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The Senate Judiciary Committee is scheduled to vote on the John Walters drug czar nomination on Wednesday morning next week (10/10/01). If your state has a Senator who sits on that committee, then your help is urgently needed. Please call or fax your Senator and ask him or her to vote "no" on this bad appointment.

Previously we have asked people to visit our web site to send e-mail to the Senate. At this stage, we really need phone calls or faxes. Below you will find a list of Judiciary Committee members by state. Please look through this list and see if your state is represented on it, and if so, please call your Senator today or on Monday to voice your opposition to the John Walters nomination for drug czar. Following is the list of Senators with their phone numbers, followed by our original alert on this subject; look up your state on the list, or visit http://www.senate.gov to find local contact info or fax numbers.

Our original action alert follows:

The Judiciary Committee of the US Senate is next week voting on the nomination of John Walters for the office of Director of the US Office of National Drug Control Policy (the "drug czar"). DRCNet strongly opposes this nomination, and asks you to contact your Senators and ask them to vote NO on it. Please visit http://www.stopthedrugwar.org/walters/ to send e-mail or faxes to the Senate. Even more importantly, when you are done, please call your two Senators on the phone as well -- you can reach them via the Congressional Switchboard at (202) 224-3121, and use the tell-a-friend form on our site or forward this alert to spread the word.

John Walters hold views on drug policy that verge on the fanatical. Perhaps most disturbingly, Walters has enthusiastically praised the Peruvian military's practice of shooting down aircraft suspected of being used by drug traffickers. Earlier this year, two American missionaries were killed in such a shoot-down, inevitable casualties of an extraordinarily reckless and immoral practice that violates international law.

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 drug users, yet account for more than 70% of incarcerations for drug possession. His recommendation on cocaine penalties was made despite a consensus among serious observers of criminal justice that powder cocaine enforcement is also carried out in a racially discriminatory fashion.

As Deputy Director of ONDCP during the previous Bush administration, Walters favored incarceration over 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 coauthored a paper entitled "The Clinton Administration's Continuing Retreat in the War on Drugs." In truth, however, the Clinton Administration escalated the drug war, imprisoning more people for drug offenses than during the preceding Reagan and Bush administrations combined. To characterize the harsh Clinton drug war record as a "retreat" is to elevate partisan politics over truthful discussion and to show a deep disrespect to the American people on an issue of the greatest importance.

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. Whether we can defeat his nomination or not, raising our voices in protest now will put pressure on the administration to moderate its drug policies.

The Walters nomination has been criticized by mainstream outlets such as the New York Times and the Economist, even by the conservative flagship magazine National Review. Visit http://www.stopthedrugwar.org/walters/ to access this and other information and to send a message to the Senate against this retrograde nomination -- and please call or fax your two US Senators and urge them to vote against the confirmation of John Walters as Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy. Visit http://www.senate.gov to find out how to reach them, or call the Congressional Switchboard at (202) 224-3121. Time is of the essence!

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