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100%. The War on Drugs was always in contradiction of the spirit of the 21st Amendment, which ended Prohibition. It needs to be formally acknowledged as such,
by tessierashpool 3y ago
100%. The War on Drugs was always in contradiction of the spirit of the 21st Amendment, which ended Prohibition.
It needs to be formally acknowledged as such, and further as fundamentally unconstitutional, but these kinds of victories take time. At least that so-called "War" is destroying fewer lives now.
- aaomidi 3y agoAnd the 13th amendment, kinda. It goes against the spirit of it but not the word of it.
- TheCleric 3y agoThe unfortunate part of the 13th amendment was the addendum that slavery wasn't slavery if it was part of the prison system. Which had the effect that those who wanted to continue the slavery system figured out "Oh, we'll just criminalize being black, and then we're legal again!"
- dessimus 3y agoHow else was the government to continue to systemically hold down minorities in this country post-Civil Rights Act, while simultaneously enriching the Military Industrial Complex by flooding local law enforcement with military equipment paid for by US taxpayers?
- onlyrealcuzzo 3y agoYou act as if they couldn't have gone about this 10,000 different ways. This worked because it's what the people wanted - in response to the 70s - not because some evil scheming overlord.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- bongodongobob 3y agoNo, it's fact, not conspiracy theory. "You want to know what this [war on drugs] was really all about? 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.” ~ John Ehrlichman, Assistant to the President for Domestic Affairs under President Richard Nixon
- onlyrealcuzzo 3y agoYou're missing the point. All that was popular as well. This wasn't some evil mastermind scheme to enrich the military industrial complex. It was run-of-the-mill everyday politics. The world isn't fair. That doesn't mean we're all being fooled by some evil genius mastermind pulling the strings we can't see. It just means that people don't care about what's right or wrong, mostly - just what they want.
- coeneedell 3y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Ehrlichman#Drug_war_quote https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Ehrlichman#Drug_war_quote
- bongodongobob 3y agoThis is one of many many sources. I'm not willing to put together a comprehensive list of something that is so well known.
- Supermancho 3y agoFamilies often raise a concern about how they never knew member X to be a baddie (eg The Golden State Killer). This is not a compelling refutation. Whether anyone can be wrong or lying about anything, is equally weak. The man said it. I have no doubt.
- dessimus 3y agoIt's pretty clear what certain people wanted in response to the 70s stemming from the rise of minority groups like the Black Panthers or the American Indian Movement trying to use their newly-enacted rights to fight oppression. Even the NRA was pro gun control when the Black Panthers were using the 2A for open-carrying to protect black Americans. If it was truly about marijuana use, then when usage rates for white and black Americans are effectively the same, black people would not be 3.5 times more likely to be arrested for possession than white people.
- dheuoddjo 3y ago> black people would not be 3.5 times more likely to be arrested for possession than white people While on its face true, this isn’t taking into account things like recidivism or multiple charges. That’s to say the average black person has more priors and is more likely to have multiple charges when charged compared to the average white.
- iudqnolq 3y agoI think the thing you said about priors is repeating a talking point about prosecution or sentencing disparities that isn't particularly relevant in the context of an arrest. I have no idea what you mean about multiple charges.
- dheuoddjo 3y ago> I think the thing you said about priors is repeating a talking point about prosecution or sentencing disparities that isn't particularly relevant in the context of an arrest. Arrests don’t occur in a vacuum. The prior convictions are known and are a factor. > I have no idea what you mean about multiple charges. Person A is smoking pot and is arrested. Person B is smoking pot wearing a bloody t shirt with a knife in his hand. If you’re more likely to engage in criminal activity, you’re more likely to be smoking pot while engaging in criminal activity (again, on average).
- 3y ago
- jknoepfler 3y agoI don't think anyone wanted the sweeping disinformation campaign about marijuana that flooded both the airwaves and law-enforcement training syllabuses that we got from the federal government. It is hard to expect a republic to make sensible decisions when it's citizens are being actively misinformed. It is also hard to not impute malice on people who push blatantly false information.
