[CTRL] Ashcroft Nomination

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To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject:Ashcroft Nomination
From:   Libertarian Party
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SPECIAL ACTION ITEM!
FROM THE LIBERTARIAN PARTY
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Watergate Office Building
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Website: www.LP.org
Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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ELECT-US
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January 17, 2001
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We recently received the following message
from DRCNet, a nonpartisan
organization promoting drug policy reform.
DRCNet is opposing the
nomination of John Ashcroft for the
position of Attorney General
" . . . because of his record as one of
the most hawkish drug warriors
supporting some of the most extreme drug
war legislation during his
tenure in the Senate."

The views expressed below are those of
DRCNet, and do not represent an
official statement by the Libertarian
Party. However, given the Party's
long-standing opposition to the
government's "War on Drugs", we felt
that this message would be of interest to
our members and supporters.

===

Dear friend of drug law reform:

As you've probably read in mainstream news
accounts, former US
Senator John Ashcroft (R-MO) has been
nominated by President-
Elect George W. Bush for the office of
Attorney General.
DRCNet, as a nonpartisan organization
devoted strictly to drug
policy reform, is opposing the Ashcroft
nomination because of
his record as one of the most hawkish drug
warriors supporting
some of the most extreme drug war
legislation during his
tenure in the Senate.  We are writing to
ask you to visit a
web site we've set up to encourage
grassroots opposition to
the Ashcroft nomination --
http://www.StopJohnAshcroft.org --
and to use the information and the online
petitions there to
help defeat this nomination while there's
still time.

If drug policy and related Constitutional
issues are the
criteria, there is no question that John
Ashcroft has one of
the worst records on Capitol Hill.  As
Senator, John Ashcroft
sponsored a bill that would have
simultaneously violated the
spirit if not the letter of both the 1st
and 4th amendments to
the US Constitution: the "Methamphetamine
Anti-Proliferation
Act" would have criminalized certain drug-
and drug policy-
related discussions on the Internet, and
would have allowed
police to conduct secret searches of
homes, with the residents
never being informed before or after that
the police were
there.  Indeed, in his six years in the
Senate, Ashcroft
proposed amendments to the Constitution a
full seven times,
including an amendment to make it easier
to amend the
Constitution.

As Senator, John Ashcroft demonstrated an
unwillingness to
deal seriously with the problem of racial
disparity in the
criminal justice system.  While outwardly
professing support
for a bill to study racial profiling, Sen.
Ashcroft in reality
use his chairmanship of the Subcommittee
on the Constitution
to bottle it up in committee for several
months; the bill
never made it to the Senate floor despite
bipartisan support.

In response to charges that the
powder/crack cocaine
sentencing disparity is racially
discriminatory, Sen. Ashcroft
rejected legislation recommended by the US
Sentencing
Commission and sponsored by African
American legislators that
would have reduced crack cocaine sentences
to the level of
powder cocaine sentences.  Instead, Sen.
Ashcroft supported a
bill to raise the powder cocaine sentences
-- despite a
consensus among criminal justice experts
that the disparities
are driven by enforcement policy and
prosecutorial bias in
conjunction with the laws, and that powder
cocaine enforcement
is also carried out in a racially
discriminatory way.

Sen. Ashcroft objected vociferously to
spending money on drug
treatment rather than drug interdiction,
claiming that
treatment "enables" drug users and that
enforcement is a more
effective use of funds.  But after decades
characterized by
intensive interdiction efforts during
which time the
availability of drugs has increased and
the price plummeted,
and despite study after study showing that
treatment is
dramatically more effective than
enforcement, to claim that
interdiction is more effective than
treatment demonstrates an
astonishing inability or unwillingness to
evaluate drug policy
in an objective manner.  Indeed, there
isn't clear evidence
that drug interdiction is more effective
than doing nothing;
to claim interdiction is more effective
than treatment is
simply off the reality meter.

As Attorney General, John Ashcroft would
have enormous power
and influence over policies such as these.
 Particularly
troubling is his lack of seriousness about
racial disparity in

Re: [CTRL] Ashcroft Nomination for Attorney General Bodes Ill for Drug Policy Reform

[Nessie]

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Re: [CTRL] Ashcroft Nomination for Attorney General Bodes Ill for Drug Policy...

