Drug Kingpins are Evil. Prohibition Profiteers are Worse.

by Will Grigg
Mar. 20, 2013

Ten former high-ranking officials of the Drug Enforcement Administration recently signed a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee criticizing the Obama administration for its supposed lack of zeal in enforcing marijuana prohibition. According to that letter, “Our nation’s laws and international commitments under the federal CSA and as a signatory to the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs… and the United Nations Convention Against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic and Psychotropic Substances … remain effective and unchanged.”

Among the signatories were Robert L. Dupont, who headed the National Institute on Drug Abuse under Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, and Peter Bensinger, who was head of the DEA during most of that decade. Today, those former drug warriors run a company called Bensinger, DuPont & Associates, which specializes in workplace drug testing.

Since they have a financial interest in marijuana prohibition, it’s reasonable to surmise that DuPont and Bensinger aren’t acting on purely idealistic motives. No decent person has anything but contempt for Drug Kingpins – but it’s difficult to see how Prohibition Profiteers are any less contemptible.