{"id":13536,"date":"2015-07-02T14:15:36","date_gmt":"2015-07-02T18:15:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/?p=13536"},"modified":"2015-07-02T14:31:39","modified_gmt":"2015-07-02T18:31:39","slug":"want-to-help-stop-racism-end-the-failed-war-on-drugs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2015\/07\/want-to-help-stop-racism-end-the-failed-war-on-drugs.html","title":{"rendered":"Want to help stop racism? End the failed war on drugs!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\r\nIf we’re tired of arguing over pieces of cloth, how about we do\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\nsomething about one of the main tools of racist oppression in the\r\nU.S.? Legalize drugs, thus stopping paying for 75% of the U.S.\r\nprison population, which is far more black than white, and is often\r\nrented out for literally pennies.\r\nRemember, slavery is not illegal\r\nin the U.S., as long as it is punishment for some crime. Second clause, 13th Amendment<\/a>:\r\n

\r\nexcept as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted<\/strong>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nMore black men are in jail, prison, probation, or parole now\r\nthan were enslaved in 1850, as Michelle Alexander has noted<\/a>.\r\nAnyone who says\r\n\r\n the U.S. population is larger now is missing the point.\r\nThe U.S. has\r\n5% of the world’s population and 25% of its prisoners,\r\n\r\nfar more total<\/a> and\r\n\r\nper capita than China or Russia<\/a>.\r\nThose prisoners are\r\n\r\ndisporportionately black<\/a> compared \r\nto the African-American percentage of the population,\r\nand\r\n\r\nmany if not most of them are in there for drug-related offenses<\/a>.\r\nLegalize, tax, and regulate and get rid of not only drug possession\r\nand drug dealing arrests, but also crimes of theft for money to buy drugs\r\nand related violence.\r\nAnd that will reduce broken black families because fewer men will be locked up,\r\nnot to mention giving African-Americans a much better chance at economic success,\r\nwhile saving all of us lots of money.\r\n

\r\nOutside our militarized borders it also\r\n\r\nmakes no sense for the U.S. to claim to be for human rights<\/a>\r\nwhile propping up\r\n\r\na drug war that is not a metaphor in Mexico<\/a>,\r\nwhere the Mexican Army fights drug gangs in the streets, resulting in 40,000\r\ndead.\r\nElsewhere in Latin America, the same failed drug war\r\ncauses violence, death, poverty, illiteracy, corruption, and profits for Monsanto<\/a>.\r\nColumbia just\r\n\r\nstopped spraying illegal coca crops with Monsanto’s Roundup<\/a>\r\nafter WHO said its active ingredient\r\n\r\nGlyphosate probably causes cancer in humans<\/a>.\r\nHow many Colombians and others got cancer before that?\r\nIt’s \r\na health care issue inside the U.S. as well, due to health effects\r\nof incarceration<\/a> among all the side effects.\r\n

\r\nWant to stop illegal immigration into the U.S.?\r\nEnd the drug war!\r\nAs Mexican poet Xavier Sicilia said after his son was gunned down\r\nas collateral damage:\r\n

\r\n

\r\n“Since the war was unleashed as a means to exterminate (drug\r\ntrafficking), the United States, which is the grand consumer of\r\nthese toxic substances, has not done anything to support us.”\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nThere’s only one sure way to do that: end the failed drug war.\r\n

\r\nBack at home, 90% of wiretaps are for drug deals<\/a>.\r\nEnd drug prohibition and take away a main DEA-FBI-CIA-NSA excuse for\r\nspying on we the American people.\r\n

\r\nThe U.S. spent\r\n\r\n$70 billion on the War on Drugs in 2003<\/a>, and\r\nGeorgia\r\nalone spends a billion dollars a year on its prison system, while\r\ncutting education. Sure, we’ve seen some baby steps towards\r\nsentencing reform and medical marijuana. But\r\n\r\nPortugal<\/a> and now\r\n\r\nColorado and Washington State<\/a>\r\nhave shown us how to save heaps of money and make a profit\r\non taxes while decreasing crime: legalize, tax, and regulate!\r\n

\r\nPortugal didn’t precisely legalize, it decriminalized and spent part\r\nof the savings on treating addiction, and it did that for all drugs,\r\nresulting in\r\n\r\ndeclining addiction (50% less)<\/a> and\r\n

\r\n

\r\n…a “spectacular” reduction in the number of infections\r\namong intravenous users and a significant drop in drug-related\r\ncrimes.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nYou don’t have to believe me, listen to\r\n\r\nFelipe Calder\u00f3n, the Mexican president who put the Army on the streets<\/a>:\r\n

\r\n

\r\n“[E]ither the United States and its society, its government\r\nand its congress decide to drastically reduce their consumption of\r\ndrugs, or if they are not going to reduce it they at least have the\r\nmoral responsibility to reduce the flow of money towards Mexico,\r\nwhich goes into the hands of criminals.”\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nListen to the \r\nGlobal Commission on Drug Policy<\/a>, which is a\r\n“19-member commission, a private venture chaired by ex-Brazilian\r\npresident Fernando Henrique Cardoso, includes George Schultz,\r\nPresident Reagan’s Secretary of State; Richard Branson, founder of\r\nthe Virgin Group; former U.N. Secretary General Koffi Anna; George\r\nPapandreou, prime minister of Greece; Paul Volcker, former chairman\r\nof the Federal Reserve, and Javier Solana,former EU foreign\r\nminister.”\r\n

