Global Ganja Report

On Aug. 25, the Los Angeles Times ran an opinion piece, "Why California should just say no to Prop. 19." jointly written by Gil Kerlikowske, John Walters, Barry McCaffrey, Lee Brown, Bob Martinez and William Bennett, directors of the Office of National Drug Control Policy under presidents Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush. On Narco News, Al Giordano responds with "Six American Zeroes: Reason Enough to Support California Prop 19." Here are some excerpts:

William Bennett (1989-91)

At the January 1989 press conference when then-president George Bush, Sr. established a new cabinet-level post and named William Bennett as “drug czar,” an enterprising reporter asked how could Bennett – a heavy cigarette smoker – lead the nation away from addictive drugs when he himself was an addict? The press conference briefly halted as Bush and Bennett huddled in the rear of the stage whispering back and forth. Bennett returned to the microphone and announced that for the duration of his term in the National Office of Drug Policy Control he would quit smoking cigarettes.

Nine months later, as Bennett oversaw a major escalation in federal spending and repression against users and suppliers of some drugs, the Doonesbury comic strip revealed a scoop that would later be confirmed by official media: Bennett had been chewing Nicorette, the nicotine chewing gum then only available with a doctor’s prescription, to mask his nicotine addiction.

Bennett’s hardline approach to combating drugs was, as everybody knows, an abject failure and he left the post in just two years, parlaying it into a gig as a national conservative political pundit and author of the so-called The Book of Virtues. In 2003, reports revealed that this braggart moralist had lost millions of dollars gambling in Las Vegas. Virtue might not have a book, but it sure does have a bookie.

Bob Martinez (1991-1993)

After Florida voters unseated him as their governor, Martinez replaced Bennett as drug czar. Although not known for any tobacco habit, Martinez did Bennett one better, as the Miami New Times reported at the time: "…if approved by the Senate during confirmation hearings that begin this week, he will be the first drug czar known to have enjoyed the financial support of a major drug trafficker." You can’t make this stuff up! Click the link to read all about it.

Lee P. Brown (1993-1995)

The former police commissioner in Houston and New York was tapped by then-president Bill Clinton to be a kinder, gentler drug czar, emphasizing Brown’s role as "the father of community policing." Like his predecessors, Brown accomplished absolutely nothing to curb drug use or abuse in the US, but he did use the post as a trampoline into a job as Mayor of Houston. His was the last political campaign supported by the Houston-based Enron corporation, which went belly-up shortly after Brown’s 2001 reelection....

Concludes Giordano: "There can be no more ringing endorsement to vote Yes on Proposition 19 than its opposition from the very bureaucrats that exacerbated the problems associated with illegal drugs over the past two decades with their stubborn and cowardly cling to same policies that clearly have never worked, and never will."

Photo by Hammer51012