Only at parrot dies could see there are tremendous discrepancies between who is in jail and who is feeling the brunt of the drug war versus the number and diversity of those engage in illicit drug use. If white suburban teenagers noting could gain a large ails the governments explanation would have more credibility. In attempting to account for the origins of the drug war we are in effect attempting to explain this discrepancy. If we find a governments explanation to be woefully incomplete then the story of how and why the drug war can about what restore what is missing. In my book i argue that the drug wars shade, scope and function resulted from certain dilemmas of governance in an age of vastly expanding state power. Story is impossible to tell without the District Of Columbia. Tonight i will focus largely on the 1way street that is the imposition that the federal government made on washington d. C. But i want to make it clear that in reality and in my book fair is much more push back within a city. Even at its most politically important state residents challenge the federal governments plans and by failing to comply by insisting on home rules and offering a different account or explanation of the events than the governments version. The focus on the way the federal government uses the district to craft the modern drugs. First let me give some sense of existing scholarship on the origins of the drug war and where my own work fits in with that literature. Most scholars to have looked at this issue emphasize two things, first classification of certain drugs as narcotics, apps, morphing, cocaine and later marijuana and second their removal from general circulation, all of which took place in the early part of the 20th century and was deeply tied to the reputation these drugs had acquired for Recreational Use among racial minorities. In my own work ive tried to emphasize the steps between these events and punishment and prohibition in your host 70s that provide the legislative and institutional basis for the modern drugs work. Is important to look at the interval of time because to Say Something cannot circulate freely is not the same as saying it is criminally prohibited. Between post world war i and 1970s these drugs used as medicines and various countries had different regulatory approaches to handle them. In the United States cannot contact of 1914 use tariffs and taxes to track and regulate opium production, importation and dispensation down to the fraction of the gramm as one official boasted. After international controls were put in place in the 1930s the illicit users were supplied not only by diversion from listed channel some drug programs but subversion, the clandestine production of drugs in knowing violation of the imam. As the heroin market went underground u. S. Government chased it with a vigor and moralizing spirit embodied in the countrys first commissioner of the u. S. Narcotics bureau, a fixture in republican circles known for its scolding tirades and sensationalized depictions of illicit Drug Trafficking use. Of the course of his long service from 1935 to 1961 the commissioner nominated different racial stereotypes depending on the setting and the situation as the culprit behind narcotics traffic variously designating asians, africanamericans, latinos or italian ethnics as the Guiding Force behind the narcotics conspiracy. Echoing what was popular in his day his script was familiar but his targets changed over time. Before world war i commissioner spent much of his time and energy facing off against doctors challenging their authority and integrity in an attempt to stymie the flow of narcotics from their offices. After the war he continued to send his agents to check on medical narcotic prescriptions throughout the 1915s. Of your credit review found the devoted 20 of its manpower to doing so. The rest pursued illicit details. As he turned his attention and resources to the underground markets he clamored for more severe penalties for the possession of opiates without the appropriate tax stand. Members of congress, especially members of the powerful southern delegation were quick to oblige but only on the assurance that certain kinds of drug deals would be subject to aggressive tactics and not others could thus began a collaborative relationship between the bureau of narcotics and congress intended to construct, enhance and amid the boundaries of the nations grow. Southerners who were well aware of parrot mogul problems with narcotics divers and received assurances that in fact illicit use was limited to the major cities with little of it in small cities and rural areas. Has the commissioner mapped the geography of his intentions the district became the special focus of his effort. In my book that a special attention to washington d. C. Because i am obliged to. To route the 20th century the u. S. Congress tested the tactics of the drug war in d. C. Drafting legislation, shaving the evolution of policing and invoking the racially charged sector of drug induced criminality in the city to help justify the modern drug war. More than anything else this is a consequence of the districts lack of political autonomy. The constitution of the United States grants congress exclusive jurisdiction over washington and for most of its history the city has had little say in the conduct of its business. Between 800, and 1964 d. C. Residents could not even vote for president. Since reconstruction d. C. Was governed by a board of commissioners appointed by the president which served in coordination with Congressional Committee from each chamber assigned to oversee District Affairs. As a result what would be considered a state crime was in d. C. A federal offense. Felony cases were heard before federal Court Appointed to the district. Comprised of basic electoral rights, president s according to the laws that they had no ability to make or to change. D. C. s powerlessness took on greater significance when the city became among the first in the northeast corridor to approach majority black status by the 1950s. Southern congressman made a concerted effort for these