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If you’re saying that the “war on drugs” was motivated by any less than 50% racism you lost me. Yes, it was also useful in marginalizing anti war and counter cu
by kennywinker 5y ago
If you’re saying that the “war on drugs” was motivated by any less than 50% racism you lost me. Yes, it was also useful in marginalizing anti war and counter cultural movements, but that was a side-benefit. The war on drugs was started in 1971 - and was a driving force behind that “soaring crime rate”
- wearywanderer 5y ago> 50% How do you even begin to quantify such a thing as intent? Not least when the best evidence for intent is a dodgy quote published years after the death of the man who might have disputed it?
- kennywinker 5y agoBy looking at how it was applied immediately after creation
- ch4s3 5y agoIt's hard to say for sure. The first raids using military like tactics were carried out in Humboldt County, CA against "hippies". Now John Ehrlichman did tell Harpers Magazine in 1994 that in 1968 they intended to target " the antiwar left and black people," so there is that. But if you read through contemporary commentary from the 1970s you'll find a politically and racially diverse coalition in support of drug laws. Were some of them animated by racial animas, almost certainly, but it's not that simple. Charles Rangel, the then head of the Congressional Black Caucus whipped for the passage of strict drug laws as early as 1968. The average American in 1970 really wanted more drug enforcement as an ends unto itself. It was something of a national preoccupation across the political divide by 1980.