Why all the talk about Drugs?

[Steve James]

I just saw a poll that said "drug addiction" is the top issue in New Hampshire. ... New Hampshire, not exactly an "urban" state. It turns out that NH youths are over-dosing at the highest rate in the nation. Wow. It's interesting that almost all the candidates are talking about treating people with addictions rather than condemning them. It's kind of ironic, to tell the truth. But, even though it's true, I don't believe that they are making these statements for anything other than political reasons. They might actually have and have had these opinions, but it's is impossible to tell now because they've been so anti-drug before.

[Taste of Death]

That's what happens when the drug users are white.

[Dmitri]

I don't believe that they are making these statements for anything other than political reasons.

If you have HBO, check out "Veep" (if you haven't already), it's really great comedy/satire - and currently pretty much the only thing that has any connection/exposure to politics for me, FWIW.

(And if you don't have HBO, consider HBO Now which is like $10 per month, or something similarly cheap, and you can watch on your computer, Roku, etc. without having to have cable subscription.)

[Steve James]

Thanks D. I will check out Veep.

[wiesiek]

easy money, free of the tax...

[Michael]

War on Drugs provides a scapegoat for angst about economic problems since Nixon times and creates the American Gulag Archipelago. After 2008 financial crisis, can't pretend bad times are not here to stay, better to let people ride it out on a wave of insobriety and release some of the prison-industrial complex potheads while making room for for political dissidents, ie., Disney Downloaders and other thought criminals who can't blame Turbotax like the Sec. of Treasury did.

[Steve James]

Yeah, that's the problem with slogans. There's no such thing as a "war" on drugs; one can only wage a war against people. And as long as it's against other people, or not against "us," then war is okay or at least justified. When people recognize their common humanity, they find it much more difficult to recommend war.

[Michael]

Isn't it kind of incorrect that in such an advanced civilization we have an extreme viewpoint on drugs and, sorry for off-topic, but perhaps sex as well? No, we need more wars! lol

So war on drugs is the domestic enemy and war on terror is the foreign enemy. War on sex is pretty much implicit, but we have gay marriage now. Not sure if that's sexual or just political.

[Dmitri]

I declare a war on wars.

[Michael]

Now announcing, the Global War on War, which will never end. Only takes 5% of GDP!

[Steve James]

I can understand being against same sex marriage, based on religious views. But, there are certain economic rights that go along with marriage. Religious beliefs shouldn't prevent any citizen from them. I wouldn't care if the same rights were given to people in "civil unions," but that doesn't happen everywhere --which is why the question went to the SC. Two people who live together all their lives should be able to inherit each other's property and get the same tax breaks.

Oh, and what's more on-topic, it wouldn't be so bad if the people doing the condemnation weren't sinners.

[Michael]

Staying gay in the closet is starting to sound like free speech zones.

Quite a few police have turned against the war on drugs and with all these videos of cops shooting people and their dogs over some thc residue maybe there needs to be some counter-rhetoric, another populist catch phrase for the candidates, but I'm not really sure if the arrest trends and incarceration rates have changed much, nor have demographics.

[yeniseri]

Cognitive dissonance is more than just a pathology!

FROM THE CLASSROOM DUNCE WITHOUT THE CAP
So I was reading a very interesting article (I will name the fellow later when I remember his name!) but then wondered why the US government policy declares a war on drugs (from the supply side) but ignores the voracious Demand on the US side, that stimulates this economy. What kind of policy is that? I know the answer but ........

Then all of a sudden, in the case of medical marijuana, you get corporation interests now looking to make a profit from a segment of the drug trade on which the "poor" has been engaging in for some time while the former gets to enjoy all the present benefits and those jailed, with records prior to this, get to stay in jail until they rot, get shot or just die! Add the Guns For Drugs Reagan Strategy and you see it ends up being a Big Scam with the slogan so obvious that only a sighted person can miss (The US Government does not sell drugs; oh really! or USA does not negotiaite with terrorists or communists until you catch US doing so.)