demographic changes and a menacing light offering of view of the district as under siege by black criminals who went unchallenged as supporting segregation and social control slackened. Because of this and other similar remarks many scholars assume the link between prohibition and punishment and raise was discussed. Into law and order rhetoric designed to appeal to white ethnics who did be enticed from the democratic fold. Although valid this argument neglects the obvious, the link between the drug war and race was explicit, even mechanical and was initially forged in a symbiotic fashion between Congressional Committees devoted to oversight of the District Of Columbia and those dedicated to the regulation of narcotics. The first and most significant example of this special relationship was the enactment of mandatory minimum sentencing for drug offenses in the 1915s. When it was first proposed the idea was a startling departure from common practice. Mandatory minimums irancontra to commonlaw and celebrated tradition of traditional economy. In a place of judicial discretion the district subcommittee chairman from georgia propose in 1953 that mandatory minimum sentences be attached to a series of offenses that would require a presiding judge to give a predetermined sentence no matter what the judge happen to think. This was to justify the move. We reach the point where it is risky for women and girls to be on the streets after dusk congressman davis concluded. At a time when d. C. s crime rate was one of the lowest of any major city in the country. Despite the crime parrot some congressman voice reservations and urged caution. Pennsylvania democrat herman ever heart pointed out congress was proposing something to the president s of the District Of Columbia that is not required in any state of the Union Comment adding we are attempting in fact to use the District Of Columbia as a guinea pig on which to try out radical departure of new principles. His colleagues were unperturbed by the proposal mostly because they did not care. Because the ec had no power, no representation in congress, there was no possibility of a backlash and no account given to the desires of president s who lived in the city. Only weeks after the bill passed the house the same Chamber Found itself considering mandatory minimums once again this time to apply to a second conviction for narcotics possession without the appropriate tax stamp. If any legislator had reservations over a broader application of this untested proposal then supporters were there to remind them of the district crime bill. In case there should be any doubt to the actual position of those who oppose the bill one congressman chided critics, i ask the house to jog its memory and remember the position taken by someone the District Of Columbia bill was before this body not long ago dealing with the question of mandatory sentences. The bill passed easily in both houses. In this with the district function to lower the threshold of consent when it came to the tactics and tools of the drug war. It supplied a precedent, one of the congressman were quick to establish, site and read purpose at their convenience. The district also served to suggest the targets of counter narcotics efforts but the urban blacks who purchased illicit drug supplied by subversion were by no means alone in their behavior. This point was a surprising addendum to the first highprofile application of mandatory minimums in the district. The 1954 prosecution of catfish turner ran his associates all of whom were africanamericans. His coconspirators had no prior convictions. As a result they were subject to mandatory minimum sentences. With an impressive courtroom victory the two u. S. Attorneys who prosecuted the case might have rested on their laurels. Instead of a and doubt regarding the ultimate benefits of their labor. As it turned out this group consisted primarily of negros, u. S. Attorney thomas told the Washington Post but added narcotic traffic knows no racial or geographic boundaries. We found addiction and paddling among various groups and in many parts of washington. By 1970 the federal government stood poised to put various drug laws into one regime and defect code prohibition of certain narcotics using the powers granted under the Commerce Clause. President nixon was particularly keen to put lawandorder issues at the center of his agenda. In making the district the special focus of his attention he and his allies encountered new leaders of the city now embarked on a path toward Self Governance. A familiar pattern emerge. The ability of police to enter premises without warning if they believed it would result in the destruction of evidence was according to d. C. Police unnecessary for the district yet officials in the Nixon Administration insisted on putting it in the districts anticrime legislation of 1970. Months later the same authority appeared in nixons over all the countrys drug regime, control substances after 1970, the legislative foundation of modern drug war. As approved somewhat controversial proponents were quick to cite a precedent set in the district bill. Congressman springer dismissed opposition by reminding his colleagues they had already consented to it. We had it in the District Of Columbia, he prompted his colleagues, we voted for it than. D. C. More than legislative proving ground for the modern drug war. The citys evolution in the culture and practices of modern policing was emblematic and in many ways constructive. As they ratcheted up the punishment for narcotics powerful some forces change the metropolitan Police Department from an agency which largely ignored poor black neighborhoods to an agency which largely defined its policing mission through narcotics enforcements in those very same places. I argue that this transformation enabled police to retain vestiges of traditional lawenforcement via discretion, use of force or even corruption while in the midst of profound changes wrought by the professional is Asian Movement within Law Enforcement and civil rights outside of it. As police redefined their presence in the ghetto Drug Enforcement