Statement Of Senator Patrick Leahy,
Chairman, Senate Judiciary Committee
On The Nomination Of John P. Walters
To Be Director Of The Office Of National Drug Control Policy
November 8, 2001

This committee and its members have been particularly concerned and active for decades in seeking answers to the nation’s drug problem, and the tragic results of substance abuse have touched the lives millions of Americans, including members of this committee.

The effort and the expertise about fighting drug abuse runs wide and deep on this committee. For example, Senator Biden largely wrote the law that created the position of drug czar and has kept close tabs on the office’s role in drug policy ever since. Senator Specter, Senator Sessions and I put away drug criminals when we were prosecutors. Senator Kennedy has led the way, on this committee and on other committees, in obtaining more treatment and prevention help for young Americans. Senator McConnell had to deal with the effects of the drug problem at the community level, using the tools of local government. Senator Hatch, Senator Biden and I, joined by several other members of the Committee, worked last year and this year to construct a balanced anti-drug package, S.304, that we continue to advance in every way we can.

All of us feel deeply the need to confront and conquer the scourge of drug abuse and the ways it ravages American lives, especially young American lives. The debate on how best to win this struggle is well under way in communities and across kitchen tables across the Nation. The President’s nomination of John Walters has been the most recent catalyst for this debate.

Since the President announced his intention to nominate John Walters to be the nation’s next drug czar, I have been concerned that Mr. Walters was the wrong person for the job. He is ideological in a time when our efforts to prevent drug abuse call for cooperation and pragmatism. Until his confirmation hearings, most of the little he had said and written about drug treatment was deeply skeptical, in contrast to the growing bipartisan consensus supporting additional treatment opportunities. He has focused primarily on the need to reduce the supply of drugs, while both our other national needs and the President he would serve suggest a more balanced approach, focusing also on the neglected demand side of the drug equation. He has dismissed concerns about the racial impact of our current drug policies and the utility of mandatory minimum sentences. For all of these reasons and the reasons explained below, I will vote against the nomination of John Walters.

I do not doubt Mr. Walters’ intellect or the depth of his concern about our nation’s drug problems. I simply believe that he is the not the best person to coordinate our anti-drug efforts. We all agree that the fight against drug abuse is vitally important. We disagree only in the methods we choose to achieve our shared goal of a drug-free America.

Treatment. Law enforcement is and will remain indispensable in reducing drug abuse. Indeed, we all agree that we must severely punish those who traffic in and sell drugs. More than anyone, however, law enforcement officers know that improving drug treatment and taking other measures to reduce the demand for drugs will greatly assist their efforts. The White House also understands this. President Bush has said that "[t]he most effective way to reduce the supply of drugs in America is to reduce the demand for drugs in America," and has promised that his administration will concentrate "unprecedented attention" on the demand for drugs. In the Senate, I have joined with Senator Hatch, Senator Biden, and others in introducing S.304, the Drug Abuse Education, Prevention, and Treatment Act. That legislation would increase the federal focus on treatment programs, with targeted programs to increase the availability and effectiveness of drug treatment programs in rural areas, provide additional treatment opportunities for mothers who are addicted to drugs, and more.

Although Mr. Walters testified at his confirmation hearing and wrote in his responses to written questions that he supports drug treatment efforts, his previous record casts doubt on the strength of this support. Mr. Walters has criticized the concept that addiction is a disease, referring to that concept as an "ideology" even though it is held widely, if not universally, by government and private experts. He has written that "the culture of victimhood lies at the core of the therapeutic worldview." He has said that he supports "good" treatment but sharply criticized existing treatment providers, aside from faith-based providers. These and other statements by Mr. Walters have caused great concern among many of those who care about treating drug addiction. For example, the president of the Betty Ford Center wrote to the Judiciary Committee on October 9, 2001 that: "Mrs. Ford and I are convinced that Mr. Walters may not have the confidence in the treatment and prevention strategies that we believe are necessary for the creation and implementation of a balanced and thoughtful approach to U.S. drug policy."

Criminal Punishment. As I have said repeatedly, we cannot reduce drug abuse without punishing drug offenders, and in particular without ensuring that those who traffic in and sell drugs are incarcerated for substantial periods of time. At the same time, many of us – Democrats and Republicans – have come to question our reliance on mandatory minimum sentences for a wide variety of drug offenses, as well as the 100:1 disparity under current law between sentences for crack and powder cocaine. In his writings and statements, Mr. Walters has been hostile to reconsideration of these policy choices Congress made during the 1980s. For example, he wrote as recently as March that the arguments that we are imprisoning too many people for merely possessing illegal drugs and that criminal sentences are too long or harsh were "among the great urban myths of our time." This statement flies in the face of the widespread dissatisfaction with mandatory minimum sentences among policymakers and federal judges. Indeed, Chief Justice Rehnquist and the Judicial Conferences composed of representatives from all 12 U.S. circuits have called for the repeal of federal mandatory minimum sentences. Mr. Walters has said he would conduct a review of the current sentencing structure, but given his past views, I do not believe that he is the best person to undertake that task.