Furthermore, one would imagine that if drugs are so dangerous to society that they would have the same criteria for possession! If true, then 0.5 grams (I do not know the present statdard ) of all drugs in the possession of miscreants woyuld be cause for some level of punishment. Obviously not but it is difficult to find out which groups use which drugs? oh really! Maybe look and see the quantities needed for jail (marijuana, heroin, PCP, etc) That is downright difficult to assess

[Michael]

Furthermore, one would imagine that if drugs are so dangerous to society that they would have the same criteria for possession! If true, then 0.5 grams (I do not know the present statdard ) of all drugs in the possession of miscreants woyuld be cause for some level of punishment. Obviously not but it is difficult to find out which groups use which drugs? oh really! Maybe look and see the quantities needed for jail (marijuana, heroin, PCP, etc) That is downright difficult to assess

Perhaps you should come on down to Texas where volume/mass is specified for criminal possession of cocaine, but concentration is not. Grab a bag full of chalk, carefully insert one spec of coke dust from the evidence room (forgot to mention this is a drug planting operation by police), and then you can convict anyone of any cocaine possession you like, which was a real thing in Tulia, Texas for years....only for the black demographic of course, not that it was anything but a coincidence.

Is the war on drugs racist, or merely a need to put people in jail and finding convenient targets?

US government policy declares a war on drugs (from the supply side) but ignores the voracious Demand on the US side, that stimulates this economy. What kind of policy is that?

Incarceration addiction.

[Steve James]

The New York Times recently published an article titled, “In Heroin Crisis, White Families Seek Gentler War on Drugs.”

In this piece, middle-class white families, mostly from suburbs and small towns, detail their traumatic experiences with heroin addiction, also known as "smack." One white New Hampshire man interviewed for the piece talks about how he viewed people battling addiction as “junkies” until he recognized their faces in his own high-achieving, privileged daughter.

Here are some revealing numbers from the piece:

Deaths from heroin rose to 8,260 in 2013, quadrupling since 2000 and aggravating what some were already calling the worst drug overdose epidemic in United States history.
Nearly 90 percent of those who tried heroin for the first time in the last decade were white.
No wonder “compassion” is the word of the day.

The article includes the personal and political positions of GOP presidential candidates Carly Fiorina, Jeb Bush and Chris Christie, who have all expressed that there is a need to decrimilize addiction. This is a glaring departure from the party of Ronald Reagan. It was through his backroom dealings with Nicaragua’s Contras that the War on Drugs intensified as crack cocaine and guns flooded inner-cities, laying the groundwork for mass incarceration that has ravaged black communities; yet, here are his political descendants struggling to frame addiction as the health issue it has always been without making the GOP look like the party of hypocrites that it has always been.

Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton has also had to step into the breech in an attempt to sanitize the insidious racism that shades her husband’s legacy at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. Former President Bill Clinton was complicit in getting the onmibus crime bill passed in 1994, which included the “3 Strikes Law,” thus expanding the War on Drugs. He has since acknowledged and apologized for his role in the devastation that bill caused for black families, but it’s much too little, much too late.

For over three decades, racist, drug sentencing disparities have been stark. According to NAACP Criminal Justice Fact Sheet and the Sentencing Project:

About 14 million whites and 2.6 million African Americans report using an illicit drug

5 times as many whites are using drugs as African Americans, yet African Americans are sent to prison for drug offenses at 10 times the rate of whites

African Americans represent 12% of the total population of drug users, but 38% of those arrested for drug offenses, and 59% of those in state prison for a drug offense.

African Americans serve virtually as much time in prison for a drug offense (58.7 months) as whites do for a violent offense (61.7 months). (Sentencing Project)

The Fair Sentencing Act of 2010 may have reduced the disparity in sentencing between crack cocaine and powder from 100:1 to 18:1, but the stigma attached to crack has not been shed under this “gentler” approach to tackling addiction. It clings to the societal-inflicted stigmas of poverty and mental illness; it clings to the dehumanizing lens through which this nation views black Americans.