became both their preoccupation and their methodology, not just something to police but a way to police. Initially the fact that lawenforcement did not bother services in poor black neighborhoods was something that was both widely known and widely ignored. In 1947 the Washington Post reported results of an investigation that showed police pocketing crime to be president in the Police Department. Pocketing meant failure to report a crime in an official method which means no effort was made toward solving it. The post revealed in calendar year already more than 300 robberies complaints were placed in secret files in the detective bureau, and additional 300 others recorded in Police Precincts record books were marked told. The d. C. Commissioner charged with overseeing the police, john russell young, officially condoned the practice noting his apathy regarding black on black crime in impoverished neighborhoods was shared by the public and most of the press. Police superintendent Robert Barron refused to do that before the Senate Hearing in response to the newspaper report. Instead admitting confidential files had been used since 1941 and prior to that other methods were used, his statement in the without any elaboration suggests his audience understood him well. What he meant was before 1941, the police employed other methods to deny black Residents Police services. Police operations remained untouched after the expos of pocketing. Is re skepticism regarding chief barons leadership or commissioner youngs oversight since neither of them seem exercised that the npd discarded half of the crime reported. But they remained in office. Also the reliance on tools of social control, namely hundreds upon hundreds of the arrests of africanamericans made each year under the citys disorderly statutes especially as those made when an officer ordered a civilian to move on and if he did not do so at a pace or in the fashion the officer desired he was subject to arrest. These discretionary tools and parrot the police to such a degree that in some neighborhoods, officers could arrest who they wanted when they wanted. Only a few years later the npd came under scrutiny once again this time as the result of coinciding senate and department of justice investigations. The focus on narcotics enforcement and Senate Investigators quickly narrowed their focus to Police Department h h carter, head of the narcotics club. On march 17th, the day of his appearance before the Senate Finally arrived not withstanding the distracting reports of the lieutenants ill health and recent hospitalization. Two local television stations carried the Program Alive and radio stations agreed to broadcast the interview in the evening primetime hours. As with the hearings on organized crimes, an era of anticipation buzz around the committee rooms. Senators confronted carter with his own financial records and asked him to explain 4,000 in deposits to one of his checking account. He claimed he could not recollect making them. Senator neely or miti, such a lapse in memory to be highly suspicious and blurted lieutenant, i am going to probably break the intention of secrecy but i think i should tell you an executive session in this committee will hear evidence of payment after payment of cash that was made to you by dope peddlers for protection. This astonishing accusation shocked some viewers but not others. For many black d. C. Residents the remarkable thing about the testimony was not Police Corruption but the willingness to discuss it publicly. One africanamerican lawyer interviewed admitted the hearings had brought to light when a large segment of the population had known all along. The charges against harper were vindicated the next day when imprisoned dope peddler James Roberts appeared before the senate. The calm demeanor presented some investigators and the public with a picture of a thoughtful if not remorseful man. As he quietly told his story of dealing in illicit drugs and his interactions with d. C. s narcotics squad and at the time. From 1947 to 1949 lieutenant car received 18,000 to 20,000 in payoffs, always in small bills and always paid on a first of the month often by wrapping cash in a newspaper and dropping it in a squad car. So these revelations prompted personnel changes at the top, little about policing in the district changed in subsequent years even as lawenforcement itself underwent a professional is Asian Movement that demanded more training for recruits, new Performance Measures from officers and new methods of bureaucratic oversight. Decade later president Lyndon Johnson was still smarting from criticism he had received from republican challenger Barry Goldwater that johnson had led district descending to a chaos of crime. Despite his triumphant election returns the president was keen to appoint a special committee on crime in the District Of Columbia in july 1965. The task force and a good part of its time assessing the work of the d. C. Metropolitan Police Department and concluded its analysis with the stock admonition, no one in the District Of Columbia should underestimate the goal of experience and misunderstanding which separates police from poor citizens. To form the base of its belief recommendations the commission recruited the International Association of chiefs of police to recommend structural changes to the npd and a professional association was by now well accustomed to its role as expert consulted to speed the transition to a more professional police culture. The organizational trend that most jumped out when it looked at d. C. s police was the fact that it had one of the highest resignation rates in the city, in the country. The reason for the police texas became the subject of contentious debate as well as a roszak test of police and Race Relations in the city. For its part the i ac be focused on internal failures that would foster discontent. The building was sold. Equipment was inadequate, patrol cars antiquated. Even uniforms varying shades and for haphazardly war and. Officers even had to purchase handcuffs at their own expense. The president s commission took the findings