The Drug War

[Penguin Nation]

The origins of the Drug War are rooted in racism and political gamesmanship:

"The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the anti-war 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."

 http://www.aol.com/article/2016/03/23/nixon-official-reportedly-admitted-to-racist-origin-of-war-on-dr/21332413/

"Marijuana prohibition also had racist underpinnings. This time it was the Mexicans. Just as cocaine was associated with black violence and irrational behavior, in the southwest border towns marijuana was viewed — beginning in the early 1920s — as a cause of Mexican lawlessness."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/judge-frederic-block/war-on-drugs_b_2384624.html

Drug Prohibition is advocated for by the Prison Lobby, and continues to exist due to corrupt politicians.


“For-profit prisons are making contracts with states, saying, ‘Guarantee that our prisons will be filled. Guarantee we’ll make a profit,’” says Michael Skolnik, a filmmaker who visited over 100 prisons while researching Lockdown, USA, a documentary about reforming jail sentences for drug offenses. “And how do you guarantee that? You create drug laws,” Skolnik told msnbc. He argues that private prisons reinforce drug sentencing policies that have constituted “a war against black and brown America.”

http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/presumed-guilty-how-prisons-profit-the

"The two largest for-profit prison companies in the United States – GEO and Corrections Corporation of America – and their associates have funneled more than $10 million to candidates since 1989 and have spent nearly $25 million on lobbying efforts. Meanwhile, these private companies have seen their revenue and market share soar."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/04/28/how-for-profit-prisons-have-become-the-biggest-lobby-no-one-is-talking-about/

There a couple of Governors who would like to stop this injustice:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGD8gJt7weU