Posted on 12/17/2002 9:39:06 AM PST by Joe Bonforte
In a little noticed hearing of the House Government Reform Commnittee last week, Indiana Congressman (my homeotwn's Congressman actually) and longtime drug warrior Dan Burton made some stunning comments. In a hearing entitled "America's Heroin Crisis, Colombian Heroin and How We Can Improve Plan Colombia," Burton stopped just a hair short of advocating the decriminalization of drugs. Watch the video here (cut forward to 1 hour, 18 minutes into the hearing). Here's the transcript:
Dan Burton: I want to tell you something. I have been in probably a hundred or a hundred and fifty hearings like this at various times in my political career,. And the story is always the same. This goes back to the sixties. You know, thirty or thirty five years ago. And every time I have a hearing, I hear that people who get hooked on heroin and cocaine become addicted and they very rarely get off of it. And the scourge expands and expands and expands. And we have very fine law enforcement officers like you go out and fight the fight. And you see it growing and growing, and you see these horrible tragedies occur. But there is no end to it.
And I see young guys driving around in tough areas of Indianapolis in cars that I know they can’t afford and I know where they are getting their money. I mean that there is no question. A kid can’t be driving a brand-new Corvette when he lives in the inner city of Indianapolis in a ghetto. You know that he has gotta be making that money in someway that is probably not legal and probably involves drugs.
Over seventy percent of all crime is drug-related. And you alluded to that today. We saw on television recently Pablo Escobar gunned down and everybody applauded and said “that’s the end of the Medellín cartel. But it wasn’t the end. There is still a cartel down there. They are still all over the place. When you kill one, there’s ten or twenty or fifty waiting to take his place. You know why? Its because of what you just said a minute ago, Mr. Carr, Mr. Marcocci (sp). And that is that there is so much money to be made in it there is always going to be another person in line to make that money.
And we go into drug eradication and we go into rehabilitation and we go into education, and we do all of these things... And the drug problem continues to increase. And it continues to cost us not billions, but trillions of dollars. Trillions! And we continue to build more and more prisons, and we put more and more people in jail, and we know that the crimes most of the time are related to drugs.
So I have one question I would like to ask all of you, and I think this is a question that needs to be asked. I hate drugs. I hate people who succumb to drug addiction, and I hate what it does to our society. It has hit every one of us in our families or friends of ours. But I have one question that nobody ever asks, and that is this question: What would happen if there was no profit in drugs? If there was no profit in drugs, what would happen. If they couldn’t make any money out of selling drugs, what would happen?
Carr: I would like to comment. If we made illegal... what you are arguing then is complete legalization?
Dan Burton: No I am not arguing anything. I am asking the question. Because we have been fighting this fight for thirty to forty years and the problem never goes way...
....Well I don’t think that the people in Colombia would be planting coca if they couldn’t make any money, and I don’t think they would be refining coca and heroin in Colombia if they couldn’t make any money. And I don’t think that Al Capone would have been the menace to society that he was if he couldn’t sell alcohol on the black market and he did and we had a horrible, horrible crime problem. Now the people who are producing drugs in Southeast Asia and Southwest Asia and Colombia and everyplace else. They don’t do it because they like to do it. They don’t fill those rooms full of money because they like to fill them full of money. They do it because they are making money.
At some point we to have to look at the overall picture and the overall picture and I am not saying that there are not going to be people who are addicted they are going to have to be education and rehabilitation and all of those things that you are talking about - but one of the parts of the equation that has never been talked about because politicians are afraid to talk about it this is my last committee hearing as Chairman. Last time! And I thought about this and thought about this, and thought about this. And one of the things that ought to be asked is “what part of the equation are we leaving out?” And “is it an important part of the equation?” And that is the profit in drugs. Don’t just talk about education. Don’t just talk about eradication. Don’t just talk about killing people like Escobar, who is going to be replaced by somebody else. Let’s talk about what would happen if we started addressing how to get the profit out of drugs.
Wouldn't it be wonderful if, twenty years from now, we could look back at law-and-order Dan Burton's conversion as the "Nixon goes to China" turning point of the drug war?
Oops, back to school. It gets tiring teaching the same lessons over and over to the same people. I'll go over it one more time with you;
People have rights, governments have powers. No "right" to see someone "properly punished" exists. And governments (groups of people) have no legitimate power to "punish" someone for doing anything which does not violate rights.
I feel threatened by people who advocate violating my rights. I guess under your theory, I could insisit that government "properly punish" them. In this case you.
Nah, he just wants to outlaw drug profits...
However, I do not think the Federal government should be able to give our tax dollars to support a State's policies.
I can just about guarantee that if Federal dollars are available, every State will find a way to get their hands on your and my money.
I can't find anything in the Constitution that grants that power to the Feds.
One other question, are you in favor of abolishing the office of drug czar and its agency?
Not necessarily. I just like things to be kept in the proper context. Being opposed to it because you believe that society can handle it is not the same as being opposed to it because society accepts it. Somewhere we need to make a determination as to which aspects of our lives are appropriate to defer to society, which are appropriate to defer to government, and which are best left to us as individuals. We find ourselves in our current situation because we were convinced that individually, or collectively as a society we were unable to handle it, and that goverment could do it better. Now it's been suggested that perhaps we might have been wrong about that. One of the implications of that proposal is that it will once again become the responsibility of society and individuals to handle it, and it's hard to imagine that happening because we've never seen it. If that is to be sufficient reason to oppose even the attempt, then once government has assumed a given responsibility for and authority over us for a sufficient amount of time, it is theirs forever.
To be fair, I also find that if you treat the more thoughtful WODdies around here with a modicum of respect, they're more likely to do the same. I've had ratioanl debates lately with the likes of TexAggie and robertpaulsen, because I don't throw around "Jack-booted thug" and "RINO" at every turn when they say something I disagree with. Of course, they still say a LOT that I disagree with, but it's nice to actually get a little direct point/counterpoint going on that doesn't involve ad hominem on both sides.
I agree. I was thinking as I posted the last reply to you that the only way to do it would be to somehow isolate funds directly from those states that support it and direct them towards the funding. It would be a seperate tax, in paychecks perhaps. FDIC.....State......WOD.... hehe
As for the Drug czar, I think the position should be abolished unless there is some way to only associate the department to the states that supported it.
Nonsense, anything which does not violate someone else's rights, is a right.
Irrelevant, elections do not define rights.
Oh, good grief. Here you go again with the old "prove you didn't violate my rights" crap. Tex, you are smart enough to know that the burden of proof is upon the accuser.
If you can do that, then you can also prove that me holding a loaded gun at my neighbor whilst standing on my property does not violate their right either.
And this again, too?? Please, Tex. I think we are about to get into the old, "well, lets say its not pointing right at me, but Im sitting on my porch and its pointing two degrees to my left". This stupidity has been refuted time and time again.
BTW, Dan Burton is my Congressman. I may just give him a buzz, er, a call.
It seems the likeliest explanation.
That the congressmen of that time simply wanted to CONTROL our lives?
Some wanted control, others were taken in by bogus arguments, and still others knew it was wrong but didn't want to rock the boat---same old story.
Thanks, CJ. It wouldn't be a real drug war thread on FR without one of your irrelevant responses to try to cover up for the fact that you have no logical argument to make. After all, Dan Burton's been one of your pro-WOD boys for a long time, hasn't he?
Where has someone figured out EXACTLY when a threat is valid enough to be a violation of our rights.
What is this "valid enough"? If you have a problem, and think your rights have been violated, then take the person to court. You can then try to convince a jury of intent, which is the only area where your "valid enough" question is raised.
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