Weyrich on Drugs

Folks have been asking me my thoughts on the passing of conservative movement pioneer Paul Weyrich. I haven't had much to say, other than that he seemed an exceptionally creepy guy. Thanks, however, to my friend Jeet Heer, I can report with a bit more specifics. Here's what Michael Lind wrote in his article "The Death of Intellectual Conservatism" in the the winter, 1995 issue of Dissent:

One aspect of conservative complaceny has been a growing toleration of the vicious lunatic fringe. the 'no enemies on the right' policy has been symbolized in recent years by annual conservative 'summits' in Washington --- small, private dinners bringing togehter people like Bill Buckley, Irving Kristol, Norman Podhoretz, Charles Krauthammer, and the far-right activist Paul Weyrich. At one of these meetings, Weyrich criculated a proposal (which I have held and read) that the federal government secretly lace illegal drugs with substances like rat poison and release them into the black market. Drug addicts would be more easily identified and punished, Weyrich reasoned, if, in public, they went into sudden convulsions. None of the other conservative leaders at the meeting walked out in protest, or insisted that this man be ostracized. On the contrary, at subsequent summits Weyrich has been welcomed by the same conservatives who criticize the NAACP for meeting with Farrakhan.