to heart but also made some remarks independent of the group for a city that was known mostly black, the mostly white police force struck the commission as anachronistic at best and antagonistic at worst. Frequent instances of arrest, the commission reported, many unjustified, have been issued under the failure to move on provision of the Disorderly Conduct statute and this spoked resentment in expanding black neighborhoods. Moreover the commission noted the majority of complaints regarding Excessive Force filed with the trial board found some type of transgression. Aggressive and unjustified use of force whether it was a rest, this is the brutality or both lead black residents in impoverished areas to view police in the words of the commission not as protectors but as a partisan aggressivest social order. Theres a psychological setting to brutality as one d. C. Activist observed, and charged atmosphere that meant even routine interactions could escalate into a standoff between police and local residents. The commission concluded it was common sense and perhaps even necessary to preserve the peace to hire and promote more africanamericans to the npd. Congressional response to the president s commissions findings was quick and emphatic, not content to rely on the i acp congress employs its own expert analysts, malachi hardy, long time assistance to the bureau of narcotics, perhaps his most trusted lieutenant. The bureaus racial bias youth and printed a brand of panic was projected to the District Of Columbia. The above command eliminating lens for the southern democrats in charge of District Affairs in congress including basil whitman, the North Carolina congressman placed in charge of the special subcommittee on the metropolitan Police Department. In hearings that reviewed the report he dismissed efforts as a contribution from outsiders of varying expertise in the police feel. Is agreeing with the commission insisted recruiting blacks to the force was not the answer, such efforts amounted to little more than speculation in numbers. For him, morale was low because washington streets were crawling with felons. For this reason the committee should watch closely any attempt made to weaken the moveon provision. Sometimes there application can be abrasive readmitted but the alternative to non enforcement may well be a curfew with soldiers and bayonets on every block. This depiction of the district as teetering on the presses of chaos sustain southern congressmen in their view that nothing needed to change in the metropolitan Police Department. Presiding members of the Congressional Committee found no basis for, nor does it see any probably expectation that police reorganization can bring about any substantial improvement to d. C. Indeed reforms were regarded as an effort to soften the departments approach to Law Enforcement leaving criminals, in the words of malachi hardy, and what of justice. Some members of congress objected characterizing his intervention as one of defensiveness that in courage the unfortunate feelings of isolation and fear that already haunted the npd. Congressman adams pointed out the reforms suggested by the commission were attuned to efforts elsewhere. Part and parcel of a recognizable drive to bring down the time and modernize the department in less than 25 years as he put it through the use of money and techniques, he said this is what were trying to do in d. C. The congressman went on to make a crucial observation, the courts in d. C. Were overcrowded and the judicial system was literally at the point where it is burning out from the overgrow. Instead endorsing the contention d. C. Police demand including its new chief John Leighton the departments structure and its methods were fine. This is not realestate problem, he responded to congressman adams, it was the streets of d. C. That where the problem. The officer originally brought in to clean of the narcotics unit in the 1915s had subsequently gone on to the department at internal investigation units. Widely viewed as beyond reproach was a comfortable choice as police chief in the sense that not corrupt himself he had not turned the department upsidedown wedding out corruption either. When Lyndon Johnson heard the d. C. Commissioner selected to run the nbd just days after the president s phenomenal 1964 election triumph he was irate no doubt because he had not been consulted. Lin was content to run the department as his predecessor had done and johnson who had clear ambition to reformminded theyre more authority over the mtv finally resorted to circumventing the new chief host 67 johnson appointed walter washington, the last president ial appointment to the d. C. Commission and the first to be designated mayor commissioner and later under home rule the citys first elected mayor. Upon appointment as mayor commissioner washington Brian Patrick murphy, former chief of police in syracuse, new york as director of public safety. Murphy launched an aggressive recruitment drive to hire blacks to the npd and implemented the various recommendations of johnsons client commission. In 1968 he orchestrated a leadership change selecting a technocrat with progressive leanings, jerry wilson, to replace lane as nbd police chief. With or without the help of Congress Johnson showed real determination in his efforts to professionalize d. C. s police force. The drive to recruit more blacks to the npd and the fact that africanamericans comprise more and more of the agency converged to produce a number of tragic episodes that initially only serve to emphasize the racism that pervaded the department. Good number of africanamericans who joined the nbd vote commissions report either quit the force or retired early as a result of frustrations encountered on the job. One such retired officer, Charles Dickson was ordered to move along by two white officers who when dissatisfied with his response arrested him and beat him. Cents incidents of harassment of former or offduty Police Officers balkanized blacks on the force. As Washington Police columnist William Raspberry reported in 1966 flag officers once shrugged off this