Pubdate: Wed, 18 Feb 2015
Source: Anderson Valley Advertiser (CA)
Copyright: 2015 Anderson Valley Advertiser
Contact:  http://www.theava.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2667
Author: Fred Gardner

BILL BENNETT'S ANTI-POT GOSPEL

Bill Bennett, who had been Secretary of Education under Reagan and 
Drug Czar under George H.W. Bush, was on the talk shows last Sunday 
plugging his new book, "Going to Pot: Why the Rush to Legalize 
Marijuana Is Harming America." Co-author Robert White is a former 
federal prosecutor.

An obsequious piece about the book in the Washington Times refers to 
"Mr. Bennett's research revealing that more Americans are admitted to 
treatment facilities for marijuana use than for any other illegal 
drug..." As Bill Bennett knows, almost everyone receiving "treatment" 
for marijuana is court-mandated or parent-mandated or job-mandated. 
In other words, forced. Very few marijuana users consider themselves 
in need of treatment. And nobody gives up their drug of choice until 
they themselves really want to, according to the 12-steppers' 
collective wisdom.

When Bennett was Drug Czar under George H.W. Bush, he decreed: "'The 
simple fact is that drug use is wrong... And the moral argument, in 
the end, is the most compelling argument.'"

According to Bennett, drug use is immoral because drugs are illegal, 
and drugs are illegal because they're immoral. He urged prosecutors 
to go after casual users whose lives were manageable because their 
example might send a confusing signal to their friends, neighbors, 
and children. He promoted public hospitals' drug-testing of pregnant 
women, which resulted in many women losing custody of their newborn 
babies. (Only poor women have to rely on public hospitals.)

Bennett's biggest accomplishment as Drug Czar was to increase the 
budget 52%. After 18 months he declared victory and resigned 
unexpectedly. He then served briefly as chairman of the Republican 
National Committee, but quit the $125,000/year gig when it turned out 
that he couldn't pocket the speaking proceeds. "I didn't take a vow 
of poverty," Bennett said at the time. It seemed venal and gross, but 
later we came to understand.

In 2003 Bennett was exposed in Newsweek and the Washington Monthly as 
a big-time compulsive gambler who holed up at Las Vegas casinos for 
three-day binges. Bennett had blown at least $8 million at the slot 
machines. Only profits from his best-seller, "The Book of Virtues," 
and its many spin-offs, plus $50,000 speaking fees, enabled him to avoid debt.

It also came out that he played in a weekly Washington poker game 
with Supreme Court Justice Scalia, Chief Justice Rehnquist (who took 
Fentanyl daily for back pain and checked into a rehab spa every 
summer), and the failed rightwing nominee, Robert Bork.

The Republican Damage Control Team tried put a lid on the story of 
Bennett's gambling addiction, employing the same arguments that 
Bennett's Drug War victims had used in vain to fend off persecution. 
There they were on TV: "Why is it anybody's business?" asked the 
effete Billy Kristol. "He did no one any harm," said Tony Blakely 
(himself a compulsive overeater). "He has taken personal 
responsibility," declared Anne Coulter (brushing back a strand of 
hair thinned by excessive bleaching). "It's between him and his 
family," said another blonde who'd had some bad work done on her 
lips... The Damage Controllers promptly turned out poor Mrs. Bennett 
to announce that she would not let Bill take any more "trips."

Other arguments were splashed on the flames by these Friends of Bill: 
gambling isn't a sin to Catholics, gambling is legal, he didn't go 
into debt, and so forth. It was all a misdirection play. What's 
reprehensible about Bill Bennett is not his gambling but his 
monumental hypocrisy. When someone who really understands the force 
of compulsion tells the world that compulsion can easily be overcome 
by will, it's a conscious lie. To imprison people behind that lie is 
completely immoral.

Joshua Green of the Washington Monthly elicited from Bennett an 
evasive but revealing quote: "When reminded of studies that link 
heavy gambling to divorce, bankruptcy, domestic abuse, and other 
family problems he has widely decried, Bennett compared the situation 
to alcohol. 'I view it as drinking,' Bennett says. 'If you can't 
handle it, don't do it'."

A source at a casino told Green that Bennett always tried to slink 
around unseen. "He'll usually call a host and let us know when he's 
coming. We can limo him in. He prefers the high-limit room, where 
he's less likely to be seen and where he can play the $500-a-pull 
slots. He usually plays very late at night or early in the morning 
- -usually between midnight and 6 a.m."

Bennett's connections are so powerful that, after a brief absence, he 
resumed pontificating on the airwaves. Rosie heard him recently 
advising parents never to tell their kids that they once smoked 
marijuana and found it to be harmless. "He said that hypocrisy is 
better than honesty because it shows you have moral standards. I 
don't know about his Catholic schools, but in my Catholic schools we 
received a moral education, we read philosophers and discussed them, 
we were taught that you don't lie and that hypocrisy is completely 
immoral. Jesus said, 'You hypocrite, take the beam out of your own 
eye before you talk about the splinter in someone else's'."
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom