Hillary Clinton On Drugs – America In Prison

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Brandon Turbeville

BrandonTurbeville.com

February 29, 2016

When Hillary Clinton participated in a Town Hall event with Christiane Amanpour in 2014, Amanpour asked Clinton about her position on the legalization of marijuana. Clinton responded that she believed medical marijuana should be available for individuals who are experiencing “extreme conditions” but that she believes we should “wait and see” how the legalization of marijuana turns out at the state level before doing so at the Federal level.[1]

While many people may have looked upon Clinton’s hesitation to even go as far as the governments of a number of states in her drug policy as a bit behind the times, the truth is that Clinton’s new drug policy – heavy-handed and anti-freedom as it may be – is an improvement to her drug policy in the past.

While Hillary attempts to court the fanatical racist #Black Lives Matter movement (both Hillary and BLM are funded by George Soros), the truth is that anyone who criticizes the American Prison Industrial Complex would be remiss in their criticism if they did not mention the role that Bill Clinton (being cheered on by Hillary all the way) played in the development of that complex.

Jeff Stein in his Salon article “The Clinton Dynasty’s Horrific Legacy: How ‘Tough On Crime’ Politics Built The World’s Largest Prison System,” where he writes,

The explosion of the prison system under Bill Clinton’s version of the “War on Drugs” is impossible to dispute. The total prison population rose by 673,000 people under Clinton’s tenure — or by 235,000 more than it did under President Ronald Reagan, according to a study by the Justice Policy Institute.[2] “Under President Bill Clinton, the number of prisoners under federal jurisdiction doubled, and grew more than it did under the previous 12-years of Republican rule, combined,” states the JPI report (italics theirs). The federal incarceration rate in 1999, the last year of the Democrat’s term, was 42 per 100,000 — more than double the federal incarceration rate at the end of President Reagan’s term (17 per 100,000), and 61 percent higher than at the end of President George Bush’s term (25 per 100,000), according to JPI. 

Just before the New Hampshire primary, Bill Clinton famously flew back to Arkansas to personally oversee the execution of a mentally impaired African-American inmate named Ricky Ray Rector. The “New Democrat” spoke on the campaign trail of being tougher on criminals than Republicans; and the symbolism of the Rector execution was followed by a series of Clinton “tough on crime” measures, including: a $30 billion crime bill that created dozens of new federal capital crimes; new life-sentence rules for some three-time offenders; mandatory minimums for crack and crack cocaine possession; billions of dollars in funding for prisons; extra funding for states that severely punished convicts; limited judges’ discretion in determining criminal sentences; and so on. There is very strong evidence that these policies had a small impact on actual crime rates, totally out of proportion to their severity.[3] 

There is also very strong evidence that these policies contributed to the immiseration of vast numbers of black (and also white) Americans at the bottom of the economic ladder, according to the well-known conclusions of journalists, academics and other criminal justice experts.[4] Federal funding for public housing fell by $17 billion (a 61 percent reduction) under Bill Clinton’s tenure; federal funding for corrections rose by $19 billion (an increase of 171 percent), according to Michelle Alexander’s seminal work, “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness.” The federal government’s new priorities redirected nearly $1 billion in state spending for higher education to prison construction. 

. . . . .

While it’s true that it was Bill who, as president, was ultimately responsible for these decision, Hillary was nonetheless a famously involved First Lady on political matters — a reputation she’s shown willingness to capitalize on in her new campaign. According to a 2013 Wall Street Journal report, Hillary has “signaled she would use the 1990s as a selling point if she jumps in the race, making the case that, as first lady, she was part of an era that found solutions to the same sorts of political difficulties that bedevil present-day Washington.”[5] That legacy includes Bill Clinton’s “War on Drugs,” whether you like it or not.[6] 

As recently noted by Reason.com, Hillary actively lobbied for the aforementioned criminal justice reforms as First Lady and, as a New York senator, voted to expand grants that dramatically scaled up police involvement in anti-terror and homeland security efforts.[7] She also said things like this, in support of a crime bill that would impose draconian new sentencing provisions:

“We need more police, we need more and tougher prison sentences for repeat offenders. The three strikes and you’re out for violent offenders has to be part of the plan. We need more prisons to keep violent offenders for as long as it takes to keep them off the streets.”[8]

With statements such as these, it is often best to let Hillary Clinton speak for herself.

Brandon Turbeville’s new book, The Difference It Makes: 36 Reasons Hillary Clinton Should Never Be President is available in three different formats: Hardcopy (available here), Amazon Kindle for only .99 (available here), and a Free PDF Format (accessible free from his website,BrandonTurbeville.com).

[1] “Hillary Clinton On Drugs.” On The Issues. http://www.ontheissues.org/celeb/Hillary_Clinton_Drugs.htm Accessed on September 10, 2015.


[2] Krikorian, Greg. “Federal And State Prison Populations Soared Under Clinton, Report Finds.” Los Angeles Times. February 19, 2001. http://articles.latimes.com/2001/feb/19/news/mn-27373 Accessed on September 10, 2015.


[3] Lind, Dara. “One Chart That Proves Mass Incarceration Doesn’t Reduce Crime.” VOX. February 15, 2015. http://www.vox.com/2014/11/11/7187411/prison-crime-rate Accessed on September 10, 2015.


[4] Johnson, Carrie. “20 Years Later, Parts Of Major Crime Bill Viewed As Terrible Mistake.” NPR. September 12, 2014. http://www.npr.org/2014/09/12/347736999/20-years-later-major-crime-bill-viewed-as-terrible-mistake Accessed on September 10, 2015.


[5] Nicholas, Peter. “In Clinton, New Look At 90’s.” Wall Street Journal. November 17, 2013. http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702303755504579204274214742110 Accessed on September 10, 2015.


[6] Stein, Jeff. “The Clinton Dynasty’s Horrific Legacy: How ‘Tough On Crime’ Politics Built The World’s Largest Prison System.” Salon. April 13, 2015. http://www.salon.com/2015/04/13/the_clinton_dynastys_horrific_legacy_how_tough_on_crime_politics_built_the_worlds_largest_prison/ Accessed on September 10, 2015.


[7] Brown, Elizabeth Nolan. “Now Hillary Clinton Cares About Criminal Justice Reform.” Reason.com. December 5, 2014. https://reason.com/blog/2014/12/05/hillary-clinton-response-eric-garner#.rddaj6:Y1QU Accessed on September 10, 2015.


[8] Brown, Elizabeth Nolan. “Now Hillary Clinton Cares About Criminal Justice Reform.” Reason.com. December 5, 2014. https://reason.com/blog/2014/12/05/hillary-clinton-response-eric-garner#.rddaj6:Y1QU Accessed on September 10, 2015.

Brandon Turbeville – article archive here – is the author of seven books, Codex Alimentarius — The End of Health Freedom, 7 Real Conspiracies, Five Sense Solutions and Dispatches From a Dissident, volume 1 andvolume 2, The Road to Damascus: The Anglo-American Assault on Syria, and The Difference it Makes: 36 Reasons Why Hillary Clinton Should Never Be President. Turbeville has published over 650 articles dealing on a wide variety of subjects including health, economics, government corruption, and civil liberties. Brandon Turbeville’s radio show Truth on The Tracks can be found every Monday night 9 pm EST atUCYTV. His website is BrandonTurbeville.com He is available for radio and TV interviews. Please contact activistpost (at) gmail.com.