Room for a View > Briefs
Drug Law Reform: It’s now or never in Albany
by Todd Paul

New York’s infamous Rockefeller Drug Laws, which require judges to sentence first-time, nonviolent offenders to longer prison terms than rapists and murderers, will turn 30 next year. Both legislative houses and the executive branch are pushing to reform the laws. But activists see the issue becoming a political football—and many fear that in an election year, change must come by November, or not at all.

In 1998, Robert Chambers was sentenced to 5-15 years for murder. Joel Steinberg, who beat his 6-year-old daughter to death in 1987, was sentenced to 8-25 years. Yet last year Darryl Best, a 46-year-old father of four with no criminal history, was given 15 years to life in maximum security after he signed for a Fed Ex package delivered to his uncle’s house that turned out to contain cocaine.

Judge Michael Gross, who sentenced Best, said the punishment was “clearly out of line for the offense that Mr. Best committed.” Yet the judge had no choice. The mandatory sentences imposed by the Rockefeller Laws strip judges of their discretionary power and give that power to prosecutors—which is why the powerful New York District Attorneys Association opposes significant reform of the laws.

Those supporting reform say the Rockefeller Laws do nothing to deter drug use; turn mere users into violent criminals through long prison sentences; deprive children of their parents and families of incomes; cost taxpayers, who must pay for prisons; and push truly violent, dangerous criminals back onto the street when prison space must be freed up for drug offenders.

For those incarcerated and their families, the situation is dire. Prison populations in New York have increased by a factor of five since 1973, when the Rockefeller Laws went into effect. A study last year found that about 22,000 state prison inmates were serving time for drug offenses, 6,000 of them just for possession. Ninety-four percent are African-American or Hispanic, though studies show most drug users and sellers are white.

Among the most effective groups pushing for reform are the Mothers of the Disappeared, a coalition of drug inmates’ family members who took their name from the Argentinian organization that protested state terror in the 1970s. The core of the group is about 25 women, including Wanda Best, Darryl Best’s wife of 22 years. The group is aided by Anthony Papa, a 46-year-old paralegal who earned three degrees while serving time for a drug offence, and was pardoned after one of his jailhouse paintings was exhibited at the Whitney Museum. They are led by Randy Credico, a former stand-up comic who has devoted his life to drug law reform. Also aiding the Mothers is former Republican state senator John Dunne, who sponsored the Rockefeller Laws 30 years ago but now calls for their reform.

In an amazingly selfless gesture, the Mothers already turned down one “devil’s bargain” offered by Governor Pataki, who told them in June that he could have their loved ones out “in a matter of days” if they would support his conservative reform proposal. But Pataki’s bill would have shortened the mandatory minimum sentences for fewer than 600 prisoners, leaving thousands more to serve out what he himself has called “egregious” sentences. The Mothers fear that such minor reforms would allow politicians to claim victory in an election year; and despite Pataki’s promises of future efforts, they believe the issue would be forgotten once elections are over. They continue to push for significant reform.

Human Rights Watch is also lobbying for reform, supporting the state Assembly bill, rather than the more conservative Senate version. For more information about the Rockefeller Drug Laws, New York prison statistics, and special reports, visit Human Rights Watch online at www.hrw.org/campaigns/drugs/. There is also a series of special reports on the Web site of the Albany Times Union, at www.timesunion.com/news/special/druglaws/. Many years of reports are collected online at www.nysda.org/Hot_Topics/Rockefeller_Drug_Laws/ rockefeller_ drug_laws.html#Reports.

Sources: Salon, The Post-Standard, Albany Times Union, Human Rights Watch.

Flying High in Afghanistan: Bombers on Speed

by Todd Paul

According to an August 1 article in the Toronto Star, “US jet fighter pilots, responsible for at least 10 deadly ‘friendly fire’ accidents in the Afghanistan war, have regularly been given amphetamines to fly longer hours.... Then when they return to base, the pilots are given sedatives by Air Force doctors to help them sleep, before beginning the whole cycle again on the next mission, often less than 12 hours later.”

Star journalist William Walker, at the paper’s Washington, DC bureau, obtained details on the drugs and how they’re used from a 24-page document produced by the Top Gun fighter training school and the Naval Aerospace Medical Research Laboratory in Pensacola, Florida. According to this document, fighter pilots are routinely given Dexedrine, which they refer to as “go-pills”, when fatigue threatens to impair their ability to fly nine-hour missions from Kuwait to Afghanistan. Upon their return to base they are given Ambien (zolpidem) and Restoril (temazepam), or “no-go-pills” in pilot lingo, to make them sleep.

Amphetamines can have side effects ranging from nervousness to elevated blood pressure. The most severe reaction, amphetamine psychosis, can cause hallucinations and paranoid delusions. Dexedrine can also be addictive. While college students use amphetamines in all-night study sessions and truckers use them during long hauls, they are not recommended to combat fatigue while operating heavy machinery, much less F-16s, and especially as part of a cycle of fatigue managed with stimulants and sedatives.

