Their Honors were gathered in Newport for a judicial conference, and Firing

Line took advantage of the fact to ask what the War on Drugs looks like from the bench.

The short answer is: a mess. Legislators, as Judge Marvin points out, often pass laws for

political motives rather than with a reasoned assessment of their probable results. Tough

laws on marijuana, Judge Scott points out, tend to increase the price of the drug, which in

turn draws more people into the business of selling. Attempts to impose uniformity of

sentencing ignore the possibility, as Judge Puglia points out, that in a given pair of cases

in which the current circumstances are the same, "Jim may come before the judge with a

lot of baggage that John doesn't have." An engrossing and highly informative trio of

sessions.