abuse but now that it is happening to other officers they want action. Africanamerican cops working undercover felt particularly aggrieved, frequently mistaken for fleeing criminals or Street Corner men they worked in grave danger. One was shot and killed by a Uniformed Police officer in 1968, shortly drafter the npd adopted the practice of rotating the universal cap that all undercover cops would wear on the streets to alert other police of their covert identity. These tragic encounters helped to make manifest the necessity of change in the organization and culture of the npd. They delayed the transformation but could not halt it. Bit by bit activists in court affected change. In 1968 the d. C. Circuit court declared the citys vagrancy violations unconstitutionally vague comments arrests under that charge drop off precipitously so much so that by 1972 they were virtually nonexistent according to police reports. In summer of 1968 the npd issued a clarification on its police rules on arrest under the guidance of the department of justice. This particular at on modified criteria for disorder arrests stating explicitly the mere refusal to move on at the order of a Police Officer was not sufficient to constitute a breach of peace. So there would be no confusion the next year the npd decided disorder arrests should be subject to a pretrial hearing, a bureaucratic review meant to discourage officers from relying on disorder arrests except in very specific instances like riots. By the 1970s the one standard tools of policing in the district vagrancy and disorder statutes, were all but extinct. Police officers had traditionally used boats to wrest public drunkenness. Lyndon johnson and d. C. Crime commission observed in 1965 the and the rest for public drunkenness totaled three times the number percapita than any significant size city. This rigorous arrest policy enforced agents for some reasons not least because the u. S. Court of appeals ruling in 1966 which held that a person could not be arrested for public drunkenness if he was an alcoholic since inebriation was the result of a disease and not a voluntary act of a person in possession of his faculties. Combined with the controversy over vagrancy and disorder a rests the mtv within the span of five years went from an Enforcement Agency that made thousands upon thousands of arrests for drunken this to one that made hardly any at all. In the same time, arrests for possession of narcotics surged. Before 1960, the department of corrections sentenced an average of 50 apps attic to jail 3year. This number grew at a gradual pace that 1966 the figure was roughly 150 annually. Drug war historian clarence loser in points out three years later the average had risen to 1400. Likewise in february 1969 parrot when addicts comprise 15 of the citys jail population. That august added 45 of the same. Arrest could be made for position and distribution that thanks to congressional augmentation of the federal program arrests could be made against anyone deemed to be in the city same area of drug activity. By the 1970s it was clear the federal drug laws applied the lease with some things that were once afforded to them the of the now discarded vagrancy statutes. For the npd the transition to a Drug Enforcement regime was a halting one. Narcotics arrests had long been the exclusive province of the narcotics squad. Throughout most of the 1960s emt the assigned 21 putin to the squad, and an impressive force that was further augmented in 1959 to 31. As a rule, patrol officers were expected to refer drug cases to the narcotics squad, something they really did a fully to spare themselves a nuisance. Over time like other urban Police Departments the mtv came under pressure to train more of its patrol officers to identify with drugs and makes interactive. When marylands senator joseph tidings observe the narcotics problem in the 1970s he learned from the new police chief that those control unit and the narcotics squad increase the number of drug arrests and addition more and more officers had completed training with the bureau of narcotics and dangerous drugs later renamed the Drug Enforcement agency says that they would be better equipped to enforce a list of drug laws. Washington d. C. Chief wilson joined other Big City Police chiefs in signing a pact in 1970 that formalized the division of labor. The bureau would concentrate on International Trafficking and interstate violators and the mtv or any other designated local police force would address local dealers. Another source of pressure on the mtv to adopt more robust Drug Enforcement approach was the symbol but important fact that illicit drugs were more widely available on the streets of the district. Washingtons chief wilson noted a proportionate and correlated rise in drug and robbery arrests in the late 1960s as reducing creased, users supply their habit. Robberies accounted for 3 of all offenders in 1956, 13 in 69, 25 in 1973. Likewise narcotics violators constitute 3 of offenders in 1966, 6 in 69, 10 in 1973. This latter trend was of more interesting given the estimate that heroin use had dropped off sharply after 1969 as he himself suggested the arrest and subsequent conviction rates for drug violators reflect upon Police Enforcement tactics at least as much as it did upon the incidence of drug use. To be sure the transition to narcotics enforcement and adult effect was a story that unfold in a turbulent time. Nevertheless it was clear that where congress had established the principle of stiffer criminal penalties for illicit narcotics in the 1950s there was only by the end of the 1960s that local Law Enforcement stood ready to arrest and enforce the statute to any appreciable degree. And despite a surge in drug use across the spectrum of users mainly africanamericans to live in the innercity and consumed heroin suppliers would be subject to that enforcement. Narcotics supplies from diversions like our present day crisis in awe pico dont use or other kind of illicit drug use like abuse of amphetamines or garbage what presented similar problems but by and large they were not the subject of