Third 2020 Presidential Debate: on Drugs

Joe Biden: 1980s drugs bill, passed by all 100 Senators, was a mistake

BIDEN: One of the things is that in the '80s we passed 100 percent, all 100 senators voted for a bill on drugs and how to deal with drugs, it was a mistake. I've been trying to change since then particularly the portion on cocaine. That's why I've been arguing that in fact we should not send anyone to jail for a pure drug offense, they should be going into treatment across the board, that's what we should be spending money. And that's why I set up drug courts which were never funded by our Republican friends. They should not be going to jail for a drug or an alcohol problem; they should be going into treatment. I think the American people have now seen that it was a mistake to pass those laws relating to drugs, but they were not in the Crime Bill.

Joe Biden: Trump is for more in jail; I am for drug rehab, not jail

BIDEN: This is a guy who said, "The problem with the crime bill, there's not enough people in jail." This is a guy who in the Central Park Five, five innocent black kids, he continued to push for the death penalty [referring to a 1989 case in which Trump took out a full-page newspaper ad calling for punishment]. He commuted 20 people's sentences. We commuted over 1,000 sentences. The federal prison system was reduced by 38,000 people under our administration. I'm offering $20 billion to states to change their laws to eliminate minimum mandatories and set up drug courts. No one should be going to jail because they have a drug problem. They should be going to rehabilitation, not to jail.

TRUMP: He's been in government 47 years, he never did a thing, except in 1994, when he did such harm to the Black community, and he called them super predators. Criminal justice reform, Obama and Joe didn't do it. If you had to see the arms I had to twist to get that done.