General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsNixon Policy Adviser Admits He Invented War On Drugs to Suppress ‘Anti-War Left and Black People’
I must have looked shocked. Ehrlichman just shrugged. Then he looked at his watch, handed me a signed copy of his steamy spy novel,The Company, and led me to the door.
Bold mine.
That drugs have been used as a tactic to marginalize and imprison peoples who are inconvenient, so to speak, for conservatives and neo-cons doesnt really come as a surpriseand not just because Nixon was a noted racist. The War on Drugs was a Nixon invention but, as Baum explains, its been useful for every president thereafter, and its function as a suppressive tool didnt exactly wanerecall the way it defined Reagans crack era, which was funneled into black neighborhoods by the CIA and then used to decimate an entire generation. Or the way relatively minor drug offenses are the main contributor to the current mass incarceration crisis, which disproportionately affects young black and brown men.
Adjacent to this, Baum lays out a clear and logical argument for the way legalization could work, using Portugal and the Netherlands as precedents, and advocating for it to remain in the control of the statea state-run monopolyrather than free markets, lest addiction become a market incentive the way it has with alcohol and cigarettes. (Of course, the deeper problem of racial prejudice remains strong in this scenario toothe legal weed market has already locked out people of color to a dramatic and unfair degree, and black people are much more likely to be arrested for pot-related offenses even in states where its legal.) Baum cites the way marijuana is regulated in his home state of Colorado (of course this dude is from Boulder), but also makes the case that weed is the path to killing the drug war, in its capacity as an admitted racist and antiliberal Nixonian tool:
The citizens of the U.S. jurisdictions that legalized marijuana may have set in motion more machinery than most of them had imagined. Without marijuana prohibition, the government cant sustain the drug war, Ira Glasser, who ran the American Civil Liberties Union from 1978 to 2001, told me. Without marijuana, the use of drugs is negligible, and you cant justify the law-enforcement and prison spending on the other drugs. Their use is vanishingly small. I always thought that if you could cut the marijuana head off the beast, the drug war couldnt be sustained.
http://www.itakelibertywithmycoffee.com/2016/03/nixon-policy-adviser-admits-invented-war-drugs-suppress-anti-war-left-black-people/
Dear Politicians: Stop with the fucking bullshit and legalize marijuana.
villager
(26,001 posts)There are interests -- special ones! -- to protect, y'know....
MerryBlooms
(11,776 posts)I don't know that I would call it, 'third way', as much as I would call it opportunistic pieces of shit making money off racist bogus laws. The support for this heinous shit isn't party exclusive.
villager
(26,001 posts)..."opportunistic pieces of shit."
Guy Whitey Corngood
(26,509 posts)MerryBlooms
(11,776 posts)Dont call me Shirley
(10,998 posts)MerryBlooms
(11,776 posts)Dont call me Shirley
(10,998 posts)Also retro-pardon those with non-violen drug charges. Maybe the people released from prison could be trained and hired into the jobs of deleting records and releasing inmates. Take the money which was used to house the prisoners to create real rehabilitation centers and job retraining.
Now that the right wing program of deceit and ciminality has been laid bare, retribution for those disaffected needs to happen now. This is a 45 year old crime, anyone involved in the initial creation of this "War On Drugs" needs to be prosecuted.
Releasing half their prisoners at once would put a dent in the ccc and geo profit base
MerryBlooms
(11,776 posts)a Federal prison transition program. Shelter/counseling/health care/job training/etc. I believe a true rehab approach has got to be cheaper and more beneficial than our current crappy system.
I'm also in the opinion that Joe Arpaio should be charged with crimes against humanity. That evil fucker should be behind bars.
Dont call me Shirley
(10,998 posts)workforce.
Arpaio is vile.
blm
(113,131 posts).
Blue_In_AK
(46,436 posts)this doesn't surprise me in the least. Even at the time, I sensed that this was true.
MerryBlooms
(11,776 posts)I've always thought the war on drugs was government bullshit. Add the for-profit prisons to the archaic laws... yeah, you, me and a whole lot of, 'crazy conspiracy nuts', were right on the money.
Rex
(65,616 posts)George H. Bush.
Thanks for the reminder.
Rex
(65,616 posts)which is just a guilty imo if not more since their only job is objectively reporting the news!
MerryBlooms
(11,776 posts)eagerly shuffled under the traditional politic rug of, 'We need to move forward', which is absolute rubbish.