4 ms·

>The insistence on its insertion into other areas, lacking supporting evidence, is, imho, overtly harmful to discourse. There is a lack of supporting evidence

>The insistence on its insertion into other areas, lacking supporting evidence, is, imho, overtly harmful to discourse. There is a lack of supporting evidence that race has historically been a deciding factor in US drug policy in the same way that there is a lack of supporting evidence for the historical existence of the Romans. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5614457/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5614457/ https://www.case.org/system/files/media/file/Penn%20Stater%20Harry%20Anslinger.pdf https://www.case.org/system/files/media/file/Penn%20Stater%2... https://eji.org/news/nixon-war-on-drugs-designed-to-criminalize-black-people/ https://eji.org/news/nixon-war-on-drugs-designed-to-criminal...

toast0 2y ago
> there is a lack of supporting evidence for the historical existence of the Romans. Pshaw, if they existed, how come the Internet Archive doesn't have any of their government webpages archived?
- jrflowers 2y ago
  The Internet Archive must be ran by some dang Goths!!
argiopetech 2y ago
I counter with this article [0], which I believe to be more historically relevant due to its closeness in time to the discussion in question. Race is not mentioned as a factor here, and cocaine is described as "the American habit". Having noted my inability to thoroughly research this topic at this time in reply to a sibling post, I'll point to that post for my back of the envelope calculation regarding the number of working class whites versus blacks and suggest that, as poverty and drug abuse seem, to me, linked, that it is just as plausible that widespread abuse of the drug was the catalyst for change in this case. [0] https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030272/1914-02-15/ed-1/seq-29/ https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030272/1914-02-1...
- jrflowers 2y ago
  I am not clear on how an article that does not overtly tie race to drug use or policy is in any way supportive of the notion that the historical record does not contain supportive evidence of a link between race and drug policy in the United States. This article also does not mention escalators but I would not submit it to further a claim that there is no historical evidence of them existing.
  - argiopetech 2y ago
    I didn't suggest that there is no supportive evidence between race and drug policy, but that fact does not imply that there is a causal relationship in this case. Citing Nixon era documents to describe pre-WWI circumstances is evidence at least as poor as that which I presented.
    - jrflowers 2y ago
      The article itself cites in the first paragraph this much more detailed analysis of the topic, which may provide the historical context that you felt was lacking. https://www.jstor.org/stable/26391000?mag=who-took-the-cocaine-out-of-coca-cola https://www.jstor.org/stable/26391000?mag=who-took-the-cocai...
      - argiopetech 2y ago
        Thank you for this reference. I had overlooked it. While this article confirms my assertion that whites were the majority of drug users, the drug of choice is stated to have been racially segregated (with whites preferring opiates). Based on this, I'll accept (pending further research) that the southern bans on cocaine were racially motivated. I'd still consider the 1914 federal ban on a wider swath of drugs to be less so.
        mynameisvlad 2y ago
        You really like going out of your way to pretend things aren’t racially motivated, don’t you? You spent two paragraphs just to end it with an apprehensive concession at best.
janalsncm 2y ago
Racism was involved in some drug prohibition laws, certainly. But to steel man the comment you’re replying to, the article mainly points to circumstantial links rather than identifying a smoking gun. A quote about why cocaine was removed, for example, might have made it stronger. Or maybe ruling out other possibilities, like a spike in the import cost of coca leaves.
- jrflowers 2y ago
  The excerpt linked in the first paragraph of the article (0) has a much more detailed analysis of this topic. 0 https://www.jstor.org/stable/26391000?mag=who-took-the-cocaine-out-of-coca-cola&seq=4 https://www.jstor.org/stable/26391000?mag=who-took-the-cocai...
RcouF1uZ4gsC 2y ago
The eji article talks about the John Ehrlichman quote. That is very unreliable. The quote was given to Dan Baum in 1994 and talking about events in 1968 - 1971. The quote was revealed in a Harper's Bazaar article in 2016. John Erhlichman died in 1999, and his family denies the quote. So the original quote was given more than 20 years after the events, and revealed 20 years after the quote (now 40 years after the event) after the person quoted had been dead for 17 years.
gamblor956 2y ago
People should read their citations... The case.org publication clearly states that Anslinger's first-hand exposure to drug addiction as a child in a poor neighborhood that drove his drug policy. After his personal story failed to convince legislators, he used minorities as scapegoats to get drug legislation to pass. His career demonstrates that this was not personal animus against minorities; Anslinger hired several dozen African-American agents at the FBN over the objectives of his staff; the first Chinese-American law-enforcement officer in America (and indeed, is credited as launching one of the first diversity initiatives in the federal government). Also, Anslinger really hated hippies, regardless of race (and most hippies were white), because of their excessive drug use. The NIH article assumes a racial bias exists in drug policy without bothering to prove it. Drug policies have had a disparate racial impact but this is not the same thing as having been intended to be based on race. It's simply that different racial groups in the U.S. use drugs to different degrees.
- jrflowers 2y ago
  >After his personal story failed to convince legislators, he used minorities as scapegoats to get drug legislation to pass. This is a good undisputed example of race being a key factor in US drug policy. The fact that racial stereotypes and caricatures may have been the second strategy that Anslinger used to achieve his aims is neither here nor there when discussing the historical usage of race in creating and implementing drug policy in the US. If, for some reason, the topic of the history of race and US drug policy were to be mistaken for the topic of “racism as defined as a fundamentally unknowable specter haunting the heart of Harry Anslinger” then his various hires could be germane. Those are, however, fundamentally different subjects to such a degree that there is no meaningful connection between the two that would make one useful in discussing the other.
  - gamblor956 2y ago
    When people are claiming that drug policy is racially motivated, proof of the opposite is very much on point. Anslinger was very open about the fact that his childhood in poverty was behind his extreme anti-drug stance, not some supposed racism that didn't exist until marijuana activists tried to rewrite history in the 1970s.

