When the Clinton administration assumed office, the federal War on Drugs was approximately a decade old. According to the Callahans, "the declared 'war' on drugs . . . actually commenced during the 1968 presidential campaign, when Richard M. Nixon was casting about for election ammunition" (1). The first federal campaign against the sale and use of illegal drugs, which was incorporated in the Controlled Substance Act of 1970 and a federal crime bill that year, subjected trafficking and possession of marijuana, LSD, cocaine and other narcotics to heavier federal criminal penalties. The inclusion of relatively harmless drugs such as marijuana on the proscribed list reflected what the Callahans called "a knee-jerk response to the failing war in Vietnam, social unrest within the United States and the drug use-particularly marijuana among the so-called counterculture" (1).

The African American community has been outraged by this disparity in treatment and called upon the Clinton administration to end the racial discrimination involved. The McCaffrey/Reno proposal should be understood as a gesture by Clinton toward one of his most important voting constituencies.

"And Still the Drugs Sit There." Economist, 21 May 1994: 1-2

(Internet:http://cox.house.gov/er/1997/mexico.html).

Spencer, Steffan A. "Part I) War on Drugs: The Ravages of War. 1997, 1-4 (Internet:http://pubweb.nwu.edu/-sas699/war.html).

Bill Clinton, who as candidate talked about more emphasis on drug education and prevention, and about giving addicts

Indeed, public phobias and intolerance on the subject of illegal drugs has reached ridiculously uncompassionate proportions when leading United States Senators such as Orrin Hatch (Rep. Utah) and Jon Kyl (Rep. Ariz.) call upon the courts to overturn ballot initiatives approved by overwhelming majorities (in California by a 56-44 margin and in Arizona by a 65-35 margin) which would permit physicians to prescribe marijuana and other drugs for terminal patients.

Although there is a connection between the use of certain drugs and some types of violent crime, which makes the analogy imperfect, the nation learned from its experiment with Prohibition in the 1920s that moral rectitude by the majority can degenerate into tyranny and, as the Callahans put it, "it is folly for government to defy human nature" (4).

that looks almost identical to the ones put forward by his

The first drug czar, William Bennett, and other Bush administration officials conducted a media blitz in 1989 which stressed the dangers of illegal drugs and the need for forceful government action to control their production, distribution and use. This approach was successful politically. According to Chomsky, public opinion polls taken in 1988 rev