Mark and Keith discussed drug policy on HuffPost TV today. The other guests were Piper Kerman and Mike Guy.
You can see the program by going here and clicking on “Shadow 2012 Drug War”
Author: Mark Kleiman
Professor of Public Policy at the NYU Marron Institute for Urban Management and editor of the Journal of Drug Policy Analysis. Teaches about the methods of policy analysis about drug abuse control and crime control policy, working out the implications of two principles: that swift and certain sanctions don't have to be severe to be effective, and that well-designed threats usually don't have to be carried out.
Books:
Drugs and Drug Policy: What Everyone Needs to Know (with Jonathan Caulkins and Angela Hawken)
When Brute Force Fails: How to Have Less Crime and Less Punishment (Princeton, 2009; named one of the "books of the year" by The Economist
Against Excess: Drug Policy for Results (Basic, 1993)
Marijuana: Costs of Abuse, Costs of Control (Greenwood, 1989)
UCLA Homepage
Curriculum Vitae
Contact: Markarkleiman-at-gmail.com
View all posts by Mark Kleiman
Mark, I really can’t believe that you repeated your favorite mantra that nobody is going to prison for drug use after Piper’s testimony to the contrary. Do you not believe that the government goes after low-level drug “offenders” with conspiracy charges? Do you think the circumstances surrounding Piper’s incarceration are particularly unusual? Do you disagree with her personal experience that the prisons are being flooded with low-level drug offenders? What about her analogy that if McDonald’s were outlawed and continued to operate, it would be mostly cooks and cashiers being arrested, with the occasional manager? The cases I’m aware of from my own personal experience bear this out too. Where is your information to the contrary coming from?
She wasn’t sent to prison for drug use, she was arrested for smuggling drug money out of the country.
I was talking about her testimony regarding others she met in federal prison.
A buddy of mine who did time for possessing 36 grams of evil weed (convicted of “trafficking” solely because of the quantity) said pretty much the same thing after his experience. The place was full of folks just like him who were there for similar things. Overwhelmingly small-time, with a large contingent convicted of trafficking with no evidence of sale or distribution. Mid-level dealers and mules were a minority population. Big-time dealers of the sort who might use violence to protect their turf, almost nonexistent.
Prohibitionists repeat this line about nobody going to prison for drug use as if it will become true if they say it enough. Word on the street contradicts that. I want to know what facts they are basing this statement on.