drugs in Vineland---and drug laws

[Robin Landseadel]

Glenn Greenwald
SATURDAY MARCH 28, 2009 09:02 EDT
Jim Webb's courage v. the "pragmatism" excuse for politicians:

	Let's start with a premise that I don't think a lot of Americans are
	aware of. We have 5% of the world's population; we have 25%
	of the world's known prison population. We have an
	incarceration rate in the United States, the world's greatest
	democracy, that is five times as high as the average
	incarceration rate of the rest of the world. There are only two
	possibilities here: either we have the most evil people on earth
	living in the United States; or we are doing something
	dramatically wrong in terms of how we approach the issue of
	criminal justice. . . .

	. . . .The elephant in the bedroom in many discussions on the
	criminal justice system is the sharp increase in drug
	incarceration over the past three decades. In 1980, we had
	41,000 drug offenders in prison; today we have more than
	500,000, an increase of 1,200%. . . .

	. . . . a significant percentage of those incarcerated are for
	possession or nonviolent offenses stemming from drug
	addiction and those sorts of related behavioral issues. . . .

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/03/28/webb/index.html