It "seemed like a good idea at the time," Charlie Rangel remarked in 2021, referring to the draconian drug penalties he supported as a New York congressman in the 1980s. "Even though the administration claims to have declared a war on drugs, the only evidence we find of this war [is] the casualties," Rangel complained in June 1986, a week after the cocaine-related death of Len Bias, a star University of Maryland basketball player who had just been drafted by the Boston Celtics. "In response to the onslaught of cocaine abuse in the 1980s," Rangel explained in 2007, "the nation crafted a drug policy totally lacking in compassion, and worse, that was totally unfair to the weakest, and most disadvantaged, in society."
Author: Jacob Sullum
Published at: 2025-05-27 21:25:08
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