DRUG WAR AIMING AT WRONG TARGETS

The story nobody seems to contradict is this:

Patrick Dorismond, a security guard, was waiting for a cab in New York when
a stranger approached and asked if he had any marijuana for sale.

Dorismond didn’t, and he didn’t like the question. Harsh words were
exchanged and some shoving started. Then a New York cop rushed up, shot
Dorismond and killed him.

The cop didn’t shoot the guy who had been struggling with Dorismond. Because
he was an out-of-uniform cop trying to set Dorismond up for a drug sting.

Dorismond was black. He was the third unarmed black man killed by New York
City police in the last 13 months.

Passions are inflamed in Gotham. Mayor Rudy Giuliani is under fire for
allegedly operating a run amok, racist, lethal police force. And Dorismond
may well have been a target of racism.

But he was a target of something else, too. He was a casualty of America’s
run amok, racist, lethal so-called war on drugs. He was a victim of reefer
madness.

Back in the ’30s, Hollywood made a movie called "Reefer Madness." You won’t
see it soon on the American Movie Classics channel.

Leonard Maltin’s video guide calls it "the granddaddy of all worst’ movies
that depicts how one puff of pot can lead clean-cut teenagers down the road
to insanity and death."

This saga enjoyed a brief, campy revival in the ’60s, when the nation’s
collegiate youth became more grass-conscious than ChemLawn. So much
marijuana was smoked back then that it’s hard to find a presidential
candidate or Supreme Court nominee who doesn’t admit "experimenting" with
it.

Illegal drugs were in America’s bloodstream. And war was declared on them.
It was the same kind of war the government declared on alcohol when it was
illegal during Prohibition. And it produced exactly the same kind of
results.

Roaring back came all the roaring headlines from the Roaring ’20s. Rival
gangs engaged in bloody turf wars. Drive-by shootings with automatic
weapons. Police raids. Police corruption. The big shots making fortunes
behind the scenes. The small fry getting busted.

The warriors in the war on alcohol saw no victory in sight and had no
graceful exit strategy. So they declared the war over, legalized the drug,
put it under government control and set up treatment centers for the
addicts.

But the present drug warriors soldier blindly on. Filling the jails with
small-fry pushers, mostly minorities. Wiping the blood off the streets.
Marching down their own road of insanity and death.

Insanity and death met on the piece of sidewalk where Patrick Dorismond was
waiting for a cab with a friend.

The guy who came up to him didn’t look like a cop, didn’t say he was a cop,
didn’t flash a badge. He just came out of the night. He could have been a
mugger or he could have been a nut. He asked Dorismond if he had some pot to
sell.

And Dorismond didn’t like the question. Maybe he had a bad temper. Maybe he
was tired and irritable and having a bad night. Maybe he just didn’t like
seedy-looking people coming up to him on the street. I don’t.

Anyway, some pushing started. And that’s when the backup cop rushed out of
the shadows and shot Dorismond. That’s the story nobody contradicts.

Dorismond’s friend, who saw it all, told the newspapers:

"The last memory I have of this man is him rolling on the ground with blood
coming out of his mouth."

They took him to the morgue and called his mother, who had to break the news
to two little girls that their father died in the war on drugs. Because of
marijuana he didn’t have and obviously couldn’t sell. Because of a drug that
is less lethal than alcohol and less toxic than a pack of Camels.

There’s the real "Reefer Madness." They ought to remake the movie.