More laws that aren't going to be enforced?

This is from a left site but it is chock full of interesting information, especially the part about more Executive Orders. To say the race card is being played in this article is an understatement. Personally, I think it is unfortunate that there is a racial "disparity" in prisons but I think that the government plantation has a lot to do with it and the drug culture from Mexico is a large contributing factor also.
Holder vows to end war on drugs, cites racial imbalance in 'unintended consequences'

Aug 08, 2013
BY Herbert Dyer, Jr.



In a recent interview with NPR, Attorney General Eric Holder admitted to having finally seen the light: America is locking up too many of its citizens, especially its black and brown citizens. Holder is set to announce what he described as “major changes” in the entire incarceration process within a week's time. His special focus and emphasis is on the putative “War on Drugs.”

From the interview: “The war on drugs is now 30, 40 years old. There have been a lot of unintended consequences. There’s been a decimation of certain communities, in particular communities of color.” (Emphasis added).

Holder's sudden shift in attitude, approach, and drug policy follows several meetings with prison and drug reform groups. Dr. Boyce Watkins of Syracuse University and YourBlackWorld.com, together with entertainment mogul Russell Simmons, recently presented an open letter to the Obama Admistration signed by 175 celebrities, activists and scholars demanding an end to the so-called war on drugs.

Bill Piper is the director of national affairs for the Drug Policy Alliance. He is quoted by YourBlackWorld.com as saying, “Attorney General Holder is clearly right to condemn mass incarceration and racial disparities in the criminal justice system.”

“Both he and the president have an opportunity to leave a lasting legacy by securing substantial, long overdue drug policy reform,” concludes Piper.
Holder announced on NPR that he has tasked a team of attorneys to specifically and exclusively concentrate on ending the war on drugs. He is also expected to make a major policy speech on this matter next week.

What specific policy prescriptions and proposals might we expect to hear from this “new deal”? Holder told NPR that “...we can certainly change our enforcement priorities, and so we have some control in that way. How we deploy our agents, what we tell our prosecutors to charge. But I think this would be best done if the executive branch and the legislative branch work together to look at this whole issue and come up with changes that are acceptable to both.”

Individual states, of course, are well ahead of the federal government in addressing (and redressing) this issue. Colorado and Washington voters both ended marijuana prohibition entirely last November.

And, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, is planning to hold hearings on both sentencing reform and ending the conflict between state governments and the federal government insofar as enforcement of marijuana laws is concerned.

The Drug Policy Alliance has also made specific proposals to the Obama administration: They want a bipartisan approach to this matter, first and foremost. Such an approach must include passage of:


  • The Safety Valve Act – a bipartisan Senate bill which would allow federal judges to sentence nonviolent offenders below the federal mandatory minimum sentence.
  • The Smarter Sentencing Act – a bipartisan Senate bill which would lower mandatory minimum sentences for certain drug offenses; and would render the recent reduction in the crack/powder cocaine sentencing disparity retroactive. This bill would also give federal judges more discretion to sentence certain offenders below the mandatory minimum sentence.
  • The Public Safety Enhancement Act – another bipartisan approach which would allow certain federal prisoners to be transferred out of prison and into community service-type facilities for supervision. This class of federal prisoners would be required to take rehabilitation classes before and after being released from prison.
  • Activists are also urging Holder and Obama to appoint a real “drug czar” whose principal priority would be to actually reduce the federal prison population, with an eye to dismantling and deconstructing the embedded, systemic and structural racial disparities inherent in current federal drug policy. The idea here is to aggressively shift the approach to drug use from a criminal issue to a public health issue – thus substantially reducing mass incarceration while at the same time improving public health.
  • Finally, Holder and Obama are being asked to issue executive orders and directives disallowing federal law from trumping state efforts to regulate marijuana instead of criminalizing it. As of this writing, a full 20 states and the District of Columbia have legalized marijuana for medical use. And, as stated, two states have rendered marijuana as legal as alcohol.


“The U.S. is at a pivotal moment right now where fundamental change to our bloated, racially-biased criminal justice system is possible,” said Piper. “But change isn’t inevitable; it will take significant leadership by Attorney General Holder, President Obama, and both Democrats and Republicans in Congress.”

Dr. Watkins agrees and has praised Holder's new spirit. Watkins says that the drug war has been nothing less than “a holocaust for the black community.”

“Our families and communities have been destroyed by the drug war,” said Dr. Watkins. ”We were the ones getting addicted to the drugs, being killed over the drugs and going to prison for the drugs. That’s been the single greatest obstacle for progress in black America over the last 40 years. I applaud the Attorney General for showing courage on this important issue.”

Opinion

This is why black people voted for Obama. Not just because he is black, as conservatives (and others) love to insist. We voted for him because we hoped and believed that he (better than most potential white presidents) would not just understand, sympathize, or even empathize with the real life hell that we have been catching for all of these years, but that he would actually do something about it.

My concern with Holder's and Obama's pivot on drugs here is this: Notice that all of the so-called “bipartisan” proposals for reform of drug policy are being initiated in the Senate (where Democrats hold a majority).

Obama seems to have a “constitutional” need to seek out Republican support for matters that demand immediate attention but require only his personal prerogative to get done.

Does Holder or Obama really believe that any of these rational, reasonable ideas and proposals will ever see the light of day in today's Republican-controlled House of Representatives? I am afraid that after he is rebuffed by the Republican House, he will retreat, and move on to the next issue -- just as he did in his first two years in office when he could find no Republican support (despite a Democratic majority) for issues affecting black people.

That is why, however, one of the measures and approaches being urged upon the administration is that the administration take unilateral steps to end this war -- bypassing Congress altogether.

Obama does not need Congress in order to regulate the federal prison system. Holder does not need congressional approval to simply tell his federal prosecutors to lay off, to stop hassling black people over minor amounts of marijuana and other “recreational” drugs.

Finally, Obama has the supreme and unapproachable power to pardon federal prisoners who have been unjustly imprisoned. Congress has no say whatever in that matter.

We'll see what Holder says next week. This is a good start, indeed. If Obama and Holder can pull it off, then perhaps his presidency will not have been all tell and no show after all.
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