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?
Damn, you were doing ok up until then.
Only one problem with that. The drug warriors can't even keep drugs out of prison.
You got that right, as any of the drug cartels will tell you.
An "8 ball" is a quantity of cocaine. You kind of sound like my dad telling me about "goofballs" and "reefer" when I was a kid. Little experience but loads of hysteria about the unfamiliar.
Yes. The states are the will of the people.
So you agree with the South? If the "will of the people" champions slavery, so be it so long as the Fed stays out of it?
That covers your 2 wolves and a sheep idea of democracy.
Though you have been asked, you fail to explain how your neighbor snorting a line violates your rights. Can you? Lets assume he runs his 6 figure buisness all week, but does that line while he watches football on Sunday, what right of yours is violated?
BTW, tell me why my post to your commrade has no merit. How is the mindset different?
If I choose to live in a community free from the risk of cocaine users, and my community fully accepts that standard, then you violate my right by endangering me and mine beyond that which my community (the same community in which you CHOOSE to live) has allowed.
We can expand the community all the way up to the state scale.
BTW, tell me why my post to your commrade has no merit. How is the mindset different?
Because, guns, being a KNOWN threat, are guaranteed by the USC to all citizens. Therefore, the need for guns outweighs the danger imposed by having them.
DOOOD, I am worried that you may be being honest here.
Remember, you posted:
I could take super small amout of cocaine, or the tiniest whiff of an 8ball...
Sounds like a distiction, one or the other.
Damn, Tex, you started off OK. You went south as the thread wore on. Beam or Jack?
WHAT RISKS, damn it. Answer the question in the context of my post
and my community fully accepts that standard, then you violate my right
Please, what "right"
by endangering me and mine beyond that which my community (the same community in which you CHOOSE to live) has allowed.
Substitute "minority" and then tell me why that is acceptable.
Your "two wolves and a sheep" idea of democracy (really, we are a Republic, but I don't want to go too fast for you) is only good as long as you are a wolf.
I could take super small amout of cocaine, or the tiniest whiff of an 8ball and probably do the same. We are talking practicality here. If legalized, cocaine could not be used as casually and harmlessly as alcohol. Same for any hard drug.
Check out the second sentence. I am only addressing cocaine here. Therefore, it couldn't have been a distinction.
Because if you disagree, you are free to move your milehi hiney to another state.
Thank you, massa. Could I be a whole person there?
If you addressed any of my points, I could perhaps respectfully disagree. You don't, and I conclude that is because even you realise how lame your assertions are.
Um, your rights, you still failed to elaborate. But I gather you fancy yourself a wolf. Good thing you don't live close by, I consider predators a threat.
From: Congressional Family Members Escape Mandatory Sentences
In January 1994, Dan Burton Jr., the son of U.S. Rep. Dan Burton (R-IN), was arrested in Louisiana for transporting nearly eight pounds of marijuana in the trunk of his car. Rep.Burton is the chairman of the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee. Six months later, Burton was arrested again, this time at his Indianapolis apartment, where police found thirty marijuana plants and a shotgun with ammunition. Federal prosecutors declined to prosecute the case; Indiana prosecutors recommended dismissal of the charges against Burton; and a Louisiana judge sentenced him to community service (Associated Press, "Congressman's Son Arrested With 7 Pounds of Marijuana," Gary Post-Tribune, January 14, 1994, p. B5; Eric Schlosser, "More Reefer Madness," Atlantic Monthly, April 1997, pp. 90-102).
This is precisely the reason so much of this crap gets passed. It doesn't apply to the people who make it law. Ya just gotta wonder when was the last time a feral prosecutor refused to prosecute someobody busted with 7 lbs of pot,and didn't confiscate all their property and money.
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