toast0 2y ago

> there is a lack of supporting evidence for the historical existence of the Romans. Pshaw, if they existed, how come the Internet Archive doesn't have any of their government webpages archived?

jrflowers 2y ago
The Internet Archive must be ran by some dang Goths!!

argiopetech 2y ago

I counter with this article [0], which I believe to be more historically relevant due to its closeness in time to the discussion in question. Race is not mentioned as a factor here, and cocaine is described as "the American habit". Having noted my inability to thoroughly research this topic at this time in reply to a sibling post, I'll point to that post for my back of the envelope calculation regarding the number of working class whites versus blacks and suggest that, as poverty and drug abuse seem, to me, linked, that it is just as plausible that widespread abuse of the drug was the catalyst for change in this case. [0] https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030272/1914-02-15/ed-1/seq-29/ https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030272/1914-02-1...

jrflowers 2y ago
I am not clear on how an article that does not overtly tie race to drug use or policy is in any way supportive of the notion that the historical record does not contain supportive evidence of a link between race and drug policy in the United States. This article also does not mention escalators but I would not submit it to further a claim that there is no historical evidence of them existing.
- argiopetech 2y ago
  I didn't suggest that there is no supportive evidence between race and drug policy, but that fact does not imply that there is a causal relationship in this case. Citing Nixon era documents to describe pre-WWI circumstances is evidence at least as poor as that which I presented.
  - jrflowers 2y ago
    The article itself cites in the first paragraph this much more detailed analysis of the topic, which may provide the historical context that you felt was lacking. https://www.jstor.org/stable/26391000?mag=who-took-the-cocaine-out-of-coca-cola https://www.jstor.org/stable/26391000?mag=who-took-the-cocai...
    - argiopetech 2y ago
      Thank you for this reference. I had overlooked it. While this article confirms my assertion that whites were the majority of drug users, the drug of choice is stated to have been racially segregated (with whites preferring opiates). Based on this, I'll accept (pending further research) that the southern bans on cocaine were racially motivated. I'd still consider the 1914 federal ban on a wider swath of drugs to be less so.
      - mynameisvlad 2y ago
        You really like going out of your way to pretend things aren’t racially motivated, don’t you? You spent two paragraphs just to end it with an apprehensive concession at best.

janalsncm 2y ago

Racism was involved in some drug prohibition laws, certainly. But to steel man the comment you’re replying to, the article mainly points to circumstantial links rather than identifying a smoking gun. A quote about why cocaine was removed, for example, might have made it stronger. Or maybe ruling out other possibilities, like a spike in the import cost of coca leaves.

jrflowers 2y ago
The excerpt linked in the first paragraph of the article (0) has a much more detailed analysis of this topic. 0 https://www.jstor.org/stable/26391000?mag=who-took-the-cocaine-out-of-coca-cola&seq=4 https://www.jstor.org/stable/26391000?mag=who-took-the-cocai...

RcouF1uZ4gsC 2y ago

The eji article talks about the John Ehrlichman quote. That is very unreliable. The quote was given to Dan Baum in 1994 and talking about events in 1968 - 1971. The quote was revealed in a Harper's Bazaar article in 2016. John Erhlichman died in 1999, and his family denies the quote. So the original quote was given more than 20 years after the events, and revealed 20 years after the quote (now 40 years after the event) after the person quoted had been dead for 17 years.

gamblor956 2y ago

People should read their citations... The case.org publication clearly states that Anslinger's first-hand exposure to drug addiction as a child in a poor neighborhood that drove his drug policy. After his personal story failed to convince legislators, he used minorities as scapegoats to get drug legislation to pass. His career demonstrates that this was not personal animus against minorities; Anslinger hired several dozen African-American agents at the FBN over the objectives of his staff; the first Chinese-American law-enforcement officer in America (and indeed, is credited as launching one of the first diversity initiatives in the federal government). Also, Anslinger really hated hippies, regardless of race (and most hippies were white), because of their excessive drug use. The NIH article assumes a racial bias exists in drug policy without bothering to prove it. Drug policies have had a disparate racial impact but this is not the same thing as having been intended to be based on race. It's simply that different racial groups in the U.S. use drugs to different degrees.

jrflowers 2y ago
>After his personal story failed to convince legislators, he used minorities as scapegoats to get drug legislation to pass. This is a good undisputed example of race being a key factor in US drug policy. The fact that racial stereotypes and caricatures may have been the second strategy that Anslinger used to achieve his aims is neither here nor there when discussing the historical usage of race in creating and implementing drug policy in the US. If, for some reason, the topic of the history of race and US drug policy were to be mistaken for the topic of “racism as defined as a fundamentally unknowable specter haunting the heart of Harry Anslinger” then his various hires could be germane. Those are, however, fundamentally different subjects to such a degree that there is no meaningful connection between the two that would make one useful in discussing the other.
- gamblor956 2y ago
  When people are claiming that drug policy is racially motivated, proof of the opposite is very much on point. Anslinger was very open about the fact that his childhood in poverty was behind his extreme anti-drug stance, not some supposed racism that didn't exist until marijuana activists tried to rewrite history in the 1970s.