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At the time, I was writing a book about the politics of drug prohibition. I started to ask Ehrlichman a series of earnest, wonky questions that he impatiently waved away. “You want to know what this was really all about?” he asked with the bluntness of a man who, after public disgrace and a stretch in federal prison, had little left to protect. “The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.”..............

As long ago as 1949, H. L. Mencken identified in Americans “the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy,” an astute articulation of our weirdly Puritan need to criminalize people’s inclination to adjust how they feel. The desire for altered states of consciousness creates a market, and in suppressing that market we have created a class of genuine bad guys — pushers, gangbangers, smugglers, killers. Addiction is a hideous condition, but it’s rare. Most of what we hate and fear about drugs — the violence, the overdoses, the criminality — derives from prohibition, not drugs. And there will be no victory in this war either; even the Drug Enforcement Administration concedes that the drugs it fights are becoming cheaper and more easily available.

Now, for the first time, we have an opportunity to change course........

AZGrizFan wrote:I'm shocked. Just shocked, I say. Now let's get someone from government to be honest about the "war" on poverty.

Ursus A. Horribilis wrote:week

Ursus A. Horribilis wrote:week

andy7171 wrote:I thought the war on drugs started in the 80's.

andy7171 wrote:I thought the war on drugs started in the 80's.

andy7171 wrote:I'd like to make all drugs legal, pay reparations, and make purple a manly color just so we could say "SHUT THE FUCK UP" to everyone from then on out.

Chizzang wrote:kalm and Chizzang prepare for another Marijuana thread...

89Hen wrote:

Chizzang wrote:kalm and Chizzang prepare for another Marijuana thread...

So apparently not. Just a hit and run by kalm.

Didn't Ehrlichman die like 20 years ago?

89Hen wrote: I never claimed to be in it. But posting "an interesting admission" from a guy who's been dead for nearly 20 years... I was just surprised to see kalm take a page from the book of Jon and Travis.

Grizalltheway wrote:relevance

89Hen wrote:

Grizalltheway wrote:relevance

Grizalltheway wrote:

89Hen wrote: I never claimed to be in it. But posting "an interesting admission" from a guy who's been dead for nearly 20 years... I was just surprised to see kalm take a page from the book of Jon and Travis.

So the fact that he's dead means it doesn't have any relevance or truth to it? Guess you better throw that old Bible away.

Grizalltheway wrote:

89Hen wrote: I never claimed to be in it. But posting "an interesting admission" from a guy who's been dead for nearly 20 years... I was just surprised to see kalm take a page from the book of Jon and Travis.

So the fact that he's dead means it doesn't have any relevance or truth to it? Guess you better throw that old Bible away.

89Hen wrote: Donk circle jerks are boring.

Grizalltheway wrote:

89Hen wrote: Donk circle jerks are boring.

No shit. You can only work a speedbag for so long before you want something that punches back.