CNN's Sanjay Gupta: We've been misled about cannabis

[RainDog]

124. Michelle Alexander makes a great point

That white people tend to buy drugs from other white people - yet they don't face the same consequences, especially if they're connected or wealthy.

Mitch Daniels, Republican and censor-wanna-be of Howard Zinn, was able to become governor of a state and an advisor to Bush Jr., even after arrest for quantities of multiple drugs that would indicate he was a drug dealer. He went on to engage in moral gymnastics that qualified him as a contortionist in order to be able to stay true to the drug war and the Republican Party.

Perhaps the most pivotal day of Daniels' four years at Princeton was May 14, 1970 — the day of the drug arrest that Daniels thought would sully his political future. Officers found enough marijuana in his room to fill two size 12 shoe boxes, reports of the incident say. He and the other inhabitants of the room were also charged with possession of LSD and prescription drugs without a prescription. Daniels and his two roommates in 111 Cuyler Hall, Marc Stuart '71 and Richard Stockton '71, were arrested and, after plea bargaining, Daniels eventually escaped with a $350 fine for "maintaining a common nuisance."

The comically mild penalty he received -- a $350 fine, no jail time, no probation -- was a salutary wake-up call that allowed him to go on to a productive career. And he presents this as evidence in favor of laws that would absolutely destroy the career of anybody caught in 1989 (or today) doing what Daniels was caught doing. A couple of hundred thousand students have lost their financial aid, in many cases meaning they had to drop out of college, because of a conviction for possession or sale of drugs. If Daniels were in college today, and thus had actually served time as a convicted drug dealer, not only would he have no political future, he wouldn't have much of a future at all.

But his logic seems be this: When the police found me with a huge amount of drugs, I was given a slap on the wrist, and I then went on to a productive life. Which shows that kids today who did what I did ought to have to leave school and get chucked in jail with murderers and rapists. Perhaps Daniels has changed his position on this issue since 1989 -- lots of other people have. But it's worth asking, particularly since he's probably going to run for president, if not next year then in 2016.

http://prospect.org/article/mitch-daniels-drugs