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Glenn Greenwald

Tuesday, Nov 15, 2011 6:29 PM UTC

Debating Bush’s drug czar on legalization

Do the costs of the Drug War outweigh the benefits? VIDEO

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Last Thursday at Brown University, I debated former Bush drug czar John Walters on the virtues of drug legalization, and the video is below. The aspect of With Liberty and Justice for Some that has received the most attention is the shield of immunity for elite lawbreaking, but the other side of that rule-of-law evisceration — the incomparably harsh and sprawling penal state America has created for its ordinary citizens — is at least as important, and it is the Drug War that personifies the worst abuses of that punishment system and accounts for much of it.

I began the debate by presenting a 25-minute argument, which was followed by Walters’ doing the same, and the next hour was composed of a quite contentious question-and-answer session with the audience of roughly 300 people. This was a vibrant and confrontational debate that, I think, really underscores the key issues in the controversy and will be worthwhile for anyone with an interest in these questions:

Janus Forum – Should the US Legalize Drugs? from Brown University on Vimeo.

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Glenn Greenwald (email: GGreenwald@salon.com) is a former Constitutional and civil rights litigator and is the author of three New York Times Bestselling books: two on the Bush administration's executive power and foreign policy abuses, and his latest book, With Liberty and Justice for Some, an indictment of America's

two-tiered system of justice. Greenwald was named by The Atlantic as one of the 25 most influential political commentators in the nation. He is the recipient of the first annual I.F. Stone Award for Independent Journalism, and is the winner of the 2010 Online Journalism Association Award for his investigative work on the arrest and oppressive detention of Bradley Manning.




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  • @billmon1 Yep - they don't see the costs they pay: huge money, security threats via blowback (Boston), rights/privacy erosions, etc. 19 minutes ago
  • @TerenceBegleyNJ Oh, well a politician should never be criticized- he should do anything, no matter how immoral & destructive, to avoid that 1 hour ago
  • @Seanismoney People in Boston might disagree with what? Also, "people in Boston" have no more wisdom than NYC, London, Madrid, Mumbai etc 2 hours ago
  • @ArarMaher It's not going to end until people really start realizing the costs they bear from it, and for whose benefit. 2 hours ago
  • @jimmyray1972 painfully and self-evidently so 2 hours ago

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