Editorial:
Flawed
Love
1/12/01
David Borden, Executive Director, [email protected] One of the John Ashcroft quotes that came across the wire during drug reformers' recent discussions, interestingly, was on the topic of "love." The Senator wrote for World magazine that the following criticism of US drug policy: "[The government says] to a person on dope, 'Here's a clean needle and a treatment program, so in case you have a bad trip, we'll be there for you.' That's not real love... Real love says to a person, 'We're not going to provide a clean needle because we don't know of a way in which helping you have a drug-addicted life is in your best interest.'" Set aside the issue of government funding -- some libertarians are opposed both to the drug war and to most government spending -- and focus on the whether needle exchange and drug treatment programs, however they may be funded, embody "real love" or not. I've visited a few needle exchange sites, to see these programs that we advocate in action, and I've seen the care that the staff and volunteers brought to their life-saving work. Their interpretation of love: Whether or not a human being chooses to use drugs today, that person's life is important, has value, and AIDS, hepatitis or the other diseases and afflictions that are risks in injection drug use are unacceptable and must be stopped. When a person injects drugs, harmful as that behavior may be, to compound that risk with the deadly threat of AIDS is not "true love" and threatens everyone. As for how the Senator could see drug treatment -- whose goal is to help people get off of drugs -- as not meeting the standards of "true love," I'm not even going to try to figure out that one. The Senator also seemed to be in love with mandatory minimum drug sentences, which he strove throughout his term to make harsher. Among the bills he supported, for example, was one which would have created a mandatory five years in federal prison for offenses involving a mere five grams of powder cocaine -- critics of current law instead wanted the five-year threshold for crack cocaine to be raised to powder's level of 500 grams. Ironically, John Ashcroft's nephew seems to have received remarkable lenience on a drug charge in Missouri, when Mr. Ashcroft was the Governor of that state. Instead of getting jail time for growing 60 plants, he received probation, according to an expose published this morning in Salon.com. Salon found no evidence that Ashcroft had intervened to gain leniency for his nephew. A Bush spokesperson quoted seemed confident that if Ashcroft had intervened, he would have sought harsher punishment. Suppose that had happened, would that have qualified as "true love" toward his nephew and others of Missouri's young adults? Regardless, the younger Ashcroft, who was well known as such, did get probation. Another Missourian, quoted by Salon, spent two years in Leavenworth after being convicted for 51 plants. Will Foster is serving 20 years in Oklahoma for growing a similar number of plants in his basement. When the parole board voted to release him early, Gov. Frank Keating -- another name that came up as possible Bush Attorney General nominee -- overruled them, and he sits in prison to this day. The younger Ashcroft was allowed to remain free on probation after failing a drug test. Senator Ashcroft supported legislation to drug test all federal prisoners at release time, and if they fail, to put them back in. I received a note this morning from a grieving parent: "I am a mother that has a son that received a fifteen year sentence because of the sentencing disparity. No, we do not need the John Ashcrofts of the world in office! We need our children to have a second chance at life. Help me, as a mother, to have her son released from prison and to be given another chance with living!" This sounds like true love, the love of a parent for her son. Does John Ashcroft have true love for them? Or does he simply not think about it? A love that puts young people away for 10-life once they've turned 18, if they don't do as we say, a love that subjects them to AIDS and denounces treatment for their addictions, that's no true love. That's a sin.
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