4 ms·

> You're also making a pretty bold assumption that the governments actually want drugs stamped out. I don't think that has EVER been the case, that's just been

by eloff 6y ago

> You're also making a pretty bold assumption that the governments actually want drugs stamped out. I don't think that has EVER been the case, that's just been the story. It's used as a means of suppressing people of color and poor people. When was the last time you heard of a Wall Street banker going to prison for coke? That's really trying to frame the world through a lens of racial or class bias. It's not the reality. You're the one making the unsubstantiated bold claim here.

Forbo 6y ago
>“You want to know what this was really all about?” he asked with the bluntness of a man who, after public disgrace and a stretch in federal prison, had little left to protect. “The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. 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.” https://harpers.org/archive/2016/04/legalize-it-all/ https://harpers.org/archive/2016/04/legalize-it-all/ It is the reality.
tw04 6y ago
>That's really trying to frame the world through a lens of racial or class bias. It's not the reality. You're the one making the unsubstantiated bold claim here. The war on drugs was literally a war on black people and "hippies" by the admission of Nixon's domestic policy chief. So no, I'm not making unsubstantiated claims. https://www.vox.com/2016/3/22/11278760/war-on-drugs-racism-nixon https://www.vox.com/2016/3/22/11278760/war-on-drugs-racism-n... >At the time, I was writing a book about the politics of drug prohibition. I started to ask Ehrlichman a series of earnest, wonky questions that he impatiently waved away. "You want to know what this was really all about?" he asked with the bluntness of a man who, after public disgrace and a stretch in federal prison, had little left to protect. "The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. 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."
- eloff 6y ago
  And then it's been continued since then for the same reason by every president and Congress on both sides of the aisle? Of course not, even if it started like that, and that's a big if hinging solely on the ramblings of a single discredited bureaucrat. That motive just cannot explain the last fifty years of the war on drugs. The reality must be much more complex.
  - tw04 6y ago
    >And then it's been continued since then for the same reason by every president and Congress on both sides of the aisle? Of course not, even if it started like that, and that's a big if hinging solely on the ramblings of a single discredited bureaucrat. Yes. The incarceration rates reflect it. Blacks are DISPROPORTIANATELY penalized by drug offenses, it's not even close.
    - eloff 6y ago
      Wat. I mean I agree about the incarceration rates, but that's also a complex topic and can't be dismissed as "racism". But it has nothing to do with what I said. I made an argument and you responded "because racism". You may as well have said "potato".
      - tw04 6y ago
        You said the last 50 years of the war on drugs can't be explained as a means of oppressing people of color. I said the numbers pretty clearly shows it can be explained by exactly that with citations. So at this point I've both made a claim and cited factual references and you've responded with an opinion. Unless you've got something more than that I'll assume you're arguing in bad faith.
        eloff 6y ago
        If I get this straight you're claiming the war on drugs is chiefly a means of oppressing people of color. For fifty years. Over both Republican and Democratic presidencies and Congress and Senate's. Do you think they're all racist and trying to oppress people of color or do you think maybe there's something else to it? It's pretty obvious that can't be true right? Surely we can agree on that?
retrac 6y ago
Why is China even harsher with their drug laws than America? Why is Sweden, perhaps one of the most egalitarian European countries, stricter than most of the EU? I mean sure, some of the domestic American situation is like that. The disparate penalties for cocaine and crack cocaine come to mind. Reminds me a bit of alcohol prohibition. Alcohol consumption was through the roof. It was a real social problem. The weight of the "solution" was borne on the backs of the working class persecuted by the law and people who got gunned down in mob violence. While the middle class got booze prescribed by their doctors, and the elites were of course above the law. But that wasn't exactly the intent of the temperance movement. A lot of perfectly intelligent, worldly and moral people support some degree of drug criminalization because they believe they're more harmful than the prohibition side effects. No conspiracy there.

by eloff 6y ago

Forbo 6y ago

>“You want to know what this was really all about?” he asked with the bluntness of a man who, after public disgrace and a stretch in federal prison, had little left to protect. “The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. 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.” https://harpers.org/archive/2016/04/legalize-it-all/ https://harpers.org/archive/2016/04/legalize-it-all/ It is the reality.

tw04 6y ago

>That's really trying to frame the world through a lens of racial or class bias. It's not the reality. You're the one making the unsubstantiated bold claim here. The war on drugs was literally a war on black people and "hippies" by the admission of Nixon's domestic policy chief. So no, I'm not making unsubstantiated claims. https://www.vox.com/2016/3/22/11278760/war-on-drugs-racism-nixon https://www.vox.com/2016/3/22/11278760/war-on-drugs-racism-n... >At the time, I was writing a book about the politics of drug prohibition. I started to ask Ehrlichman a series of earnest, wonky questions that he impatiently waved away. "You want to know what this was really all about?" he asked with the bluntness of a man who, after public disgrace and a stretch in federal prison, had little left to protect. "The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. 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."

eloff 6y ago
And then it's been continued since then for the same reason by every president and Congress on both sides of the aisle? Of course not, even if it started like that, and that's a big if hinging solely on the ramblings of a single discredited bureaucrat. That motive just cannot explain the last fifty years of the war on drugs. The reality must be much more complex.
- tw04 6y ago
  >And then it's been continued since then for the same reason by every president and Congress on both sides of the aisle? Of course not, even if it started like that, and that's a big if hinging solely on the ramblings of a single discredited bureaucrat. Yes. The incarceration rates reflect it. Blacks are DISPROPORTIANATELY penalized by drug offenses, it's not even close.
  - eloff 6y ago
    Wat. I mean I agree about the incarceration rates, but that's also a complex topic and can't be dismissed as "racism". But it has nothing to do with what I said. I made an argument and you responded "because racism". You may as well have said "potato".
    - tw04 6y ago
      You said the last 50 years of the war on drugs can't be explained as a means of oppressing people of color. I said the numbers pretty clearly shows it can be explained by exactly that with citations. So at this point I've both made a claim and cited factual references and you've responded with an opinion. Unless you've got something more than that I'll assume you're arguing in bad faith.
      - eloff 6y ago
        If I get this straight you're claiming the war on drugs is chiefly a means of oppressing people of color. For fifty years. Over both Republican and Democratic presidencies and Congress and Senate's. Do you think they're all racist and trying to oppress people of color or do you think maybe there's something else to it? It's pretty obvious that can't be true right? Surely we can agree on that?

retrac 6y ago

Why is China even harsher with their drug laws than America? Why is Sweden, perhaps one of the most egalitarian European countries, stricter than most of the EU? I mean sure, some of the domestic American situation is like that. The disparate penalties for cocaine and crack cocaine come to mind. Reminds me a bit of alcohol prohibition. Alcohol consumption was through the roof. It was a real social problem. The weight of the "solution" was borne on the backs of the working class persecuted by the law and people who got gunned down in mob violence. While the middle class got booze prescribed by their doctors, and the elites were of course above the law. But that wasn't exactly the intent of the temperance movement. A lot of perfectly intelligent, worldly and moral people support some degree of drug criminalization because they believe they're more harmful than the prohibition side effects. No conspiracy there.