Case in point: According to the NYT, “32 states have passed “good Samaritan” laws that protect people from prosecution, at least for low-level offenses, if they call 911 to report an overdose.” Eric Adams, a white former undercover narcotics detective, now sees the humanity in those battling drug addiction. His job now is not to set up stings that entrap people of color, it is to seek people battling addiction and help them get into treatment.

“The way I look at addiction now is completely different,” Mr. Adams said. “I can’t tell you what changed inside of me, but these are people and they have a purpose in life and we can’t as law enforcement look at them any other way. They are committing crimes to feed their addiction, plain and simple. They need help.”

I think we can all figure out what changed.
Did black people addicited to crack cocaine not need help? Do their lives not have purpose? Are there not underlying reasons for crime in black communities that don't hinge on the pathologizing of black people as innately more criminal than their white counterparts?
It is a grave insult for Michael Botticelli, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, to condescendingly suggest in the NYT piece that the sole difference between the treatment of heroin users and crack cocaine users lies in the political acumen and savvy organizational skills of white people who understand how to petition government for change. As if black activists and families have not been passionately fighting back against racist drug policies for decades.

This suggestion that if only we had enough intelligence, if only we had made enough noise, then African American communities would have been treated more gently by police officers when they came through the hood stopping and frisking for drugs, is disingenuous and dangerous.

What that says is if only black Americans understood the complexity of bureaucracy, perhaps Tarika Wilson would not have been killed when a Lima, Ohio SWAT team raided her home to arrest her boyfriend on drug charges, and perhaps her 14-month-old son would not have been shot as she held him in her arms.

If only we had organized enough, perhaps Ramarley Graham would not have been gunned down by Officer Richard Haste, 30, inside of his grandmother’s home as he attempted to flush a bag of marijuana down the toilet.

If only we cared enough, perhaps 1 in 12 black men between the ages of 25-54 would not be behind bars, compared with 1 in 60 non-black men in the age group, or perhaps 1 in 200 black women would not be behind bars, compared to 1 in 500 nonblack women, many on low-level drug charges.

If we were only “empowered,” perhaps former Oklahoma City police officer Daniel Holtzclaw would not be on trial for the sexual assault and rape of 12 black women and one, underage black girl -- some in possession of drugs or facing non-violent drug charges -- because he knew that they knew the system would not be “gentle” with them if he hauled them off to jail instead.

Or, perhaps, we should accurately define the War on Drugs as a "War on the Most Vulnerable Communities in Black America."

Though Nancy Reagan’s “Just Say No” campaign is a thing of the past, while our government is finding ways to be “gentle” with white, heroin addicts, they are still just saying no to black people in this country.

"Just say no" to dismantling a racist system that funneled drugs and guns into black communities with limited access to education and employment.

"Just say no" to food and health benefits for affected families who are trapped in cycles of poverty and violence.

"Just say no" to then treating the inevitable rise in addiction as a health issue.

"Just say no" to decriminalizing black, low-level drug offenders and reinstating their basic rights to citizenship after their inevitable incarceration.

Drug addiction is absolutely a dire health issue across the United States, and regardless of race, ethnicity or socioeconomic status, it needs to be decriminalized. But what we are witnessing is the protection of white Americans while black Americans continue to be penalized.

Police officers and politicians are simply making it clear that the War on Drugs was never supposed to include them. It is racist, systemic, purposeful violence in the truest sense of the word and there is nothing gentle about that.

Kirsten West Savali is a cultural critic and senior writer for The Root and was awarded a 2015 Harry Frank Guggenheim Fellowship. Her provocative commentary explores the intersections of race, social justice, religion, feminism, politics and pop culture. Follow her on Twitter.