R. James Taylor has sent you a message on Better Life Society
` Just in case you missed it, 2009 marks the 40th anniversary of America’s modern “war on drugs.” In the prosecution of this so-called war, we, as a nation, have spent well over a trillion dollars, imprisoned hundreds of thousands of people and wrecked millions of lives. Yet, to paraphrase a recent Nicholas Kristof column in the New York Times, America fought a war against drugs and drugs won.
It is time to declare defeat; legalize most currently illegal drugs; and begin to treat drug addiction primarily as a medical problem and not as a crime.
First, the war on drugs was launched and is perpetuated primarily for racist reasons. Then President Richard Nixon began the war in 1969. That year is significant because it marks the end of the turbulent decade of the 1960s when Blacks were doing everything from marching and protesting to rioting for justice.
Instead of acknowledging and addressing the racial inequalities and injustices which lay at the root of African American unrest, conservative thinkers like Nixon blamed communism and drugs. Thus, the drug war was launched primarily (though not exclusively) to curb urban unrest by putting as many Blacks in jail as possible.
Second, the war has been an abysmal failure. Drugs are just as plentiful as they always have been; prices remain low making them accessible to anyone with a few dollars; and the quality is more pure making them more dangerous to the body.
As recently as 1980, there were just 41,000 Americans in prison on drug charges. Today that number stands at over 500,000.
