughly 25% of America's 2 million prisoners are currently serving time for drug offenses.  He also denies that drug laws are enforced disproportionately against minorities, opining in the March 6 edition of The Weekly Standard that "the widely held view that the criminal-justice system is unjustly punishing young black men [is] among the great urban myths of our time."

"John Walters is a veteran of drug-policy shambles," says Mike Males, a senior researcher at the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice -- http://www.cjcj.org/ "As the deputy director under former Drug Czar William Bennett, he helped craft the Drug War policies that have shattered millions of lives, wasted billions of dollars and exacerbated America's drug crisis.  He's a hardcore ideologue who misrepresents the facts and spouts tough-on-crime rhetoric."

Asa Hutchinson's background is hardly better.  Presently serving his third term in the House, the Arkansas Republican is well known for his harsh views toward drugs and drug offenders and his ardent opposition to medical marijuana.  In 1999, he backed legislation preventing Washington, DC from implementing a ballot initiative legalizing medical marijuana, even though it had been approved by 70% of District voters.
That same year, Hutchinson also proposed Congress amend the Hatch Act, which prevents the use of federal tax dollars to influence state elections, so that federal monies could be used specifically to influence voters to reject state drug-law-reform initiatives.  Two years earlier, he opposed the White House's decision to fund the Institute of Medicine's inquiry on the therapeutic potential of marijuana, arguing that such research would "send the wrong message to children."
"A study of marijuana's effectiveness is absolutely the wrong way to go on this issue," he said. 

Such nonsense will likely be music to the ears of recently sworn in Attorney General John Ashcroft, a former Missouri Congressman ( who lost his seat in Congress last year to opponent Mel Carnahan, despite the fact that Carnahan died during the campaign ) known for ignoring racial profiling and favoring incarceration over treatment for drug offenders.  Ashcroft made his agenda clear on a recent broadcast of CNN's Larry King Live when he announced: "I want to escalate the War on Drugs.  I want to renew it.  I want to refresh it; relaunch it if you will."

With the appointments of Walters and Hutchinson, Bush has made his agenda startlingly clear as well.  His administration is not about "compassion," it's about casualties.