Was Dexedrine involved when Illinois Air National Guard Maj. Harry Schmidt dropped a 500-pound laser-guided bomb that killed four Canadian soldiers on April 18? “I don’t know the answer,” Schmidt’s lawyer, Charles Gittins, reportedly told Walker. “I never asked my pilot if he was medicated. But it’s quite common. He’s on vacation now, so I’ll check with him about it when he gets back.”

The Top Gun document, titled “Performance Maintenance During Continuous Flight Operations,” reports that in the 1991 Persian Gulf War, 60 percent of pilots said they used Dexedrine. In units that saw the most frequent combat missions, usage was as high as 96 percent.

In the Persian Gulf War, the drug was administered in five milligram doses; pilots bombing Afghanistan are given twice that amount. However, pilots are also expected to self-regulate the amount of the amphetamine they take. They carry the pills with them in their planes and use them as they wish.

There is some evidence that pilots may feel pressured to use the drugs. After being tested for drug tolerance, they are asked to sign a consent form titled “Informed Consent For Operational Use of Dexedrine.” It states, in part, “It has been explained to me and I understand that the US Food and Drug Administration has not approved the use of Dexedrine to manage fatigue...[and] I further understand that the decision to take this medication is mine alone.” But it goes on to state, “should I choose not to take it under circumstances where its use appears indicated…my commander, upon advice of the flight surgeon, may determine whether or not I should be considered unfit to fly a given mission.”

Sources: The Toronto Star, Alternet.org.

Cheney, Afghanistan, and the Revolving Door
by Todd Paul

Watchers of the connections between corporations and government are noting with some irony the assigning of lucrative military contracts in Afghanistan to Brown & Root, a subsidiary of Dick Cheney’s former company, Halliburton, of Dallas.

Cheney had no prior experience running a company when he took over as chief executive of Halliburton, the world’s largest oil services company, in 1995. But he did have federal contacts, having served as secretary of defense during the Persian Gulf War and worked in Washington for 25 years. He used them well; In the last two years of Cheney’s tenure, Halliburton garnered $1.5 billion dollars in federal loans and insurance subsidies, plus $2.3 billion in US government contracts. That compares with a mere $100 million in government loans and $1.2 billion in contracts the company received in the five years prior to Cheney’s arrival.

Cheney also oversaw Halliburton’s merger with Dresser Industries, one of the companies that helped Saddam Hussein rebuild Iraq’s oil infrastructure after the Gulf war. Despite the fact that he was an author of the economic sanctions against Iraq, Cheney’s company used two foreign subsidiaries to do $23 million worth of business with that country, more than any other US company.

After Cheney returned to Washington—having cashed out with nearly $30 million in Halliburton salary and stocks for the last two years alone—his former company continued to receive lucrative government contracts.
Currently, Halliburton subsidiary Brown & Root is contracted to run several US military camps in Afghanistan. This is but the beginning of a 10-year contract with the Pentagon known as Logistics Civil Augmentation Program (LOGCAP), under which Brown & Root personnel can be sent on military or humanitarian errands around the globe.

Such contracts have become business as usual for Brown & Root, which was paid tens of millions to build roads, landing strips, harbors, and military bases in South Vietnam from 1962 to 1972. In 1992, according to Corpwatch, “the Pentagon, then under Cheney’s direction, paid the company $3.9 million to produce a classified report detailing how private companies (like itself) could help provide logistics for American troops in potential war zones around the world. Later in 1992, the Pentagon gave the company an additional $5 million to update its report.” Brown & Root estimates it has $740 million in existing United States government contracts.

Military sources are reportedly very happy with the work done by Brown & Root in Somalia, Rwanda, Haiti, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Italy, Bosnia, and Central Asia. But in an era when news of corporate malfeasance has become ubiquitous, it is not surprising to note that the company recently paid a $2 million settlement to the Justice Department, which alleged that Brown & Root defrauded the government during the closure of the Fort Ord military base in Monterey, California in the mid 90s.
And according to Mother Jones, A September, 2000 report by the federal General Accounting Office alleged that Brown & Root “was providing nearly twice the electricity necessary to the army’s facilities in Kosovo, at a cost of some $17 million a year... had ordered $5.2 million worth of furniture for camps in Kosovo, an amount so excessive the Army struggled to find space for all the furniture and spent $377,000 just processing the order... [and] routinely either overstaffed operations, resulting in employees standing around on long breaks, or was over-eager in its hiring, paying employees to work around the clock for no apparent reason.

“From 1995 to 2000, Brown and Root billed the government for $2.2 billion for its logistics support in Kosovo, making the services contract the costliest in US history,” the Mother Jones report concluded. “Overall, Brown and Root’s costs amounted to nearly one-sixth of the total spent by the military on Balkans operations.”

Sources: Corpwatch, Mother Jones.