DRUG RELATED RACISM AND REPARATIONS

We have been hearing a lot about reparations for slavery these days. I
must admit I have great sympathy for the slaves and their children.
But the hurt was done long in the past and most of the people living
in this country are descendants of people who had nothing to do with
slavery. The same cannot be said of the scourge of prohibition. The
Drug War that Cliff Thornton, Jr. of Efficacy
http://www.efficacy-online.org says is being waged mainly against
the lower class Black and Hispanic communities of America is going
on as we speak..

Who is responsible for the crime of prohibition? Government agents
enacted it and enforced it. Many still in Congress voted to
strengthen the prohibition laws. Certain newspaper chains fired the
flames of drug related racism to enhance their prestige and
circulation. Those who gave false testimony at the congressional
hearings are well known. In fact the government still has a whole
stable of false testifiers it trots out any time it needs some
headlines. The people of America encouraged it and to a great extent
still do. But I give them the benefit of the doubt because they have
been lied to by the government at every turn. And then we have the
pharmaceutical and tobacco companies who used to give large
contributions to the Partnership for a Drug Free America until people
started calling them on this sneaky way of holding down the
competition. Medical marijuana is a threat to the drug companies and
recreational marijuana is a threat to the beer companies. And you
thought prohibition was about safety? Not a chance.Prohibition is done
in the name of an American war on the users of competitive drugs.
Drugs less dangerous than alcohol or tobacco.

Who has directly benefited from prohibition? Police and other
government organizations benefited through confiscations of drug
related property and cash. Jail corporations have been doing quite
well. Every victim of prohibition is a profit center for them. Drug
courts supply a ready pool of prisoners to keep the prisons filled.
Kicking any addiction may require many tries for some. Some never
succeed. This group of "failures" is always ready to fill up a cell
when there is an opening. Second chances are given until a place in
the prison system opens. Guard Unions benefit from incarcerations
because every added prisoner is another addition to job security.
Lawyers benefit from drug cases win or lose it is easy money.
Individual Americans have benefited by being able to buy forfeited
goods for pennies on the dollar. Governments made out by not having to
raise taxes. After all highway robbery is easier than raising taxes
and more popular too - among the un robbed.

We have as yet to see any great number of people in the mainstream
actively working against prohibition. The attitude is "if its not
happening in my neighborhood it is not happening". Despite the fact
that 70 to 75 percent of Americans say that prohibition is not working
and 35 per cent favor legalization.

All America has benefitted from the Drug WAr through the effect of
drug money propping up the economy. The economy advances through the
sufferings of those addicted. Drug cartel money has been the backbone
of American finance for at least a decade maybe much longer.

Explained by former HUD Assistant Secratary Catherine A. Fitts in this
article: http://www.narconews.com/narcodollars3.html .

We can identify the victims of prohibition both actually and
statistically. The actual victims include those arrested. We can
identify the prisoners their wives and families. In addition we can
identify the neighborhoods most impacted. Statistical measures with
high confidence can be figured from locating the arrests of dealers
and users geographically. We can also plot heroin deaths.

http://www.solari.com/gideon/articles/index.html gives another method.

No significant amount has been paid to any of the victims. What debt
exactly do the persecuted drug users and their suppliers actually owe
America? No actual amount of money can pay for the suffering caused to
these victims of prohibition. So I think that asking for only one
year's worth of American GNP to repay over eighty years of misery is
fair. About ten trillion dollars this year. A token payment and
acknowledgement of the wrong.

Blacks, Whites, Hispanics and many others are victims of a known lie.
The lie that prohibition ever does anything but enrich criminals,
corrupt the police and politicians, and destroy neighborhoods
wholesale. The lie that the prohibited drugs are more dangerous than
tobacco and alcohol. The lie that prohibited drugs are harder to get.

The historical record is so clear from alcohol prohibition in America
that no sane person could ever deny the lesson. Alcohol prohibition
made alcohol more available to minors, enriched criminals, financed
gang wars, corrupted politicians, and destroyed neighborhoods. The
only people who still deny the lessons of alcohol prohibition are
either profiting from drug prohibition, gain power from it or are
incapable of reason. The first time we tried prohibition perhaps the
results were excusable. We didn't know any better. We have no such
excuse this time.

This weeks saying:

Prohibition is the biggest anti-capitalist, anti-property rights,
anti-human rights, racist, government corrupting, taxpayer funded,
social engineering program going in America. I don't understand why
the right, the left, or the middle supports it.

Ask a politician:

Do you support drug prohibition because it finances criminals at home
or because it finances terrorists abroad?

This week's politician:

Senator Dianne Feinstein
Phone: (202) 224-3841
Fax: (202) 228-3954
TTY/TDD: (202) 224-2501

And she has one of those obnoxious e-mail forms at:

http://www.senate.gov/~feinstein/email.html

M. Simon is an industrial controls designer and independent political
activist.

Copyright: 2001 M. Simon - All rights reserved. Permission granted for one
time use in a single periodical publication. Permission also granted for
concurrent publication on the periodical's www site.