ACTIVIST DISCUSSES EFFECT OF DRUG WAR ON MINORITY COMMUNITY

Cliff Thornton spoke to students at Chafee hall about the war on drugs, it's
effect on minorities and how it is highly censored in the media.

For the next hour and a half Thorton gave a lecture called "Race and the
Drug War: War on Minorities?" Many students attended the event, which was
sponsored by the Students for Sensible Drug Policy organization.

Thornton is the founder and president of Efficacy, a Connecticut-based
non-profit organization that attempts to bring the issues of drug abuse and
crime prevention into public light.

Thornton has been the leading voice in speaking out against the drug war in
Connecticut. Thornton also said that it is the most important social problem
in our lifetime, other than the environment, and thinks it deserves more
attention than it is currently receiving.

"It is the most wasteful war ever," he said. "My generation screwed it up."

Thornton's presentation consisted of a brief introduction to the drug war,
and then a video made about thirteen years ago, which had a former Los
Angeles Police Department officer speaking about his involvement in fighting
the drug war, and how it cost him his job.

The video stated that the Central Intelligence Agency has had a lot more to
do with drug trafficking than many would like to believe. The United States
buys cocaine and heroin from third parties and makes millions of dollars on
it, only to then sell it on the black market to dealers and addicts for
twice what they had paid for it, Thornton said.

According to Thornton, almost every CIA covert operation is funded by money
from illegal drugs. After the ten-minute video, Thornton asked his audience
to interact with him, to tell him what they thought of the video. One
student in the audience said that the video was "surprising," and that he
"didn't know the CIA was involved in it."

Thornton then gave a lecture about drug war, and provided a massive amount
of statistics on the African-American and Latino community and how they are
affected. He said that equal opportunity is fiction, and that many whites
believe African-Americans are the majority of the population.

Many of his statistics related to African-American and Latino men who are in
prison on drug charges. The two groups make up 70 percent of the total
number of men in prison on such charges. According to Thorton only 15
percent of African-Americans use drugs, yet 35 percent are arrested on drug
charges.

In 1963, shortly before he graduated high school, a police officer came to
his home and asked Thornton to come with him. The officer brought him to a
field with multiple abandoned cars, and showed him one particular car where
he saw his mother dead. His mother had died of an apparent heroin overdose.

A few decades passed before Thornton retired early and became a drug war
activist, fighting for the legalization of marijuana, heroin and cocaine.
Thornton said he feels that if these top three drugs are legalized and the
production and distribution are controlled, that drug and crime rates will
go down.

Tobacco, marijuana, and alcohol can be sold in one type of store, and there
would not be any advertisements advocating the use of these substances.

He also proposes that those already dealing with addiction, either to
cocaine or heroin, should continue to get their doses through clinics, so
that they may also receive help in becoming clean.

If you would like to learn more about Efficacy, Cliff Thornton or the war on
drugs, you can visit Efficacy's homepage at www.efficacy-online.org .