June 21, 2008 8:36AM 

# Jim Webb, Drug War Peacenik? 

By [David Boaz](https://www.cato.org/people/david-boaz) 

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I’ve just posted [a piece at the *Guardian*](http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/jun/20/uselections2008.race) on Sen. James Webb’s Scots-Irish ethnic populism. But he’s got his good side, too. A Virginia newspaper [reports today](http://www.dailypress.com/news/local/dp-local_webbdrugs_0620jun20,0,1954817.story):

> Virginia Sen. Jim Webb began building a public case Thursday to change the nation’s drug laws to stress treatment over incarceration for nonviolent offenders.
> 
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> The freshman Democrat held a hearing of the Joint Economic Committee to solicit testimony from prosecutors and scholars who argued that the decades-long emphasis on incarceration has been costly and ineffective.

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