[William Shannon]

http://www.drcnet.org/wol/166.html#ashcroft

[CTRL] Ashcroft Nomination for Attorney General Bodes Ill for Drug Policy Reform

[William Shannon]

Ashcroft Nomination for Attorney General Bodes Ill for Drug Policy Reform In a decision with important implications for drug policy, President-elect George W. Bush has nominated Senator John Ashcroft (R-M)) to be his Attorney General. Ashcroft, who lost a November Senate race to the late Gov. Mel Carnahan, is also a former Missouri governor and attorney general. He is also a self-described Christian conservative who neither smokes, drinks, nor dances, and has a long record as staunch drug warrior. An anti-abortion, pro-death penalty ideologue, Ashcroft stands to be a polarizing figure. His !
ratings by various advocacy groups suggest a sharp divide: He scores 100% with the conservative Christian Coalition and Phyllis Schafly's Eagle Forum, but gets a big fat goose egg from liberal groups such as the National Organization for Women and the League of Conservation voters. The Leadership Conference for Civil Rights gave Ashcroft a 10% rating. Civil rights, civil liberties, and women's groups are already gearing up to challenge the nomination in the Senate, and drug policy activists are busily plotting whether and how to help, though the conventional wisdom is that Ashcroft will be seated as the next Attorney General. Ashcroft !
introduced the Methamphetamine Anti-Proliferation Act to increase penalties for manufacturing or trafficking that drug, and some of his comments on that occasion give insight into both Ashcroft's thinking and why drug reformers are worried about it: "... But there is another factor that motivates my opposition to meth: I want to fight meth because its use and production is wrong. And too few people are willing to stand up these days and call drugs wrong... much of our current predicament stems from the permissive attitudes that emerged from the 1960s. The decay of enforcement that began in the 1960s helped to cause the problems of the succeeding decades... Laws are what protects society from anarchy. And when we choose not to enforce our laws, our laws lose their effectiveness, an!
d the bulwark against anarchy withers." The Meth Act was just Ashcroft's main attraction this year. Outside the spotlight, he was busy preparing legislation crafted to ensure that no one escapes the drug war dragnet and to punish and punish again those who get caught. For instance: S. 587: A bill to provide for the mandatory suspension of federal benefits to convicted drug traffickers. S. 2008: A bill to require the pre-release drug testing of federal prisoners. (This masterpiece of vindict!
iveness demands that prisoners be tested prior to release and, if their tests are dirty, that the information be turned over to local prosecutors for possible new charges of violating drug or prison contraband laws.) S. 2517: A bill to amend the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act and the Gun-Free Schools Act of 1994 to allow school personnel to apply appropriate discipline measures to all students in cases involving weapons, illegal drugs, and assaults upon teachers. (Just because a kid is crippled doesn't mean we shouldn't be able to get him on drug charges.) Ashcroft has been riding the meth menace for some time, and has bragged!
 on his campaign web site and on the Senate floor about such victories as the "one strike and you're out" policy for methamphetamine violators living in public housing, securing the death penalty for some methamphetamine offenses, and securing High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA) status for his state. But his concerns with drug policy extend far beyond the borders of the Show-Me state. In 1998, he co-authored measures preventing Washington, DC's needle exchange program from obtaining local funding. In fact, he went further than that. He even attempted to block studies of the efficacy of needle exchange programs, arguing that determining that the programs work "is an intolerable message that it's time to accept drug use as a way of life," according to the Washington Post. When faced with a contradiction between the bedrock conservative principles of morality and free enterprise, Ashcroft has no problem choosing morality when it comes to illicit drugs. But his moral compass begins to gyrate when it comes to other addictive or abused substances. He has taken $44,500 dollars from beer companies since 1993, including $20,000 from St. Louis-based Anheuser-Busch, and he lauded the beer industry in a video tribute produced by the Beer Institute of America. When Mother Jones magazine took him to task for the contradiction, Ashcroft feebly replied, "It's a product that is in demand. And when it's used responsibly, it's like other products." He also stuck up for big tobacco, although he hasn't taken any tobacco money since accepting $8,000 for his 1994 Senate race. Oddly, in arguing against the tobacco bill, he suggested that people should be free to make bad choices. While drug policy reformers generally fear and loathe the prospect of an Ashcroft Department of Justice, early