concerted lawenforcement. The demographics of the illicit drug market remained diverse but the targets of counter narcotics efforts did not. Once established as a Credible Police tactics Drug Enforcement did not alters the operations. Overflowing generalsjailed for the districts hand and almost by necessity the city set up one of the first and most cecil networks in maintenance. Despite good results support for the clinics declined precipitously throughout the 1970s. In my book idea the reason for this is treatment offered none of the broader utility to be exercised as state power of punishment in the different components of the modern drug war resolve certain governing dilemma is whether it be policing the inner city or justifying u. S. Intervention in the developing world and these everyday tasks of the drug war sustain estate project which otherwise and by every reasonable indicator be defined as the failure. With drugs as a prop d. C. Has often served as the federal government stage. This pattern should trouble every american. I argue in my book that the drug war has been seized upon to advance of the ridge and as of the state both at home and abroad. This propensity to use the drug war as a means to achieve this ends cheese citizens out of an honest tally of modern u. S. Power. In this with the District Of Columbia served not only as the proving ground as the drug war, it foreshadowed its governing equations. Citizens of the Nations Capital watched a congressional gannett to advance punishment foisted upon them without recourse to the ballot box. Similarly as a country the United States now supports the workings of an International Drug war, the dimensions and in committees of which cannot be fully known or recovery. In some sense when it comes to the drug war all americans live in d. C. As an author it was important to me to talk in this library which through its great work helps to tell the story and many others. By having this discussion here i believe we are saying something about who we are. For all that has been lost, for the sacrifices and struggles, acknowledged here today and for the great many more that were not mentioned which still shape our lives and our world i want to say that this is still a community that has the compassion, the courage and an abiding hunger for justice so that it is able to ask the question who do we want to be . When we claim our sovereign rights for Self Governance and voting representation in congress we are simultaneously helping to end the great injustice called the drug war. Conversely and by the same logic when we insist on methods other than punishment to deal with Substance Abuse and addiction we are reclaiming our rights, dignity and freedom, justice and power, historical redress and future aspirations, advanced to get there or not at all. Thank you for coming this evening. [applause] does anyone have any questions . A little closer to him. I think it is for television. I dont think it is for the room. I will repeat the question. I tried to be volume. When marion barry was arrested on drug charge, what appeared in the headline was wellknown, mostly in terms of the reaction to it of senior figures. In your work did you come across any indication how the rankandfile and Police Department and washington bureaucracy, marion barry was arrested and possibilities of how that came about . It was a set up. I did it all, in 1973, which runs several lives if i can call it that. Marion barry does appear in my book as a head in washington d. C. As one of the most vocal critics of the npd during an important time and that is one life he had. And his first term as mayor of and the downtown that we see every day now is really a credit to his leadership and his kind of entrepreneurial political spirit and of course there is the other life of marion barry that we hear about all the time, the ones that are used to deride him and very often he makes comments himself that expose him to that direction. I got the sense from watching the documentary that rankandfile people were extremely disappointed and almost heartbroken because this is a man who commanded tremendous respect throughout this city and still does and i still have respect for many of the things he has done. That was my own sense of someone elses work. I did not go that way in my own book. Two questions. One is the time frame that you pick, why you chose 4073 and why you chose the subject in general, how did you become exposed to and go on the path that you did . Thank you for both of those questions. Is not an obvious choice of a subject for me. I chose it when i was working on my first book, world war ii gee i bill and doing research and i read an oral history of an important official in the Truman Administration and in his previous professional live sea had been a lawyer for the pharmaceutical industry in the United States and i was reading his oral history and he said something which i thought was amazing, he said in the 1930s the United States had the most revered system of narcotics control in the world and i thought to myself that is not the case now. That set of the chronology pretty well, what had happened in the interim such that we could go to the league of nations and say this is how we do it and in the un where the object of derision and criticism, how did we go from this system to be system that is seen worldwide as perpetuating mass in justice. That set the terms of the chronology for me. I have a question about your research. How easy was it to do research on this topic . Of course it was easy. It wasnt easy. The bureau of narcotics records are not classified for the most part but they are also not available for research. And fda records, a weird interval of time. The book is not just about d. C. But a weird interval in time where the food and Drug Administration is in charge of abuse epidemic involving amphetamines and barbiturates. I saw special access requests for those records as well. Once i got hold of the records, it was easier from that point on. The records told a real story. The narration of the drug war especially throughout this time period and to