T A B L E+T A L K Will Clinton's African tour finally remind Americans of the continent's significance in world affairs? Share your thoughts in the International Issues area of Table Talk D A I L Y+Q U O T E Clash of the titanic egos R E C E N T L Y Justice Department considers investigating key Starr witness By Murray Waas FBI recommends probe of alleged payments to Whitewater accuser David Hale (03/27/98) A massive journalistic breakdown By Mollie Dickenson How the elite media has gotten the Clinton "scandals" all wrong (03/27/98) Behind the Clinton cocaine smear By Murray Waas Conservative multimillionaire funded secret investigation of Clinton's alleged drug connections (03/26/98) Mission impossible By Jeff Stein A day in the life of a U.N. arms inspector (03/25/98) Arkansas state trooper denies key part of "Troopergate" story By Murray Waas But Los Angeles Times reporter stands by his story -- denies he "put words in (trooper's) mouth" (03/24/98) - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Browse the Newsreal Archives - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
		hell no, WE WON'T THROW AWAY THE KEY _____SERIOUS CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE AGAINST THE NATION'S _____DRUG SENTENCING LAWS ARE BEING STAGED -- _____BY PROSECUTORS AND SENIOR JUDGES. BY BRUCE SHAPIRO | Quick: What furious debate over the parameters of morality, legality and personal behavior has the American political and judicial system been at vehement war with itself over? No, not the ever-morphing Clinton/Jones/Starr/Lewinsky/Willey scandal, but an issue likely to affect vastly more people. Drugs. Drug use, drug policy, drug enforcement. While the press has been consumed with Tailgate, slowly simmering discord over the war on illegal drugs has suddenly reached a rolling boil. Some skirmishes have filtered through to public consciousness. Last Monday it was Drug Czar vs. AIDS Czar: White House drug policy advisor Barry McCaffrey lambasted White House director of HIV policy Sandra Thurman's advocacy of federally funded sterile needle-exchange programs for addicts. Needle-exchange efforts, McCaffrey complained in a letter leaked to Congress, undermine "an unambiguous 'no use' message." The following day, it was California vs. the feds. The Justice Department went to court seeking an injunction shutting down six Northern California medical marijuana clubs, operating under the protective umbrella of Proposition 215 passed by state voters last November. Last week, four California mayors wrote to the White House demanding that the Justice Department "respect local expertise" on medical marijuana and abandon the crackdown. If Attorney General Janet Reno's shutdown of marijuana clubs moves forward, San Francisco District Attorney Terence Hallinan is threatening to employ city workers to distribute the drug to those who medically require it -- perhaps the most dramatic act of local law-enforcement defiance of the Justice Department since the days of racial segregation. But one of the most incendiary and startling confrontations has been conducted behind the scenes, in the normally staid chambers of the Washington, D.C., federal courts. The cast of characters: a crack addict and petty street-level dealer named Alvin Webb; U.S. District Judge Stanley Sporkin, named to the bench by Ronald Reagan after serving as the CIA's top lawyer; and Judge Douglas Ginsburg of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, best known as the jurist whose Supreme Court nomination in 1987 went down the tubes when Ginsburg admitted smoking pot in the 1970s. Alvin Webb smoked and sold crack on the streets of the nation's capital for three years. He was a junkie, never a high-powered dealer. "The suppliers would just give me the stuff to give to the people ... I never received any money," he testified. "All I received was just drugs for that." An undercover DEA agent bought crack from Webb on two occasions in February 1994: five grams on the first occasion, then six -- small amounts that would have meant little jail time. Then, according to court records, the DEA agent deliberately decided to ratchet up his third purchase from Webb -- 55 grams -- because under federal sentencing guidelines that meant a mandatory prison sentence of nine years or more. Webb obtained the court's permission to enroll in a drug rehab program, which might have allowed him to qualify for a lower sentence, but he failed at rehab after a month, ending up back on the streets smoking crack. He was caught 18 months later and was finally brought before Judge Sporkin for sentencing last year. Thus far, a familiar story of a crack addict in the criminal justice system. So imagine Webb's surprise -- and the federal prosecutor's -- when Sporkin the Reaganite took one look at the case and decided, then and there, that he simply could not reconcile the harsh prison sentence required by federal drug laws with the shattered individual standing before his bench. "If you were in a different economic bracket in this country, you'd probably be out at the Betty Ford Clinic," Sporkin said to Webb, according to court records. He blasted prosecutors who wanted Webb's sentence extended even further to punish him for his 18 months on the street. "It's because he doesn't control his own body. That's the problem. He doesn't control himself. He's out of control. He didn't do it to defy anybody. He hasn't done it in a defiant act. He did it because it's impossible for him." - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - N E X T+P A G E+| Sentencing entrapment PHOTO BY AP/WIDE WORLD