AG Holder Resigns, Reconfirms Support of Drug Policy Reforms

(WASHINGTON D.C.) - Justice Department officials reported this morning that Attorney General Eric Holder is announcing his resignation as soon as a successor is nominated and confirmed.

His career, which spanned five and a half years, has been marked by a number of drug policy reforms to which he reconfirmed his commitment in an interview with Katie Couric Tuesday.

In the interview, Holder said science should be the basis for making decisions about the scheduling of marijuana and that the sentencing of nonviolent drug offenders is a serious civil rights issue.

Marijuana is currently listed as a Schedule I drug, the most restrictive category, which limits the ability of researchers to study its therapeutic potential and of physicians to prescribe it for people with legitimate medical need. He also recognized racial disparities in drug sentencing as an obvious civil rights issue.

“Especially when you see that drug usage among African Americans [and] Hispanics is roughly the same as whites,” said Holder, “and yet you see Hispanics and African Americans going to jail for far longer and at a much greater rate... It's a civil rights issue.”

Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, an organization of criminal justice professionals dedicated to ending the war on drugs, praised the comments and held out hope that Holder’s successor would be even more committed to enacting real change.

“While it’s nice to see Holder making these statements and we applaud the reforms that he has effected during his time in office, I wish he had done more within his term to directly address these problems,” said Major Neill Franklin (Ret.), executive director of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition.

“I am hopeful his successor will recognize the war on drugs for what it is: the single biggest problem afflicting our criminal justice system and the central civil rights issue of our time.”

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John Atkins October 25, 2014 1:46 pm (Pacific time)

What most Americans do not know is that Holder was/is Jewish. It isn't hard to trace his Jewish roots to Barbados. Nor is it hard to align him with the Jewish mob. He is a member of organized crime and will always be so. And you can bet your bottom dollar that his replacement will, likewise, be a Jewish cohort. Good riddance.

Anonymous September 26, 2014 11:55 am (Pacific time)

Eric Holder’s legal mercies have typically been reserved for Clinton donors and unrepentant terrorists, but his decision yesterday to step down as attorney general of the United States after nearly six years is an act of mercy toward the American public. In an administration characterized by outsized misadventures — from the use of the nation’s tax bureau to suppress political opponents to the use of secret waiting lists at government hospitals that killed American servicemen — Eric Holder managed to make his Justice Department a source of special, nay, historic attention: In June 2012, Holder became the first U.S. attorney general to be held in contempt by the House of Representatives. He earned every vote. His preference was employing the law for political purposes; or, when necessary, dispensing with the law completely. The latter was largely Holder’s policy as chief legal counsel to the president. The duty of the attorney general has historically been to advise against unconstitutional or illegal activity; Holder instead regularly aided and abetted it. When the president unilaterally delayed deportations for a select group of illegal immigrants, Holder concocted specious legal rationales to justify it.

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