Editorials concerning the War on Drugs
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Governor Bush's Cocaine Problem
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Adam J. Smith, Associate Director, ajsmith@drcnet.org
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First he refused to confirm or deny it. Later
he would say only that "when I was young and
irresponsible, I was young and irresponsible." Next he said
that the issue wasn't relevant. Then he said that he wouldn't address rumors."
Then he said that he could pass a standard security check
dating back seven years.
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Finally, he said that he
could've passed the security check in his father's White
House -- fifteen years. Though he had
to think before specifying whether he could've
passed it then or now. Now, no matter what he says, the issue seems
destined to dog him until the day he comes clean.
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Texas Governor and Republican presidential front-runner
George W. Bush, Jr. has a cocaine problem.
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Under normal circumstances,
an individual's past drug use, especially if that use
occurred in the distant past,
should not be relevant to their qualifications
for present employment. But in the race for the
United States Presidency, it is relevant on two counts. In fact,
in Governor Bush's case, it is relevant on three.
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As governor of Texas, George W. Bush,
Jr. supported and signed legislation increasing penalties for drug possession
in that state. In one instance, Governor Bush signed legislation
mandating jail time for people caught with less than a single gram of cocaine.
As a candidate, Bush's handling of the cocaine question offers
clues as to how he deals with embarrassing mistakes-- admit them
and move on, or obfuscate and ide-step. As President, Governor
Bush would preside over a national drug policy that is increasingly punitive,
the driving force behind the Nation's ascendancy to the title of World's
most prolific incarcerator.
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In 1992, Republicans asked whether Democratic candidate
Bill Clinton could summon the moral authority to send
young people to war, given the fact that he had successfully
avoided military service during his youth. Today, overnor Bush
must be asked whether he can summon the moral authority to
send young people to prison, given the fact that he had avoided the DEA
in his youth.
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It is becoming increasingly clear that George
Junior most likely did toot a line or two back in his halcyon days.
The relevant question, then, is whether or not he believes that five or
ten years in prison would have been the appropriate societal
response to that use. And if not, why he
believes that such treatment is appropriate for the
children of fathers who were not Ambassadors to China, Directors
of the CIA, Vice Presidents or Commanders-in-Chief.
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The truth is that George
Junior was never in much danger of being treatedlike less fortunate Americans
who get sucked into our runaway criminal justice system. As the rich
son of a powerful man, it is unlikely that he would have been pulled over,
searched, or busted in a street sweep. Rich people don't
buy their coke on the street, in quarter
gram increments. And if by some strange confluence of
events he had been caught and arrested -- rather than sent
on his way with a wave of his ID -- he would have certainly
had an expensive attorney, and a spot waiting for him at the Betty Ford
Clinic. The judge would likely have wished him well in his
recovery. It would've taken an act of God or
else an act of monumental stupidity on his
own part for George Junior to have ever seen the inside of an American
prison for drug possession.
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But now he's running for
president. And the questions keep coming. And his answers
keep changing. And try as he might to create a statute
of limitations for questions about his personal life, there
is no such statute forhypocrisy. Sending people to prison, increasing their
sentences by the stroke of his pen for the very behavior that he
now claims is irrelevant in his own history, does not speak well for the
honor or the conscience of the man. George W. Bush Jr. has a cocaine problem.
But he's got a big lead in the polls, and more than thirty million dollars
in the bank. He'll suffer an awful long time before he hits bottom.
Right now, pathetic as it is to watch, his evasive machinations in
the face of confrontation can only mean one thing. He's still
in denial.
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