How to Make Money Selling Drugs Page #9

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Um, in that, we had not given

the slightest bit of thought

as to what people in these worlds

were supposed to say yes to,

and we still haven't.

By 1986, the U.S. was allocating

$2.9 billion per year

for narcotics enforcement.

That's when the Democrats seized

an incredible opportunity

over the media frenzy

surrounding Len Bias.

Len Bias with 29...

Oh, my!

Len Bias was

a college star athlete.

He was signed to go

to the Boston Celtics.

he signs, like, a contract with

Adidas for millions of dollars.

He's got it made. He flew back

that night from the signing,

celebrating in his dorm room at the University

of Maryland, he's snorting cocaine...

And his heart failed and they said it

was because of, uh, heavy cocaine use.

And he has a seizure and he dies.

Eric Sterling

was working as a lawyer

at the House of

Representatives at the time.

The story is a horror

of how Congress operates.

The Democratic leadership figured if

they put together an anti-drug bill,

and they play it right, they can

win big in the November election.

Responding appropriately to the

public's alarm about drugs,

which, an alarm

they helped create.

We're dealing with nothing

less than chemical warfare

against the youth of this nation.

Press conferences, speeches,

"The Plague."

"Should we put in the death penalty?"

"Yeah, let's have the death penalty!"

People who push drugs must be put

in jail for a minimum of 50 years.

It had this quality of, like,

Sotheby's auction, you know.

"I'll see ya! I'll raise ya!

I'm tougher, I'm meaner!"

In my nine years

working for the Congress,

this is the only time we wrote

legislation in such haste

and without careful consideration.

Actress Susan Sarandon

worked with many others

to fight against

the harsh drug sentences

that were spreading out

across the country.

I just think people

don't understand really.

They just hear "tough on drugs"

and they just go, "Yeah!

"Let's do that."

You know, "We'll be safer."

They don't understand

what it, what it means.

Hamida Hassan,

a mother of three children,

moved to her cousin's house in Nebraska

to escape an abusive boyfriend.

They were selling drugs,

and I knew that, you know,

but I didn't concern myself with the

particulars of what they were doing.

It seemed more safe to me.

When her cousins were busted

Hamida was given the mandatory

minimum of 27 years.

I'm 25 years old,

I'm six months pregnant,

I have never been in trouble before

and I'm going to be sentenced

to a natural life sentence.

Right now, the way the laws

stand, you can murder somebody

and get out quicker than be in a

house where there's a drug bust

and you don't even know

what's going on.

You can end up serving 30 years.

It's crazy.

I mean, it's not right.

Since 1993, Hamida Hassan

has been in prison.

And her children have grown up

without their mother.

I just always break out in tears,

because I just miss my mom a lot

and I just hope that

she come home soon.

Many of the people in federal

prison, as I'm speaking right now,

who are there on drug charges,

are there on mandatory minimums.

Whatever charge they're serving,

they're serving a longer sentence

that in part reflects my failures

to be a better lawyer

in blocking that law.

It pains me very much,

you know, when I meet the

family members of these people,

uh, it breaks my heart.

It was a total success

for the Democrats.

Many of the congressmen

behind the mandatory minimums

were re-elected

the following term.

If you really wanna do good in

politics, be tough on drugs.

By the late 1980s

the CIA discovered that drug money

could help U.S. foreign interests.

Now we all know that the U.S.

government and the CIA supported

the contras in Nicaragua,

in the middle '80s.

Now it is alleged the CIA also helped

the contras raise money for arms

by introducing crack cocaine

into California.

There's no question in my mind

there is complicity

in the flow of drugs

into this country, period.

A senate investigation led by

John Kerry of Massachusetts

found that individuals who

provided support for the contras

were involved in drug trafficking.

Freeway Rick's former South

American cocaine supplier

was a major contributor

to the contras.

Eventually the DEA hired him

to set up Freeway Rick,

putting him in jail for 20 years.

The DEA paid Rick's supplier

for services,

and American crack cocaine users

helped pay for a U.S. government-supported

war in South America.

And when that first cocaine

was smuggled in on a ship,

it may as well have been

a deadly bacteria,

so much as it hurt the body,

the soul of our country.

But take my word for it,

this scourge will stop.

President Bush Senior

doubled the war budget.

And by the end of his administration,

it had doubled yet again.

During the '90s, government asset

forfeiture was also on the rise.

What forgeiture laws do

is they permit the government to

seize assets and money of people

where they believe that those assets

are connected to drug enforcement.

It's very easy for the government

to get assets this way

because the standard of proof

is so much lower.

No one needs to be charged

or convicted of a crime.

The message to law enforcement

officers was simple.

In the event that you are

an undercover officer

and you see someone

carrying two suitcases,

one is full of money,

the other is full of drugs,

follow the money.

Drugs coming up from Mexico

go north and east.

To seize the large amounts

of money,

I was instructed to begin working

south and west bound traffic.

I got extremely talented at seizing

money under the rules of law.

That's highway robbery.

I have heard a police officer say

"Chief, we need a new vehicle."

He'd say "All right, go out,

find a drug dealer and seize one."

And so they literally

try to find this property.

If I found 100,000

dollars drug money,

that paid my salary for a year,

auto expenses, dog expenses,

whatever it took

to keep me on board,

everything after that was profit.

The same problem comes up with

regard to police corruption.

You go out in the field and

you will see a stack of cash.

So you just lift maybe 10, 20,

30, 40 dollars off the top

and nobody notices,

and of course

there's no accounting anyway,

so next time you will lift

maybe a hundred.

If I found a stash of money,

I'd take a couple hundred bucks,

stick it in my pocket

and then turn it in.

I'm not proud of that.

Between 2000 and 2003,

the Department of Justice

earned over one billion dollars

in forfeiture proceeds.

By 2008, that number had tripled.

By the time Clinton left office,

teenage use of drugs was higher.

High school students' use of

methamphetamines had doubled.

And heroin and cocaine were

cheaper and purer than they were

when the first drug laws

were passed in 1914.

The war on drugs is not winnable,

but it's eminently fundable,

and the government

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