NORML’s Dominic Holden on Sen. Biden as VP
Tuesday, September 9th, 2008 at 10:24 am | By: Radical Russ
That Queasy Feeling | Slog | The Stranger | Seattle’s Only Newspaper
As former chairman for the Senate Judiciary Committee, Biden is the person most responsible for passing a package of laws in the mid-80s that we think of as today’s drug war. Biden presided over the mandatory-minimum sentencing guidelines that required judges to sentence dealers’ girlfriends and small-time peddlers to decades-long terms in state and federal prisons, where thousands are rotting to this day.He used hearings “to mislead his colleagues and the public… on drug policy where police, prosecutors and DEA officials got the opportunity [to speak] while opponents were kept out,” says Kevin Zeese, a former director of Common Sense for Drug Policy and a leading drug-law reformer in Washington, D.C. since the 1980s. “Pick a drug law you don’t like from the last 25 years and thank Senator Biden.”
It wasn’t just coincidence that these laws were passed while Biden was at the helm of the judiciary committee. He was the leading advocate for establishing the Office of National Drug Control Policy—the White House Drug Czar’s Office—an agency that to this day gives lip service to drug treatment programs but spends its millions on ads linking pot to terrorism. The ads actually increased drug-initiation rates among teenagers. He’s a conservative on most crime issues. And in recent years, Biden pushed the so-called RAVE Act, which criminalized everyone attending parties where drugs were found. Biden is the drug war embodied.
But, since this is Obama’s campaign, I’m trying to hope—hope that Biden can change.
“Our intentions were good, but much of our information was bad,” Biden said in February. He decried the very sentencing disparities he created between crack and cocaine, which is one of the reasons prisons are full of young black men. “Each of the myths upon which we based the sentencing disparity has since been dispelled or altered,” he said.
A change of heart, perhaps. And when it comes to the playing the old white guy card—a requisite in the run against McCain—Biden’s the king of hearts. Also, nice teeth. They must be fake. Anyway, I like to think that the folks who pushed the drug war in the 1970s and 1980s—Richard Nixon, Nancy Reagan, Joe Biden—believed that it may have worked. Clinton should have known better. But by every measure of efficacy, it’s failed.
Obama cannot alter drug laws on his own—he’s lived a youth of indiscretions. (Realistically, no politician can make any sweeping changes; it must be incremental.) But if anyone has the credibility at the federal level to say we were wrong, to push the Senate for sentencing reform, to back Barney Frank’s bill in the House to decriminalize pot—nobody is more more capable than Joe Biden. And if he does, this could be an excellent four years.
As one commenter at The Slog noted, with Obama/Biden, we may have a shot in hell at getting some positive drug law reform. With McCain/Palin, we have no shot in hell. And while the Greens and Libertarians are much better on the drug issue, they’ve got a snowball’s chance in hell of getting elected.
My personal recommendation – not a NORML official stance – when asked how a drug law reformer should vote is to first figure out whether your state is “safe”. If it is a lock for either McCain (say, Utah) or Obama (say, California), then vote the issue and throw some love to the Greens or Libs. The more votes they get the more their platform has to be recognized by the Dems.
But if you’re in a “battleground” state, I believe personally that you’ve got to put your hope on Obama and cross your fingers with Biden. John McCain literally has turned his back on wheelchair-bound medical marijuana patients and said he doesn’t believe in medical marijuana.
“I believe that there is some possibility that quote ‘medical marijuana’ could spread into other areas and that the definition of medical could expand rather dramatically. You’ve seen that in other cases.” (July 14, 2007, town hall meeting in New Hampshire)
“I don’t think marijuana is healthy, I don’t think that it is good for people, and I also, there is a large body of medical opinion that says there is plenty of other medications that are more effective and better and less damaging to one’s health to use to relieve pain.” (July 14, 2007, town hall meeting in New Hampshire)
“I think there’s other ways to relieve pain … I do not believe in legalizing it because I think there’s other ways of relieving pain and applying medical help than that, and that’s my position.” (August 9, 2007, town hall meeting in Merrimack, New Hampshire)
“I believe that marijuana is a gateway drug. That is my view and that’s the view of the federal drug czar and other experts, although that is also a debatable question. I think that there is much more effective ways of relieving pain and suffering than the use of marijuana, and so therefore I view it as something that I do not support. That’s just my considered opinion, I’d be glad to receive additional information.” (August 11, 2007, house party in Milton, New Hampshire)
“No town hall meeting in New Hampshire is complete without some young man who has been sent here to talk to me about medical marijuana … The fact is I do not approve of the medical use of marijuana, I never have and I never will, and you all keep coming to the town hall meetings. I’m always glad to see you, it helps with the attendance.” (September 29, 2007, house party in Exeter, New Hampshire)
“Every medical expert I know of, including the AMA, says that there are much more effective and much better treatments for pain than medical marijuana … I still would not support medical marijuana because I don’t think that the preponderance of medical opinion in America agrees … that it’s the most effective way of treating pain.” (September 30, 2007, town hall meeting in Derry, New Hampshire)
“The law is the law, and I do not believe it’s going to be changed, and it’s not going to be changed by me.” (October 23, 2007, town hall meeting in Exeter, New Hampshire)
“The will of the people, my friend, is that medical marijuana is not something that the quote ‘people’ want. Certain people feel strongly about this issue, and they show up at most town hall meetings, obviously feel very strongly about it. There is no convincing evidence … there’s evidence, but no convincing evidence to me that medical marijuana relief of pain and suffering cannot be accomplished by prescriptions from doctors.” (Nov. 14, 2007, McCain blogger conference call)
Topics: Barack Obama, Dominic Holden, Joe Biden, John McCain, Sarah Palin“There may be times when the will of the people, for example Iraq, the will of the people, unfortunately is that we withdraw from Iraq immediately or very very soon. I don’t share that view of the will of the people. And I think the will of the people was that we get out of Korea when Harry Truman was president of the United States, but then he decided to do what he thought was best for the will of the country. Now, I don’t compare this issue with Iraq or Korea, but, look, I’ll be glad to continue this discussion, and read the stuff about it, but I am not changing my position on quote ‘medical marijuana,’ okay?” (Nov. 14, 2007, McCain blogger conference call, said upon being reminded that the will of the people in California was to make medical marijuana legal)