do with the bureau of narcotics had a lot to do prior with International Schemes that were concocted and are we supporting anticommunist and all these kinds of things and i thought to myself the day to day administrative work of the bureau of narcotics, what they did on a daytoday basis and how they depicted addiction and alyssa narcotics use has a lot more to say about why we have a drug war today than any given conspiracy so i am going to go through those kinds of more prosaic records just thinking that will yield more. So once i have the records, i thought the administrative records in particular told the story and it was easy from that point on. I am joking about it a little bit but i do work in washingtoneyea room to work on a police story today, the Washington Post covered it and a columnist William Raspberry who died recently also occasionally coveted but nothing like the consistency of the washington dailies which are no longer in print and i the only access up there. That was extremely helpful. When you say washington daily what do you mean . Name them . I honestly cannot. Washington post star, Something Like that the big paper. They are not historians like myself love a particular Research Tool called historical newspapers on line. We need for joy that it exists but smaller papers are not on it so i just want you to put fingers and selling a lot right upstairs in the washington room that i would not find elsewhere unless someone happened to have a relevant collection of clippings like that. The dc gazette. Other . What kind of challenges to the metropolitan police rankandfile say about an effort or movement to professionalize the police force . There was a mass exodus to the suburbs and the suburban Police Department kicked off a lot of the d. C. Police force. A lot of the challenge was faced by the rankandfile by just leaving, joining Prince George it sounds familiar. Joining Prince Georges or other surrounding areas and that was another issue. I did mention in my talk but that was another issue the Crime Commission struggled with which was how to cap officers leaving. It was an extremely tense time. I try to be more nuanced in the book. D. C. Police felt when they entered into for black neighborhoods for the first time to actually offer services and not to pick up a broad or harass somebody or caller somebody who committed a crime against a white person or a middleclass black person, when they first entered these neighborhoods for the first time they pattern themselves on the back as being more progressive than that which had come before them and you can see where they are coming from. Offering Police Services for the first time. At the same moment they are doing that, they are behaving with such Discretionary Authority and such brutality that engenders this response in the local community so there was a disconnect and you almost get the sense throughout the 1960s that you have two groups of people speaking to different language. They inhabit the same place but are speaking to different language and the rankandfile Police Officers felt would you complaining about . We are here. Compared to what had come before we are more progressive sell it was a difficult for them to reconcile the communitys conversation with their own perception. The book is very interdisciplinary. I didnt just year history or politics. What other research do you hope your book will spur that others will do . I hope somebody take a closer look at the district because there is lots and lots of material i didnt speak about today. I think the story comes to closer inspection. For starters this was in the discipline of history. I hope people take the district much more seriously. There is already great work, a great book called an example for all the land which is about washington d. C. During the civil war and reconstruction years. It is not commonly known as the we had our own radical reconstruction in washington d. C. And that radical reconstruction was gradually attacked by other washington d. C. Residents such that we presaged the fault of reconstruction in washington d. C. That is an example of the kind of book people could be writing every decade of district history. District history is relevant in the region but it is relevant for the whole country in terms of how the federal government justifies its power and what kinds of innovations it is trying to impose and so i hope people take district history even more seriously than has been done and there is great work. In other disciplines i guess i am hoping that across the broad sweep of disciplines that currently are interested in the drug war, that would be legal, sociological especially, criminology, i am hoping people come to me, come with me and live in this land of talking about power and the state because i notice as i talk about this book and had interviews about this book people are talking about culture and cultural discourse and addiction and that is all important and all those things are in my book but first and foremost the drug boar is a state project. I want people to have a dialogue with me and my work and other kinds of work that are similar to across the various disciplines that takes the state seriously. On that, you trace the congresss heavily southern influence, policy, that would apply to almost anything, depending on the balance of power and what is the agenda because this could be read as discrimination, pick what you will to be the point of attack and you could probably trace that trajectory from one specific period of time depending on one to another but i was interested to know what was the balance of power with representatives in congress and the north, you talk a lot about the southern representatives on policy and power and imposing that . One of the reasons i do that is we are dealing with democratic power. Big diaz in political democrats. Within that coalition in both houses of congress, southerners sustain an incredible leadership street and the reason for that is they get reelected over and over again so they are able to build their seniority and make a claim. The most serious congressional leaders