ZERO TOLERANCE - The Philosophy Of Bigotry

When we think of bigotry, we commonly imagine someone like Archie Bunker,
whose prejudice and fears are immediately obvious to all. However, in real
life, bigotry is far less conspicuous. All too often, the poison of bigotry
is disguised as friendly, wellintentioned people who use antidrug
rhetoric to mask their prejudice and fear. Such people, no matter how
wellintentioned, are the new Archie Bunkers of our society.

Drug war bigots hate debate. They have no patience for facts, or peer
reviewed studies. Instead, their sole objective is to close the debate.
No discussion. No questions. No examination of the issues. Only blind
obedience to an ideology based upon lies.

That's why the bigots and racists love Nancy Reagan's 'Just say NO!'
campaign, because it closes the debate. In effect, it tells each new entire
generation to walk away from someone who even mentions drugs, so that the
underlying falsehoods and hidden racist agenda of the War on Drugs are
never questioned. Teaching kids to "Just say No," isn't intended to stop
kids from trying drugs, because everyone, even the drug warriors, already
know that it doesn't work. The real intention is to prevent any open
debate and to train young people to avoid thinking about forbidden topics.

Webster's defines a bigot as, "One fanatically devoted to one's own group,
religion, race, or politics and intolerant of those who differ." It is
this 'intolerance of those who differ' which is the basis of the zero
tolerance mentality. Bigots love the philosophy of zero tolerance, because
it provides official sanctions and political cover for their hidden agenda
of opposing anyone who looks, acts or even thinks differently than they do.
In contrast, our Founding Fathers believed in perfect tolerance and created
our form of government to be a showcase of tolerance.

Perfect tolerance is hardly what the drug warriors had in mind when a
nearly all white Congress passed federal sentencing guidelines in 1986
which made the punishment for crack use by blacks 100 times more severe for
than for the cocaine hydrochloride preferred by whites. Let's take a look
at the crack issue and see how it bigots use it to further their own racist
agenda:

According to the research published in The Journal of the American Medical
Association (JAMA), this disparity in sentencing between blacks and whites
cannot be justified on the basis of any difference between the two drugs
The study, by Dorothy K. Hatsukami at the University of Minnesota and
Marian W. Fischman at Columbia University, challenges the medical validity
of federal sentencing guidelines which jail so many more black offenders
than white ones.

In February 1995 the U.S. Sentencing Commission, a group of experts that
draws up guidelines for federal courts, called the 100to1 ratio in crack
sentences "a primary cause of the growing disparity between sentences for
black and white federal defendants." The commission recommended all but
eliminating this gap, but Congress, with President Clinton's acquiescence,
rejected the recommendation.

On May 13, 1996, the Supreme Court ruled 81 that statistics showing a
predominance of black defendants for crackrelated offenses did not
constitute sufficient proof that the government selectively prosecuted
AfricanAmericans.

Even when the government's own U.S. Sentencing Commission recommends
eliminating the disparity between crack and cocaine sentencing, the fear of
looking soft of drugs allows drug war bigotry to prevail. Clearly, the
real hidden agenda of the drug war is to marginalize and criminalize those
who pose any sort of threat to white male supremacist values and beliefs.

Bigotry, like ideology, is invisible to those trapped inside of it. For
example, we now view all citizens as equal before the law, regardless of
color, yet at one time our Supreme Court ruled that slaves were the
property of their white owners. The bigotry of the Supreme Court's
decision was just as invisible to society at that time, as the disparity in
sentencing for blacks is invisible to us now.

Here's another example of how drug war bigotry is still invisible to our
society. In downtown San Francisco, a huge billboard screams:

If you smoke pot, it takes 15 seconds longer to respond to "Hey
Stupid."

The billboard has been up for nearly half a year, right in plain view, yet
nobody seems to have objected to this blatant act of bigotry. An entire
class of people, those who choose to smoke pot, have been singled out and
ridiculed. Just imagine how different people would feel if the billboard
said something like:

If you're black, it takes 15 seconds longer to respond to "Hey
Stupid."

Obviously such a sign would never be allowed to be shown.

Drug bigotry is invisible to our society, because we've been asked to
believe that drugs are somehow a special threat. Over the past two
decades, the Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled that the state has a
"compelling interest" in drug matters and the Bill of Rights no longer
applies.

With the passage of medical marijuana initiatives in California and
Arizona, the bigotry and hypocrisy of the drug warriors is suddenly more
apparent. Just one week after Christmas, the Feds were on TV threatening
doctors and patients. Why? Because behind the drug rhetoric, the real
message is, "Only certain behaviors and thoughts will be tolerated."

The War on Drugs was never, ever about drugs, it's about bigotry. You can
change the law, but changing the prejudice and fear of bigots who hide
behind drug war rhetoric is a far more challenging task. It's time to
expose the Drug War and the bigots who promote the ideology of "Zero
Tolerance."