4 ms·

Coke, shroom, acid, horse users (midfle class)in past decades were dealt the same zero tolerance policies with no effect, this surge is seeing a different respo

Coke, shroom, acid, horse users (midfle class)in past decades were dealt the same zero tolerance policies with no effect, this surge is seeing a different response in light of new acceptance of recreational drugs and in light of the failures of past policies. None of these drugs were the typically used by black communities. Crack cocaine was however, and special laws were passed in New York City to make the punishments for possesion / sale up to 118x greater than being charged for an equivalent amount of powdered cocaine. If you really are trying to move away from the racial lens of the drug war, how do you explain the racist pretenses under which prohibition laws were passed, as well as the targeting of minority communities in policing and prosecution? To my untrained and minority eye, compassion for drug users and the disgust with the drug war seem pretty well correlated with people seeing people they identify with going through the system.

mc32 11y ago
One of the points is we saw similar factions to drugs use surges in other countries. Latin America, Africa. If it was white on minority you'd think those countries would have implemented different tools or implemented the tools differently, but they did not. Go to Venezuela see how they treat drugs users.
- filoeleven 11y ago
  It's hard to look at what other countries do in response to drug addiction because the United States pushes very hard for them to join in on its drug war and maintain its status quo. This should be surprising to no one. Only in the past decade or so have people in other countries (Switzerland for example) really begun to push back and say, "this doesn't work, we have the data to show what does, we are going to do that instead."
  - mc32 11y ago
    I find it hard to believe Russia, China, Venezuela and others would take suggestions from the US with regard to internal politics. I think what happened was that drugs started to emerge from the underground shadows in the early 20th cent. People, politicians, etc. got spooked and being ignorant of how to best address (as we still are but understand some aspects better) took a hard stance against its proliferation into the general population. This was followed by any strong central government. Here and everywhere. It's odd to see this framed as if it only happened because it affected minorities when the same policies happened in other countries with no minorities and countries where minorities are the majority and make the laws.

mc32 11y ago

One of the points is we saw similar factions to drugs use surges in other countries. Latin America, Africa. If it was white on minority you'd think those countries would have implemented different tools or implemented the tools differently, but they did not. Go to Venezuela see how they treat drugs users.

filoeleven 11y ago
It's hard to look at what other countries do in response to drug addiction because the United States pushes very hard for them to join in on its drug war and maintain its status quo. This should be surprising to no one. Only in the past decade or so have people in other countries (Switzerland for example) really begun to push back and say, "this doesn't work, we have the data to show what does, we are going to do that instead."
- mc32 11y ago
  I find it hard to believe Russia, China, Venezuela and others would take suggestions from the US with regard to internal politics. I think what happened was that drugs started to emerge from the underground shadows in the early 20th cent. People, politicians, etc. got spooked and being ignorant of how to best address (as we still are but understand some aspects better) took a hard stance against its proliferation into the general population. This was followed by any strong central government. Here and everywhere. It's odd to see this framed as if it only happened because it affected minorities when the same policies happened in other countries with no minorities and countries where minorities are the majority and make the laws.