Senator Webb's drug law reform bill

Webb Crime Bill Gets Unlikely Support

Webb couches the effort in fairly straightforward terms. "Let's start with a premise that I don't think a lot of Americans are aware of. We have five percent of the world's population; we have 25 percent of the world's known prison population," Webb said on the Senate floor when introducing the bill.

"There are only two possibilities here: either we have the most evil people on earth living in the United States; or we are doing something dramatically wrong in terms of how we approach the issue of criminal justice."

...chasing after drugs "has burned up so much of our law enforcement energy and money that we can't adequately focus on the areas that I'm really concerned about, a big part of that being transnational gang violence in this country. You don't have to go to the Texas border to see it. You can go to Fairfax County [in Virginia] and take a look at MS-13 and how they operate. So we need to take a holistic approach on this."

Caller after caller argued on behalf of legalization; Rehm noted that the subject is "always the first question." Webb didn't shy away from it. "It's a very real question. It's a very legitimate question," he told one caller, noting that the past three presidents and more than half of Americans have used illegal drugs at some point in their lifetimes.

"At some level, most people do enjoy their beer or whatever it is,"