Bennett: No Such Thing as 'Non-Violent' When It Comes to Drug Dealing

Nick Kangadis | May 9, 2016
DONATE
Font Size

While President Obama continues to release “non-violent” drug offenders at an unprecedented rate, many are taking notice and are now speaking up.

William Bennett and John Walters wrote a column for the Washington Post on Monday that questions not only the validity of Obama commuting all of these “justice-involved individuals” years before their scheduled release, but also questioning the motivations behind Obama’s practices.

Bennett is the host of the “Bill Bennett Interview” and was the director of drug control policy for President George H. W. Bush. Walters is the COO of the Hudson Institute and was Bush's director of drug control policy.

The Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act, which is currently sitting in Congress, states that mandatory drug and gun sentences would be reduced and could make the reduction of sentences retroactive for criminals already serving time.

The Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) cites several stats, based on fiscal year 2012, that contradict Obama’s agenda of claiming the people whose sentences he commutes simply "made a mistake" with their lives. During that year:

  • 99.5 percent of drug offenders in federal prison were serving sentences for drug trafficking.
  • Cocaine was the drug of choice for 54 percent of drug offenders.
  • 37 percent of all prisoners who were arrested within five years of release were arrested within the first six months after release, with 57 percent arrested by the end of the first year.

Last time I looked up "dealing drugs" in the dictionary, dealing and using a hard drug like cocaine and committing further crime to end up back in prison are choices, not mistakes.

Obama speaks publicly as if all drug offenders are just peace-loving, “non-violent” users who deserve to be released. Drugs do no harm, right? But look at the first statistic the BJS cited. If 99.5 percent of drug offenders are drug traffickers, how can the president issue blanket laws he says are directed at the other .5 percent of people, but that will ultimately apply to all? 

And while some of these people might be non-violent in the traditional sense, what about their predilection to prey on other people's addictions? 

Bennett and Walters wrote the following:

Addiction and drug dealing ravage whole communities, urban and rural. We need look no further than the daily reports of the heroin epidemic today, or the still-vivid memories of the meth epidemic and the crack epidemic. Drug dealing makes whole neighborhoods war zones, places of economic blight and large-scale victimization. There is no greater single source of actual harm to Americans today — none. The cost of incarcerating drug dealers is small compared to the true cost of their crimes to society.

Just last week, Obama commuted the sentence of a woman in Florida who not only dealt drugs, but also had a residence where drugs were manufactured.

These are the people Obama wants on the streets. They might be non-violent to him, but they present an escalating danger to our society. 

donate