{"id":1621,"date":"2011-08-18T10:05:55","date_gmt":"2011-08-18T14:05:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2011\/08\/naacp-calls-for-end-to-war-on-drugs.html"},"modified":"2011-08-18T10:05:55","modified_gmt":"2011-08-18T14:05:55","slug":"naacp-calls-for-end-to-war-on-drugs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2011\/08\/naacp-calls-for-end-to-war-on-drugs.html","title":{"rendered":"NAACP calls for end to War on Drugs"},"content":{"rendered":"Nafari Vanaski, wrote for Gateway newspapers 18 August 2011,\n\nNAACP calling for truce in nation’s drug war<\/a>\n
\n\n<\/a>\nIf you grew up at the same time that I did, you’ll remember the “Just\nSay No” anti-drug campaign that became popular in the mid-1980s and\nearly 1990s.\n

\nIt manifested itself in many ways, from the posters and talks in class\nto the “very special episodes” of shows such as “Blossom” and “The\nFacts of Life,” where a character encounters a kid from the wrong side\nof the tracks who is pressuring him or her to try drugs. Inevitably,\ngood prevailed and the druggie turned out to be from a broken family\nand needed only a good face-to-face with Nancy Reagan, the driving\nforce behind the campaign, to overcome his addiction. (She appeared on\n“Diff’rent Strokes,” and considering the real-life histories of Gary\nColeman, Todd Bridges and Dana Plato, she probably should have stuck\naround for a five-episode story arc.)\n

\n“Just Say No” was part of the larger war on drugs the Nixon administration\ndeclared in 1971. For grown-ups, that war symbolized a lot more than\nsappy primetime television. Especially for black adults. For them, it\nmeant stricter laws for those found buying, selling and distributing\nillegal drugs.\n

\nTo that end, the NAACP took an interesting step at its national convention\nlast month. It approved a resolution to end the war on drugs because of\nits devastating effect on the black community.\n<\/blockquote>\nInteresting how the headline writer watered that down:\nNAACP called\n\n\nfor an end (here’s\n\nthe NAACP’s own press release<\/a>),\nand the head just says “truce”.\nA truce with what?\n“Drugs” don’t shoot guns.\nDrug gangs do.\n\nEnd drug prohibition and we’ll end their source of funds.<\/a>\n

\nHowever, indeed it was Nixon who started the so-called War on Drugs\nand Reagan who ramped it up with that “Just Say No” nonsense.\nWhile it may have seemed like a good idea at the time to some people,\nit has failed miserably, and it’s time to end it.\nWe can’t afford $40 billion a year on a failed fake war.\nHow about this instead:\n

\n\n<\/a>\nBenjamin Todd Jealous, the president of the NAACP, is calling for a new\nenforcement system that puts an emphasis on “evidence-based practices\nthat address the root causes of drug use and abuse in America.”\n<\/blockquote>\nHm, that doesn’t seem quite what the NAACP said, either. Here’s\ntheir own PR’s summary:\n
\nThe overall message of the resolution is captured by its title: A Call\nto End the War on Drugs, Allocate Funding to Investigate Substance Abuse\nTreatment, Education, and Opportunities in Communities of Color for A\nBetter Tomorrow.\n<\/blockquote>\nI don’t see anything in the PR about “a new enforcement system”;\nseems to me it’s about ramping down a failed enforcement system\nand shifting to treatment, education, and opportunities.\n

\nSimilarly, we can’t afford a private prison in Lowndes County, Georgia,\nto lock up people for this failed fake war.\nSpend those tax dollars on rehabilitation and education instead.\n

\n-jsq\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nafari Vanaski, wrote for Gateway newspapers 18 August 2011, NAACP calling for truce in nation’s drug war If you grew up at the same time that I did, you’ll remember the “Just Say No” anti-drug campaign that became popular in the mid-1980s and early 1990s. It manifested itself in many ways, from the posters and […]","protected":false},"author":1,"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":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[97,1113,48,40,14,15,19,72,2951,21,22,73,178],"tags":[8817,1298,8704,8705,8701,847,7,8863,2712,60,8749,82],"class_list":["post-1621","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-activism","category-cca","category-code-enforcement","category-community","category-economy","category-education","category-history","category-incarceration","category-naacp","category-planning","category-politics","category-safety","category-vlcia","tag-cca","tag-crime","tag-economy","tag-education","tag-georgia","tag-jobs","tag-lowndes-county","tag-naacp","tag-rehabilitation","tag-tax","tag-vlcia","tag-war-on-drugs"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-q9","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1621","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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1621"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1621\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1621"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1621"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1621"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}