Date: Fri, 27 Apr 2001 16:27:38 -0400 (EDT)
Message-Id: <200104272027.QAA06876@mattababy.mit.edu>
From: belmonte@mit.edu (Matthew Belmonte)
To: john_kerry@kerry.senate.gov
Subject: oppose confirmation of John Walters as ONDCP director

I hope that you'll vote against confirmation of John Walters as Director of the
Office of National Drug Control Policy.  When Mr Walters held this same post
during the previous Bush administration, he promoted socially destructive
policies that concentrated on incarceration at the expense of drug treatment
and education.  He has lobbied Congress for stiffer penalties for nonviolent
drug offenders, and opposed state laws exempting medical marijuana users from
criminal penalties.

In 1996, Walters testified before Congress in opposition to the Sentencing
Commission's recommendation to lower federal crack cocaine penalties to the
same level as powder cocaine.  Walters has dismissed the problem of racial bias
in drug enforcement as an "urban myth," despite overwhelming evidence that such
bias is rampant; for example, African Americans make up only 13% of the
nation's users of illegal drugs, yet account for more than 70% of drug
incarcerations.

Perhaps most disturbingly, Walters has enthusiastically praised the Peruvian
military's practice of shooting down aircraft suspected of being used by drug
traffickers.  This month, an American missionary and her infant daughter were
killed in such a shoot-down, inevitable casualties of an extraordinarily
reckless and immoral practice that violates international law.

In short, the Walters drug record is one of propaganda, extremism and disregard
for issues of racial equality.  John Walters is unfit to lead the nation on
drug policy, and should be rejected by the US Congress.