\r\n

\r\nThe global war on drugs has failed, with devastating consequences\r\nfor individuals and societies around the world.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nListen to\r\n\r\nformer U.S. president Jimmy Carter<\/a>:\r\n

\r\n

\r\nTo help such men remain valuable members of society, and to make\r\ndrug policies more humane and more effective, the American\r\ngovernment should support and enact the reforms laid out by the\r\nGlobal Commission on Drug Policy.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nListen to billionaire Richard Branson<\/a>:\r\n

\r\n

\r\nBut exploring ways to decriminalise drugs is anything but soft. It\r\nwould free up crime-fighting resources to go after violent organised\r\ncrime, and get more people the help they need to get off drugs. It’s\r\ntime to get tough on misguided policies and end the war on drugs.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nListen to\r\nJudge Napolitano<\/a>, who says legalization will stop many police deaths,\r\n

\r\nListen to Serpico<\/a>, and help law enforcement get off\r\n“a hamster wheel… that they just can’t seem to get off”.\r\n

\r\nListen to physicians writing in a medical journal<\/a>:\r\n

\r\n

\r\n“More than half of all inmates have a history of substance use and\r\ndependence or mental illness, yet they are often released to the\r\ncommunity without health insurance or access to appropriate medical\r\ncare and treatment.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n“Sadly, without these linkages to transitional care in the\r\ncommunity, the majority of these individuals will re-enter the\r\nrevolving door of the criminal justice system, which already costs\r\nour county $50 billion annually.”\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nListen to the NAACP and Grover Norquist<\/a>\r\n(yes, together on the same stage) saying we can’t afford to lock so many people up and rehab costs a lot less.\r\n

\r\nListen to\r\nChristians Against Prohibition<\/a>:\r\n

\r\n

\r\nI am certain, not only has a for-profit prison system been the\r\ninspiration for increasingly tough laws, but it has also caused\r\ncorruption and conflict of interest.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nAnd remember, \r\nPrescription Drugs Kill 300 Percent More Americans than Illegal Drugs<\/a>.\r\n

\r\nThe origins of \r\n\r\nprisoners as cheap labor<\/a> go back to New York State in the 1820s.\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\nBut the U.S. prison population\r\n\r\nincreased by a factor of seven starting\r\nwith Ronald Reagan in 1980<\/a>,\r\nuntil now the U.S. has\r\n\r\n5% of the world’s population and 25% of its prisoners<\/a>.\r\n

\r\nIn Georgia in 2011,\r\n\r\n1 in 13 Georgian adults was in jail, prison, probation or parole<\/a>,\r\nand more like 1 in 3 among African-American Georgia adults.\r\nAlmost 200 years of a bad thing is enough.\r\nThe last 35 years of an even worse thing is way more than enough.\r\n

\r\nIt’s\r\n\r\nmore than 80 years now since alcohol prohibition ended<\/a>.\r\nIt’s long past time to end drug prohibition and the corruption,\r\ncosts, and racism that come with it.\r\nAs Terry Nelson of\r\nLaw Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP) says<\/a>,\r\n

\r\n

\r\nThe only way to pop the proverbial balloon is to legalize and\r\nregulate the drug trade, which would eliminate the opportunity to\r\nmake enormous black-market profits.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nLet’s pop the balloon, end the black market for drugs,\r\nand along with it gang violence both outside and\r\n\r\ninside prisons<\/a>.\r\nOh, and also take away a major excuse for\r\n\r\npolice militarization and private prison profiteering<\/a>.\r\nAnd end a major source of funds for\r\n\r\ncompanies that currently strangle\r\nour political system<\/a>, including institutionalized racism.\r\n

\r\nEnd the failed War on (some) Drugs.\r\n

\r\n -jsq\r\n<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If we’re tired of arguing over pieces of cloth, how about we do something about one of the main tools of racist oppression in the U.S.? Legalize drugs, thus stopping paying for 75% of the U.S. prison population, which is far more black than white, and is often rented out for literally pennies. Remember, slavery […]","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[202,8,41,19,72,20],"tags":[8750,8551,8701,8718,8709,8830,8730,8702,8710,12,7,8550,2708,75,6,82,1716],"class_list":["post-13536","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-agriculture","category-georgia","category-health-care","category-history","category-incarceration","category-law","tag-agriculture","tag-colombia","tag-georgia","tag-health-care","tag-history","tag-immigration","tag-incarceration","tag-lake","tag-law","tag-lowndes-area-knowledge-exchange","tag-lowndes-county","tag-new-york-state","tag-portugal","tag-prison","tag-valdosta","tag-war-on-drugs","tag-washington"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-3wk","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13536","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13536"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13536\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13542,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13536\/revisions\/13542"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13536"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13536"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13536"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}