A Conservative Who's Been Arrested

Imprisoned tycoon Conrad Black, like imprisoned tycoon Martha Stewart before him, has begun to see the light on drug policy. In an article excerpted by the London Times on Sunday, the former newspaper magnate, who is serving a six-and-a-half-year sentence for fraud in a federal prison in Florida, describes the war on drugs as "a trillion taxpayers' dollars squandered and 1m small fry imprisoned at a cost of $50 billion a year…as supply of and demand for illegal drugs have increased, prices have fallen and product quality has improved." He calls the plea bargain system "the barefaced exchange of incriminating testimony for immunity or a reduced sentence," involving "intimidation and suborned or extorted perjury, an outright rape of any plausible definition of justice."

[via the Western Standard]