almost all of them, not quite all but almost all of them, all of the people who are part of my story are southerners and the most powerful men in congress because they are able to accrue such seniority, what looks like on paper and landslides that is really an artifact of widespread Voter Suppression in the south. That is why southerners appear so consistently and so consistently important in this coin. I mention him quickly but senator tightings deserves a long discussion than what i gave him today. He is from maryland. Some people in maryland will remind you and that they are below the masondixon land. He is from maryland is the biggest supporter of the method clinic, an interesting episode in nearly 1970s for typings tried to offer the method on clinics in the sense of a calendar to the southerner imposition of counter narcotics Law Enforcement that data is a battle between north and south in terms of vision for the district but the missing piece in that no matter who it is is the district itself and its own representation and its own voice. Not sure i can ask this clearly. You make a strong point about the district being without selfgovernment at the state level. So all other major cities where there are a big drug problems that have evolved in the same period of time do have state governments but your point, what i am thinking of is we are the clearest kind of example of the federal power because we dont have the states but two questions. Number one, suppose we get state government, suppose we have such a history we only had selfgovernment, a mayor, since 1974, so we have such a history of evolving very lamely in the last 30 years, so we got selfgovernment, what would be different, but then other cities have had the same problem with state government. How have they done better . Let me take the second question first. Throughout much of my book until 1970 when police chief sign a pact with the bureau of narcotics and dangerous drugs, the bureau of narcotics is the main man on the scene when it comes to narcotics enforcement. The urban Police Department has narcotics squads and those narcotics squads in some cases outnumber the bureau of narcotics present in that city which is new york, cant think of another example. Not only at this point, but they are both parties equally corrupt. You are dealing with a very weird and warped atmosphere. Also important to the enforcement also important to the story is the federal government when it wrote its drug regime, or later in 1970 a controlled substance act it would encourage if not prompt individuals states to write their uniform narcotics code in conformance. That is another way in which federal initiatives and federal desires were in simulated in to the various states and locales. Let me take the first question now. What it would look like is the city we are trying to build right now. We have a city that has legalized medical marijuana. We legalized in the 1990s by an overwhelming majority but congress for ten years forbade the District Of Columbia from implementing that vote and only recently has that structure been lifted so internally very recently have we developed even just a system, a Regulatory Framework for american medical marijuana and i am on my mobile medical marijuana tweet feed and if that is to be believed then they will open within weeks, if not days. That is one way in which things are changing and many of you know that Councilmembers Marion Barry and Council Member tommy walsh recently talked about their desire to introduce legislation to decriminalize marijuana. That is what the world would look like, the world we are very much trying to build for the last ten years. I talked about it, i support legalization of marijuana and the conclusions, i also want to draw attention to other kinds of drug reform because for me the drug war itself has so much class bias written into it that i would hate for drug reform to make it and have a similar class bias written into it so i am trying to talk about and emphasize other things like decriminalization of narcotics, more treatment, this enforcement, and their ways. Speewun had a radically other way of dealing with narcotics. We can do it again. We can go back to a Regulatory Framework and i hope that is the really thing i hope this book just by putting these tools in front of people and seeing how they work and putting them in motion i hope it expands not just peoples historical imagination but their political imagination for the present day. That looks like it. Do i want to thank you all again for coming . [applause] we did like to hear from you. Tweet us your feedback, twitter. Com booktv. Everyone cares about Health Insurance but it is more than that. It is the final nail in the coffin of the constitutional system. Obamacare is an attack on the Commerce Clause. The purpose of the Commerce Clause was to promote commerce between the states, not to kill commerce, not to kill competition, it would be the anti Commerce Clause. The Commerce Clause was to promote private property rights, trade and commerce. In pennsylvania they were fighting with each other, blocking each other, we got to fix this. The Commerce Clause was pro trade probe commerce, the Commerce Clause, the notion that the Commerce Clause could be used by congress to compel individuals to do something against their will or their best interests and particular need to force a person to enter into a private contract with a private company, the private company forced to offer a policy that it doesnt want to offer and the individual forced to pay for it and the company is forced to provide it. That is so absurd, that is so antithetical to our founding and as all of you know, that will be the end because then the government can force us to do all kinds of things we dont want to do and that will be the precedent for. Sunday best selling author, lawyer, Reagan Administration official and reagan radio personality mark levin for three hours at noon eastern, booktvs in depth on cspan2. [applause] thank you, john, its great to be with you today and with the other good folks at heritage, jennifer marshall, senator jim