Pubdate: Fri, 01 Dec 2000
Source: Liberty Magazine (US)
Copyright: 2000 Liberty Foundation
Address: Box 1118, Port Townsend, WA 98368
Contact:  http://www.libertysoft.com/liberty/index.html
Author: Chuck Thomas, Marijuana Policy Project, http://www.mpp.org/

AN OLD SOLDIER NEVER DIES, DAMMIT

On Oct. 16, White House drug policy director Barry McCaffrey announced that
he will resign before the next president takes office.

McCaffrey's drug war has been cruel, costly, and counterproductive. More
than three million marijuana users have been arrested during his five-year
regime, and his fight against medical marijuana has caused untold pain and
suffering among the seriously ill.

Indeed, a new FBI report released on Oct. 15 revealed a record number of
marijuana arrests in 1999. According to the annual Crime in the United
States report, there were 704,812 marijuana arrests in 1999 -- 88% of which
were for possession, not sale or manufacture.

Despite this all-out war, drug use in the United States has actually
increased since 1995.

Not surprisingly, McCaffrey is lying about his focus and accomplishments.
For example, his resignation announcement says that he has "made prevention
of drug use Goal One of this country's anti-drug strategy" -- yet the
federal budget for domestic law enforcement is more than four times the
budget for prevention.

The mainstream media have responded to McCaffrey's announcement by gushing
with praise, repeating his lies unchecked and overlooking the myriad of
controversies he's been involved in over the years, e.g., paying television
stations to influence the content of their shows, tracking Internet users
who type certain drug terms into their search engines, and getting the
United States involved in Colombia's bloody civil war.

Perhaps McCaffrey's enormous expenditures for anti-drug ads in the popular
press have bought him these undeserved accolades. Long gone is the time when
a general who lost a war and caused such extensive havoc in his homeland in
the process had only one way to resign with honor: hari-kari.

Chuck Thomas
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