ASHCROFT'S POSITION ON DRUGS TERRIFYING

When John Ashcroft, opponent of abortion, affirmative action and gratuitous
gun-banning, was nominated by President Bush to the influential post of
U.S. attorney general, liberals reacted in knee-jerk fashion.

So did conservatives.

But neither Republicans nor Democrats, the liberal media nor the
conservative media paid much attention to the non-partisan group called
Common Sense for Drug Policy, which paints a different picture of Ashcroft
than the one heard in the Senate Judiciary Committee:

He favors cutting funds for drug treatment and prevention and putting them
into yet more law enforcement efforts. In other words, Ashcroft favors the
"lock 'em up" approach to the drug war.

Democrats couldn't nail Ashcroft on this, of course, since their attorney
genera l of the past eight years, Janet Reno, pursued precisely i e same
policy.

When he was U.S. senator from Missouri, Ashcroft sponsored Senate Bill
486, the Methamphetamine Anti-Proliferation Act. Common Sense claims
Ashcroft's proposal "would have empowered federal, state and local law
enforcement agencies to enter your house, your office, your computer or
your car without a warrant and without any obligation to inform you that a
search or seizure had been conducted."

That's not surprising since the "war on drugs" is turning more into a war
on privacy and civil liberties every day. Most conservatives are too rigid
to admit that, but the four or five conservatives remaining in the country
who still value privacy and individual liberty had better give Ashcroft a
second look.

As governor of Missouri, Ashcroft flagrantly violated the state
Constitution by refusing to pass money from forfeited drug assets on to
public schools. Instead, he let his state police keep the dollars, even
after the Missouri Supreme Court ruled it was a violation of that state's
Constitution. That was in 19 90. In 1998, the U.S. Court of Appeals ruled
that -- because Missouri state police passed on drug asset dollars to the
Drug Enforcement Administration, which would then return some of the money
to state police -- the cops and the DEA had "successfully conspired to
violate the Missouri Constitution."

That's the Ashcroft whose supporters claim he will "enforce the law as it
is." It seems like Ashcroft, who used the word "integrity" no fewer than
three times when he spoke publicly after Bush announced his nomination for
attorney general, may have all the integrity of a true Missourian. Of the
Frank and Jesse James mold.