I said at the time it sounded like a stray story from The Onion that had made its way into the real newspapers, but I have to admit being completely taken in by the student at UMass Dartmouth who claimed to have been visited at home by DHS agents after checking Quotations from Chairman Mao out of the university library. It turns out to have been a complete fabrication.
My apologies for credulously relaying what turned out to be false information.
Footnote All I can say in my own defense is: Who would have expected an undergraduate to be as inventively mendacious as George W. Bush or Bill O’Reilly? If that boy will just move hard right and learn to stick with his story rather than backing off when it’s exposed as untrue, I see a great career for him in politics or journalism.
Author: Mark Kleiman
Professor of Public Policy at the NYU Marron Institute for Urban Management and editor of the Journal of Drug Policy Analysis. Teaches about the methods of policy analysis about drug abuse control and crime control policy, working out the implications of two principles: that swift and certain sanctions don't have to be severe to be effective, and that well-designed threats usually don't have to be carried out.
Books:
Drugs and Drug Policy: What Everyone Needs to Know (with Jonathan Caulkins and Angela Hawken)
When Brute Force Fails: How to Have Less Crime and Less Punishment (Princeton, 2009; named one of the "books of the year" by The Economist
Against Excess: Drug Policy for Results (Basic, 1993)
Marijuana: Costs of Abuse, Costs of Control (Greenwood, 1989)
UCLA Homepage
Curriculum Vitae
Contact: Markarkleiman-at-gmail.com
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