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The war on drugs, launched by President Ronald Reagan propetty by the government without trial-legal weapons in 1982, began as an assault on marijuana. Its effects are now reminiscent of those used in the former Soviet-bloc nations. felt throughout Amerca's criminal justice system. [n 1980 The long prison sentences given to growers and dealers have there were almost twice as many violent offenders in federal pushed marijuana prices skyward, creating a domestic in- I prison as drug offenders. Today there are far more people in dustry whose annual revenues now rival [hose of cotton. ii federal prison for marijuana crimes than for violent crimes. soybeans, or corn. U. S. public officials, like their countzr- More people are now incarcerated in the nation's prisons for parts in Mexico, Colombia, and Bolivia, are being corrupted ' marijuana than for manslaughter or rape. with drug money. Millions of ordinary Americans have been ~ In an era when the fear of violence pervades the United arrested for marijuana offenses in the past decade, and hun- States, small-time pot dealers are being given life sentences dreds of thousands have been imprisoned, yet marijuana use while violent offenders are being released early, only to is increasing and has regained its status as a symbol of commit more crimes. The federal prison system and thirty- youthful rebellion. Instead of debating the wisdom of our eight state prison systems are now operating above their current policies, members of Congress and of the Adminis- rated capacity. Attempts to reduce dangerous prison over- [ration are competing to see who can appear toughest un crowding have been hampered by the nation's drug laws. drugs. For years the war on drugs has been driven by politi- Prison cells across the country are filled with nonviolent cal concerns, without regard to its consequences. But at the drug offenders whose mandatory-minimum sentences do not state and local levels, where the costs of that war are most allow for parole. At the same time, violent offenders are rou- keenly felt and unlikely alliances have begun to form, there finely being granted early release. A recent study by the Jus- are signs that madness may give way to common sense. rice Department found that in 1992 violent offenders on average were released after serving less than half of their The Legacy of Len Bias sentences. A person convicted of murder in the United States could expect a punishment of less than six years in prison. HE 1986 Anti-Drug Abuse Act marked a profound i A person convicted of kidnapping could expect about four shift no[ only in America's dmg-control policy but also 1 years. Another Justice Department study revealed that al- in the workings of its criminal-justice system. The bill most a third of all violent offenders who are released from greatly increased the penalties for federal drug offenses. Mort prison will be arrested for another violent crime within three important, it established mandatory-minimum sentences, years. No one knows how many violent crimes these re- transferring power from federal judges to prosecutors. The leased inmates commit without ever being caught. In 1992 mandatory minimums were based not on an individual's role the overage punishment for a violent offender in the United in a crime but on the quantity of drugs involved. Judges in States was forty-three months in prison. The average pun- such cases could no longer reduce a prison term out of mercy ishment, under federal law, for a marijuana offender that or compassion. Prosecutors were given the authority to de- same year was about fifty months in prison. tide whether amandatory-minimum sentence applied. 'i Even legislation aimed at reducing violent crime has been This new law did not represent the culmination of a care- subverted by the legal underpinnings of the drug war. Ac- fuI deliberative process. Nor did it reflect the thinking of the cording to a report by the Center on Juvenile and Criminal nation's best legal minds. The mandatory-minimum provi- Justice. California's much-heralded "three strikes, you're lions were written and enacted in a matter of weeks without out" law has imprisoned twice as many people for marijuana a single public hearing. The most important drug legislation offenses as for murder, rape, and kidnapping combined. in a generation-the enforcement of which would more than The vehemence of marijuana's opponents and the harsh triple the size of the federal-prison population and whose punishments routinely administered to marijuana offenders sentencing philosophy would influence state drug laws cannot be explained by a simple concern for public health. across the country-was prompted by the death of a popular Paraplegics, cancer patients, epileptics, people with AtD5, basketball player shortly before a congressional election. and people suffering from multiple sclerosis have in recent Len Bias was a local hero in Washington, D.C., clean-cu[ years been imprisoned for using marijuana as medicine. The and all-American, a University of Maryland basketball star attack on marijuana, since its origins early in this century, who had been drafted by the Boston Celtics at the age of has in reality been a cultural war-a moral crusade in de- twenty-two. On June 17, 1986, Bias attended a ceremony in fence of traditional American values. The laws used to fi ht Boston to si n a contra g g et with the Celtics. Two days later he marijuana are now causing far more harm to those values died of heart failure, allegedly caused by crack cocaine. than the drug itself. In order to eliminate marijuana use. state When Speaker of the House Tip O'Neill returned to Boston and federal legislators hove sanctioned an enormous increase for the Fourth of July congressional recess, everyone seemed in prosecutorial power, the emergence of a class of profes- to be talking about the death of the Celtics' first-round draft sional informers, and the widespread confiscation of private pick. As fears of crack cocaine swept the nation, O'Neill !I2 ~rnu ~nnc