A Nation of Narcs

If you know someone who uses illegal drugs and don’t want to tell the police about it, Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wisconsin) wants to lock your ass up. One of the many odious provisions in his totalitarian drug bill creates a new offense for people who witness or learn about certain drug offenses and fail to inform the police within 24 hours and/or cooperate with law enforcement in going after the offender.

The bill mandates a two-year prison term for a person who fails to report a friend, relative or neighbor with kids who is storing or selling drugs. If you offer drugs to a person who has ever been enrolled in drug treatment, it’s a five-year minimum prison sentence. If you’re 21 and you give marijuana to someone under 18 (e.g., a college junior passing a joint to a freshman), that’s ten years in prison. Do it a second time and it’s life.

Sensenbrenner’s bill promotes the spread of HIV and Hepatitis C by making it a federal crime to give someone a sterile syringe in large swaths of the country that have not explicitly legalized needle exchange. He’ll also make sure we have to keep building more prisons for non-violent drug offenders by further restricting federal judges’ ability to issue sentences that don’t conform to mandatory minimum guidelines.

For someone who really seems to hate drugs, Sensenbrenner had no problem taking money from the National Beer Wholesalers Association ($6,000), the Wine and Spirits Wholesalers of America ($5,000), Anheuser-Busch ($5,000), Miller Brewing Company ($2,000) and Bacardi USA ($1,000) for his last campaign.

Naturally, this proposed assault on your freedom is being carried out in the name of “Protecting Your Children.” Just pray you don’t wind up having to narc on them one day.