- claytongulick 3y agoGood points. It does make one wonder why, given the history of known deception, many people have recently seemed to abandon all critical thought and fervently believe whatever the government tells them.
- fragmede 3y agoRichard Nixon is widely recognized as said scheming overlord, with the drug policies he enacted.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- mattnewton 3y agoIt’s very hard to read this article without concluding that Nixon was such a scheming overlord leading the charge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_on_drugs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_on_drugs
- nailer 3y agoCannabis laws applied to all Americans.
- asterix_pano 3y agoThey are not enforced the same way to all, though.
- benlivengood 3y agoAt the discretion of both law enforcement officers and prosecutors.
- nailer 3y agoDo you have evidence that cannabis laws were enforced disproportionately?
- tessierashpool 3y agosure, let me spend my Saturday going on Google for you, to find the overwhelming evidence that has been gathered for the past several decades, which you somehow missed. or claim to have missed.
- nailer 3y agoWe know that the US police are more likely to shoot white people than black people based on the FBI data, so it’s not unreasonable to think this may also be an urban legend
- benlivengood 3y agohttps://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK425763/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK425763/ with 10% v.s. 8% use, 4x arrest rate for black folks: https://norml.org/marijuana/fact-sheets/racial-disparity-in-marijuana-arrests/ https://norml.org/marijuana/fact-sheets/racial-disparity-in-...
- 3y ago
- cm2187 3y ago[flagged]
- bongodongobob 3y agoFentanyl is only a thing because cocaine and heroin are illegal or hard to get.
- 4RealFreedom 3y agoWhy does fentanyl kill? Because people buy it and don't understand the strength. Regulation would take care of that. So what's your argument here?
- tptacek 3y agoThat is not why fentanyl kills.
- 4RealFreedom 3y agoSo are you going to tell me what it is then?
- tptacek 3y agoI don't have to. We've had a nationwide epidemic of deaths from regulated, labeled opiates, which is a fact that refutes your argument without requiring me to provide an alternative.
- ZoomerCretin 3y agoMeasured by annual average alcohol consumption in the US before and after prohibition, the 21st amendment was a huge success. I think temporary society-scale prohibition when drug use becomes a widespread societal ill is good policy. Afterward, individual mandatory punishment/rehab for those who abuse drugs/alcohol and harm themselves and others should be the norm.
- tessierashpool 3y ago> I think temporary society-scale prohibition when drug use becomes a widespread societal ill is good policy. OK, but we passed a constitutional amendment saying the opposite, and the so-called "War on Drugs" operates in defiance of the spirit of that amendment.
- ZoomerCretin 3y ago>OK, but we passed a constitutional amendment saying the opposite Which amendment is that? The 21st repealing prohibition did not make any value statements on whether prohibition was ever good policy, it merely repeals the amendment banning alcohol. > and the so-called "War on Drugs" operates in defiance of the spirit of that amendment. There is no "spirit of [the] amendment". It repealed a ban on alcohol. Alcohol was undeniably an extreme social ill before prohibition.
- kstrauser 3y ago> Measured by annual average alcohol consumption in the US before and after prohibition, the 21st amendment was a huge success. That begs the question by assuming that's a good measurement. Is it? Since prohibition ended, has alcohol become so uniquely destructive here (compared to all other alcohol-allowing societies) that we've wanted to ban it again? I'm of the strong opinion that it's not. > I think temporary society-scale prohibition when drug use becomes a widespread societal ill is good policy. Add that to the long list of things I agree with in principle, but reject in practice. Our timeline of such experiments is a series of social disasters. In any case, I think there a clearly distinct categories of drugs. I don't want to live around meth users, because drug itself makes them paranoid, irritable, and hard to be near. I couldn't care less if my next door neighbor smokes weed.