Department of Justice, Drugs, Justice

Sessions Opts To 'Just Say No' To Evidence, History, And Justice

There are people who learn from the past, and Sessions ain't one of them.

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(Wikimedia Commons)

(Wikimedia Commons)

Liberals who hated Hillary Clinton often pointed to the 1994 crime bill as a reason against her. Instead of pulling back from Ronald Reagan’s stupid, racially motivated, and completely ineffective “war on drugs,” the ’94 bill doubled down on it. Many lives and families were ruined for what should be considered “minor” drug offenses, and minority communities received the brunt of the fallout.

I don’t like the crime bill either, but unlike Millennials, I have an actual memory of “1994” that isn’t conjured up to me by a Facebook algorithm. I remember that many Democrats supported the bill. I remember that many African-American leaders supported the bill. I remember that I didn’t know how “zero-tolerance” drug policies had negative cascade effects throughout the community.

But most of all, I remember thinking “drug addiction” was a test of moral character. I was 16 when that bill passed. I didn’t use drugs. Everybody in my life told me that I had a good, strong character because I didn’t use drugs. I believed them. Good people like me didn’t use drugs ever (or get invited to parties or get laid… it seemed to me), bad people sold drugs, and weak people used them.

Eventually, of course, I did some drugs. And when my heart didn’t immediately stop, when my transcript didn’t turn to mush, when I didn’t end up tossing somebody’s salad in lock-up, I realized that I’d been lied to all my life. It was like finding out that Santa Claus isn’t real, but in reverse. If I had been lied to about what drugs actually did, then maybe I was also lied to about what kinds of people do them? Maybe drug use was not about moral strength?

My position on drug crime and punishment evolved.

Over the course of the campaign, I was satisfied that Hillary Clinton’s position evolved too. That she communicated that evolution to my satisfaction and not, evidently, to the satisfaction of millions of others is her problem. I’ve got issues with Gary Johnson and Jill Stein voters for days, but if you supported a bad policy, it’s on you to effectively explain why you no longer support those ideas.

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Thing is, “evolution” is not something that everybody believes in. The people who think “homo erectus” refers to the gay community and not their own capacity for enlightenment are in charge now. United States Attorney General Jeff Sessions never got the memo that drug abusers need treatment more than punishment. He doesn’t know that he is on the wrong side of history. Best case: he doesn’t understand how drug policies disproportionately affect African-Americans. Most likely case: he knows and he gets up to go to work every morning because he’s in charge of the race war against African-American communities.

Yesterday, Jeff Sessions told federal prosecutors to file the “most serious” drug charges they could find, and push for the harshest punishments possible.

Maybe you think that Hillary Clinton’s Justice department “would have done the same thing.” And maybe I think you are an “intellectually dishonest, selfish prick, desperately trying to score purity points with contra-takes you can espouse consequence-free because you know blue-state lawyers will come try to save your ass in the unlikely event your white privilege doesn’t do all the work for you.”

But surely we can both agree that this statement from Sessions is the heart of the problem:

The change, “affirms our responsibility to enforce the law, is moral and just, and produces consistency,” Sessions said, in a memo to federal prosecutors written May 10 and made public Friday.

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No, Attorney Grand Wizard, the change is the literal opposite of “moral,” “just,” or “consistent.”

We know that enforcement of drug laws is horribly inconsistent. We know that race, class, geography, and poverty have more to do with your drug bust than the actual drug. And we know that essentially the same drug is treated differently based on whether or not white people use it.

We know that such inconsistent enforcement can never be “just,” AND we know that it is the height of injustice to be given a life-ruining punishment for a victimless crime.

But most of all, we know that the change is not a moral one. We know addiction is not a moral question. We know “just say no” is not an ethical maxim, it’s just a pompous slogan.

The 1994 crime bill was a mistake. Maybe next time you people will elect somebody who has learned from it.

Attorney General Sessions Orders Tougher Drug Crime Prosecutions [NBC News]

Elie Mystal is an editor of Above the Law and the Legal Editor for More Perfect. He can be reached @ElieNYC on Twitter, or at elie@abovethelaw.com. He will resist.

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