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It could as easily be said: before they hit the street and became politicized, many drugs like Cocaine and Heroin were used in over the counter medicine and eve

It could as easily be said: before they hit the street and became politicized, many drugs like Cocaine and Heroin were used in over the counter medicine and even consumer products like Coca Cola to treat a variety of ailments. I'm not saying we shouldn't be researching these chemical's potential benefits to humanity now, but it's not like these drugs were clamped down on for no good reason. We saw what many of these drugs were doing to society, completely banned them to try and counter that, including Universities in the process, and over time we've begun to develop an understanding and different perspective on these drugs, and now the pendulum starts to swing in the opposite direction.

vibrato 8y ago
Is that what we did? Or did we notice brown and black people using drugs and decide that was the reason to put them in jail?
- rosser 8y ago
  "You understand what I'm saying? We knew we couldn't make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin. And then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders. raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did." — John Erlichman, domestic policy advisor to Richard M. Nixon
- crooked-v 8y ago
  > "You understand what I'm saying? We knew we couldn't make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin. And then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities," Ehrlichman said. "We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did."
  - rosser 8y ago
    Interesting that we both posted the same quote within seconds of one another.
    - raziel2701 8y ago
      Clearly you're both taking the same drugs!
mancerayder 8y ago
What was LSD and psilocybin doing 'to society' when Nixon scheduled them? What was MDMA doing when that happened later? We need to fish for reasons, we can't just take policy as gospel. The same arguments were made against cannabis, and look how the tide has turned.
- senorjazz 8y ago
  causing people not to want to fight a war? To stop doing what they were told? To question authority. bad bad things that cannot be allowed

vibrato 8y ago

Is that what we did? Or did we notice brown and black people using drugs and decide that was the reason to put them in jail?

rosser 8y ago
"You understand what I'm saying? We knew we couldn't make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin. And then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders. raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did." — John Erlichman, domestic policy advisor to Richard M. Nixon
crooked-v 8y ago
> "You understand what I'm saying? We knew we couldn't make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin. And then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities," Ehrlichman said. "We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did."
- rosser 8y ago
  Interesting that we both posted the same quote within seconds of one another.
  - raziel2701 8y ago
    Clearly you're both taking the same drugs!

mancerayder 8y ago

What was LSD and psilocybin doing 'to society' when Nixon scheduled them? What was MDMA doing when that happened later? We need to fish for reasons, we can't just take policy as gospel. The same arguments were made against cannabis, and look how the tide has turned.

senorjazz 8y ago
causing people not to want to fight a war? To stop doing what they were told? To question authority. bad bad things that cannot be allowed