Questions for Candidates

On the list of things that will never happen, I would like to ask a number of politicians some questions about illegal drug use.

Bill Clinton, Al Gore, Barack Obama, and New York Governor David Paterson are all widely known to have confessed to illegal drug use. So have John Kerry, John Edwards, Michael Bloomberg and Howard Dean. Hillary Clinton and John McCain are both married to people who have used drugs illegally. All of these politicians continue to support the War on Drugs, and yet there can be little doubt that all of these individuals would be worse off today had they been incarcerated for their crimes.

I am not arguing that drug abuse is a good thing, only that the prosecution of the War on Drugs does a great deal more harm than the drugs themselves. One of the great things about America has been the volume of class mobility. If we succeed in creating a permanent underclass in this country, it will be the result of the one-two punch of the War on Drugs and the disgraceful state of government school education, particularly in the inner cities.