Vice President’s Son Booted From Navy Over Cocaine-Positive Drug Test

The Wall Street Journal has reported that Hunter Biden, the younger son of Vice President Joe Biden, has been discharged from the US Navy for a positive result for cocaine on a routine drug test.

Ensign Hunter Biden was commissioned in May of last year and was a public affairs officer in Norfolk, Virginia.  Upon his transfer to a new unit in June 2013, he was given a drug test that turned up positive for cocaine. Ensign Biden’s Navy career ended after just ten months as an officer when he was administratively discharged in February of this year.

“It was the honor of my life to serve in the U.S. Navy, and I deeply regret and am embarrassed that my actions led to my administrative discharge,” said Hunter Biden. “I respect the Navy’s decision. With the love and support of my family, I’m moving forward.”

Vice President Biden as a Senator in the 1980s was one of the leading proponents of the strict “War on Drugs” legislation of the Reagan Administration.  Biden coined the term “drug czar” to describe the position of director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy that Biden created.  The push for the use of mandatory minimum sentencing for drug crimes, RICO statutes for the prosecution of drug dealers, the IRS 280E code that thwarts legal marijuana businesses, and just about every evil of the drug war you can think of owes its genesis to Senator Joe Biden.

Still, this is not a cause for schadenfreude over Hunter Biden’s discharge; this is yet another case of pharmaceutical apartheid.  Had Hunter Biden simply spent his off hours altering his consciousness with alcohol down at the Officer’s Club, he’d still be an ensign.  If he needed a little something for energy and a mental adjustment, he could have gotten prescriptions for amphetamines and benzodiazepenes from the Navy hospital and he’d still be an ensign.  If he’d taken the risk of using a semi-legal untested synthetic, like bath salts, he’d still be an ensign.

And of course, if Hunter Biden were a black man’s son caught with cocaine on the streets, he’d be doing significant prison time.  If Hunter Biden weren’t a rich man’s son failing a workplace drug test, he’d be doing some significant time on the unemployment lines.  Hunter Biden isn’t the Biden who should be apologizing about drug policies in this country… it’s the Vice President.