We practice blue and white collar Criminal Defense, Drunk Driving/ DUI/ DWI and Immigration law in state and federal courts throughout Maryland, Washington, D.C., and Virginia, including the counties of Montgomery, Fairfax County, Arlington, Prince George's, Alexandria, Howard, Frederick, Anne Arundel, Prince William, and Loudoun.

By Jon Katz

The Vietnam War and Iraq War II summon quite different recreational drug-use images by American soldiers. During the Vietnam war, such drug use was rampant. In Iraq, it appears drug use by soldiers is also rampant, but apparently has shifted to drugs prescribed by military doctors and possibly drugs available over the counter in Iraq that require a prescription in the United States. Beyond that, some American soldiers have used illegal drugs in the hope that a dirty urine test will avert their redeployment to Iraq, even at the risk of a court martial. 

Drugs are big business, as are the wars against drugs. Ironically, rampant illegal drug use is critical for preserving the very jobs of thousands of people in the criminal justice system. If drugs were legalized today, or if everyone stopped using them, budgets would be hugely slashed for police, prosecutors, jails, court-appointed lawyers, private lawyers, judges, probation and parole officers, drug lab chemists, the military, and the government contractors who support the drug war. Thousands of people would go looking for other work at lower pay, as a result. Governments would lose fat profits from seizing and selling houses, cars and cash allegedly related to drug crimes.

Today, staying drug-free is a common condition for probation or parole, with alcohol abstinence often a condition of drunk driving probation. Unfortunately, too many judges and parole authorities revoke bail, probation, and parole -- and order jail -- for even a few dirty urines or one drug possession conviction, when alcohol and drug addiction are more complex than enabling a person on bail or a probationer to stop cold turkey just by being ordered to go cold turkey. 

Court dockets often move so quickly that I get a sense that too often too many people see criminal defendants as a commodity or widget to move through the system, instead of fixing attention on the defendant as a whole human being who deserves more consideration and compassion before being saddled with an unjust bond (or bond revocation) or being warehoused in prison for an unjustly long sentence. 

Criminal defense lawyers have a critical obligation to humanize criminal defendants at every turn, and in motivating judges, juries, and prosecutors to have compassion for criminal defendants. An important part of this approach is to understand what motivates people to use illegal drugs. The motivations are multi-faceted, running from marijuana use that is no more damaging than alcohol use other than that its illegality brings sanctions that alcohol use does not and brings the downsides that prohibition often brings, to self-medication either because the user is without health insurance or because prescription drugs do not seem to give the same relief or because the user does not realize that s/he is self medicating rather than using drugs recreationally, and the list goes on. 

Drugs and war, then, goes beyond drug use during conventional war, to wars on drugs, and people's internal wars that lead them to abuse of drugs (the legal and illegal kind) and to differing views on the drug wars. Jon Katz.

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Jon Katz, P.C. advocates for justice often in the most heated of arenas, whether it be before initially-skeptical juries, judges firing off questions at a machine-gun clip, or such highly-charged settings as the O'Reilly Factor. For a taste of our advocating style, click our recent Fox News interview below (O'Reilly Factor, Jan. 25, 2006, and rebroadcast during Super Bowl Sunday halftime), and click here for more news appearances. 

Click above, and view with Windows Media Player. Rebroadcast courtesy Fox News.

JON KATZ, P.C.

JON KATZ, P.C.
8720 Georgia Ave., Suite 703

Silver Spring, Maryland 20910

(301) 495-7755
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jon[at]katzjustice[dot]com