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Dortell Williams is an inmate at the Los Angeles County California State Prison in Lancaster, California. Dortell has been published in a number of community newspapers, including the San Francisco Bay View, The Final Call and The Los Angeles Sentinel. He mentors at-risk kids through San Francisco's The Beat Within and is an inside correspondent for Families to Amend Three Strikes. You can email Dortell at: dortellwilliams@yahoo.com. For more information about the Honor Yard Program, visit: www.prisonhonorprogram.org

A Pot Smoking Past

Commentary by Dortell Williams, recorded 1/03/08

1) 2:53 MP3 Radio Essay Radio Stations: Not Broadcast Quality

(Please be advised...given the conditions at the prison this recording may not be broadcast quality. You may want to broadcast it with an explanation, or broadcast a limited portions of it. We are in the process of re-recording this segment and will post it as soon as we can.)

A Pot-Smoking Past

Imagine, if you will, the governor of California, the Honorable Arnold Schwarzenegger, in one of many recent photo ops – statuesque, suited up in an olive-green suit perhaps; clean as new money.

Now picture the following: This same statesman who runs the 5th largest economy in the world; the most populous state in the nation, totin’ on a fat joint. I’m talkin’ real reefer, grade-A bud. The stuff that makes you feel ten pounds lighter no matter how much you actually weigh.

Okay, to be fair, the image I speak of is an old one, he wasn’t governor then. But fairness goes both ways. Politicians often mass label prisoners – eternally. You know, once a thief, always a thief. Once an addict, always an addict. Except when it comes to them, of course. Funny how that works, huh?

I’m talking about the 1977 documentary Schwarzenegger was featured in called, Pumping Iron.

That’s the Arnie millions of other Americans can relate to. Yet difference still comes into play. What Schwarzenegger could do in the open then – to the extent of flaunting his vice on camera – a bounty of others are going down for by the multitudes.

Drug arrests have more than tripled in the last 25 years, we’re at a record 1.8 million in 2005 alone. Of those arrests, 42.6 percent were for marijuana offenses – almost half. No wonder prison and jail populations have increased 1100 percent since 1980.

Now statesman Schwarzenegger rests comfortably atop the most massive and expensive prison system in the world. A system that is also the most broken.

A system so dysfunctional that not one, but two federal courts have recommended a reduction in the population. That’s in addition to an oversight panel he, himself, called for. Yet politics got in the way. His loyalty was to ideology instead of mercy, justice or morality. So he refused to release even fellow pot-smokers; non-violent drug addicts, who, if screened, could have relieved the pressure valve.

But here again is where the difference lies: The agenda of today’s aspiring politician is quite different from the compassionate, fun-loving body builder from back in the day.

Remember in 2003, when he sought the governorship, and made all those promises to fix the prison system? He was really just following the cue of the father of politricks, Michiavelli; who said: “The highest concern of a politician is to appear sympathetic to the people’s problems.”

At least he’s true to something.

Sources:

Antelope Valley Press (AP), “Report: Schwarzenegger Says Marijuana Not a Drug,” November 29, 2007: A15

Marc Mauer and Ryan S. King, The Sentencing Project