Between 1983 and 1998, drug admissions to State and Federal prisons increased almost 16-fold, from over 10,000 drug admissions in 1983 to almost 167,000 new prison entries for drug offenses in 1998. During this time, white drug admissions increased more than 7-fold, Hispanic drug admissions increased 18-fold, and black drug admissions increased more than 26-fold. The disparity in sentences for crack and powder cocaine has contributed significantly to this disproportionate imprisonment of African Americans. Under current law, it takes only 1 percent as much crack cocaine to trigger equal mandatory minimum penalties with powder cocaine. This disparity has a severe racial impact, as African Americans are much more likely than white Americans to be sentenced for crack offenses. For example, in FY 1999, blacks accounted for 84.7 percent of those sentenced for crack offenses and whites accounted for just 5.4 percent. There is also reason to doubt the logic of the crack-powder distinction on law enforcement grounds. Since cocaine is imported and distributed in powder form, and only manufactured into crack at the retail level, those persons at the highest end of the drug distribution chain are rarely affected by the increased crack penalties. In other words, the harshest sentences are reserved for less-culpable offenders.

Despite these troubling facts, Mr. Walters has referred to the racial impact of the sentencing disparity as a "perceived racial injustice" and urged Congress in 1996 testimony to "[b]lock lower crack sentences" and to strip the U.S. Sentencing Commission of authority even to propose changes in criminal penalties where Congress has adopted mandatory minimums. His position on this issue undoubtedly has played a role in the decision by 21 members of the Congressional Black Caucus, including the ranking Democratic member of the House Judiciary Committee, Mr. John Conyers, to oppose this nomination. Considering that Mr. Conyers was such a strong supporter of Asa Hutchinson’s nomination to head the Drug Enforcement Administration that he took the time to write me about it, I take his strong opposition to this nomination seriously.

Medical Marijuana. Mr. Walters’ reaction to popular and legislative judgments by various States to allow limited use of marijuana for medical purposes also concerns me. Numerous states have considered and passed medical marijuana initiatives, some by substantial majorities. Mr. Walters has responded to this trend by advocating that the federal government use the Controlled Substances Act to take away the federal licenses from any physician who prescribes marijuana to a patient in states that permit the practice. Such a step would prevent these doctors from prescribing or possessing any medication that is federally controlled, basically making the practice of medicine impossible. In addition to running roughshod over any federalism concerns whatsoever, Mr. Walters’ draconian response raises questions about his sense of proportion. Although shutting down the process as he has suggested may be effective in rendering these State-passed initiatives meaningless, his proposal is a very blunt instrument, to say the least.

Mr. Walters’ response to written questions on this issue did not alleviate my concerns. I asked him whether the Federal government should make it a priority to prosecute people who distribute marijuana to ill people in States that have approved medical marijuana initiatives. He answered that he supports "enforcing the law," and then briefly discussed the relatively small size of the DEA, without addressing whether medical marijuana cases should be a priority. I am all the more disappointed by the insufficiency of this answer in light of last month’s DEA raid on a California center that provided marijuana to the ill in accordance with California law. I find it absurd that such a matter is given priority given our growing problems with heroin, methamphetamines, and other far more powerful and dangerous drugs. I asked Mr. Walters recently about this raid, but he said he believed it would be inappropriate to make any substantive comment prior to his confirmation.

Interdiction. Mr. Walters has been a prominent spokesman for active interdiction efforts in Latin America, and I fear he would seek to have the United States overextend its anti-drug role in Latin America. Prior to the development of Plan Colombia, he said that "we need to do more in Latin America" in "[f]ighting drugs at the source." He has also been a consistent supporter of increasing the U.S. military’s role in preventing drugs from entering the United States. I agree that reducing the supply of drugs would have tremendous benefits for our nation. At the same time, I agree with President Bush that the reason that so many drugs find their way to our shores is because there is substantial demand for them. The costs – both financial and political – of our involvement in the internal affairs of Latin American nations require close scrutiny. I have been skeptical about many elements of the ill-thought-out Plan Colombia, and we should be extremely cautious of additional proposals of that nature.

In addition, Mr. Walters has been sharply critical of Mexico, calling it a "narco state" and a "safe haven" for the illegal drug industry. Although these comments were made about predecessor governments to the Fox Administration, the cannot help Mr. Walters’ efforts to implement the Bush Administration’s appropriate policy of strengthening our ties with Mexico.

Conclusion. Mr. Walters has forcefully expressed his positions on drug-related and other issues for the better part of two decades, both in and out of government. He is a staunch advocate for interdiction and punishment, but his record has not demonstrated a commitment to a comprehensive approach to our drug problems. When the Committee held its confirmation hearing for this nominee, I said that I feared that Mr. Walters had a hard-line law enforcement answer to every question about drug policy, at the expense of the balanced approach that we need to succeed in the struggle against drug abuse. I continue to believe that that is where his instincts lie, even with complicated issues on which there is diverse opinion. I do not think that is what America needs in its new drug czar, and accordingly, I will vote against this nomination.