David Boaz needles the DEA and the Obama administration:
I had a chance to meet with drug czar Gil Kerlikowske and his top aides last year, as part of a series of outreach meetings as the new team planned its strategy. It doesn’t look like my advice was taken. Of course, I probably didn’t help my case by noting that our last three presidents have acknowledged using illegal drugs, and it is just incomprehensible to me how they can morally justify arresting other people for doing the same thing they did. Do they think that they would have been better off if they had been arrested and incarcerated for their youthful drug use? Do they think the country would have been better off if they had been arrested and incarcerated? If not, how do they justify punishing others?
E.D. Kain asks:
Is anybody made better off by being incarcerated for a non-violent crime such as smoking marijuana their records tarnished, their ability to get a job or even sometimes an apartment permanently hindered?