Orange is the new black

[nitro]

Legalize It All
How to win the war on drugs

In 1994, John Ehrlichman, the Watergate co-conspirator, unlocked for me one of the great mysteries of modern American history: How did the United States entangle itself in a policy of drug prohibition that has yielded so much misery and so few good results? Americans have been criminalizing psychoactive substances since San Francisco’s anti-opium law of 1875, but it was Ehrlichman’s boss, Richard Nixon, who declared the first “war on drugs” and set the country on the wildly punitive and counterproductive path it still pursues. I’d tracked Ehrlichman, who had been Nixon’s domestic-policy adviser, to an engineering firm in Atlanta, where he was working on minority recruitment. I barely recognized him. He was much heavier than he’d been at the time of the Watergate scandal two decades earlier, and he wore a mountain-man beard that extended to the middle of his chest...

https://harpers.org/archive/2016/04/legalize-it-all/

 

[nitro]

America has locked up so many black people it has warped our sense of reality

For as long as the government has kept track, the economic statistics have shown a troubling racial gap. Black people are twice as likely as white people to be out of work and looking for a job. This fact was as true in 1954 as it is today.

The most recent report puts the white unemployment rate at around 4.5 percent. The black unemployment rate? About 8.8 percent.

But the economic picture for black Americans is far worse than those statistics indicate. The unemployment rate only measures people who are both living at home and actively looking for a job.

The hitch: A lot of black men aren't living at home and can’t look for jobs — because they’re behind bars...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...ck-people-it-has-warped-our-sense-of-reality/

 

[Vertex]

So what do you do with someone caught selling heroin? Ignore it or put them in jail are the two choices.

If the someone is black and they go to jail, people cry that the system is rigged against blacks.

If the someone is black and it is ignored, people cry that the system doesn't care about black neighborhoods.

There is no way to win, but that is really the point isn't it? Latch on to an unsolvable problem, then claim it is because of skin color.

 

[jem]

I don't smoke pot.

If I tried it, the last time I would have tried it was in the 80s. But, I see no point treating pot smokers differently than beer drinkers. isn't it just a choice of buzz.

 

[Ricter]

I don't smoke pot.

If I tried it, the last time I would have tried it was in the 80s. But, I see no point treating pot smokers differently than beer drinkers. isn't it just a choice of buzz.

Agreed.

By the way, pot is a useful way to dilate your pupils, should you have an interest in astronomy. Helps the light gathering ability of the eye. One hit will do, though, no need to get baked.
: )

 

[nitro]

So what do you do with someone caught selling heroin? Ignore it or put them in jail are the two choices.

If the someone is black and they go to jail, people cry that the system is rigged against blacks.

If the someone is black and it is ignored, people cry that the system doesn't care about black neighborhoods.

There is no way to win, but that is really the point isn't it? Latch on to an unsolvable problem, then claim it is because of skin color.

What you are doing is called Framing. I am not saying that some of this isn't going on and that the system and the PC that goes on is used to advantage. Nearly all problems have solutions if looked at from the point of view of justice.

Try expanding your view and see if you can state the same thing without bias.

 

[Tom B]

Legalize It All
How to win the war on drugs

In 1994, John Ehrlichman, the Watergate co-conspirator, unlocked for me one of the great mysteries of modern American history: How did the United States entangle itself in a policy of drug prohibition that has yielded so much misery and so few good results? Americans have been criminalizing psychoactive substances since San Francisco’s anti-opium law of 1875, but it was Ehrlichman’s boss, Richard Nixon, who declared the first “war on drugs” and set the country on the wildly punitive and counterproductive path it still pursues. I’d tracked Ehrlichman, who had been Nixon’s domestic-policy adviser, to an engineering firm in Atlanta, where he was working on minority recruitment. I barely recognized him. He was much heavier than he’d been at the time of the Watergate scandal two decades earlier, and he wore a mountain-man beard that extended to the middle of his chest...

https://harpers.org/archive/2016/04/legalize-it-all/

I generally agree with this article. We should start with marijuana.

 

[Vertex]

What you are doing is called Framing. I am not saying that some of this isn't going on and that the system and the PC that goes on is used to advantage. Nearly all problems have solutions if looked at from the point of view of justice.

Try expanding your view and see if you can state the same thing without bias.

America has locked up so many black people it has warped our sense of reality

Try reading your own posts in the same Frame that you read mine. I wonder if you will find bias?

 

[nitro]

Try reading your own posts in the same Frame that you read mine. I wonder if you will find bias?

So you don't see the difference between stating a fact that nearly every one running agrees on, including Bill Clinton Bernie Sanders and others involved, who have apologized that the intended law was run amok by the states and abused by corporations to suck federal money to fund private jails, and your stance framed by your bias?

Ok.

 

[ETcallhome]

So what do you do with someone caught selling heroin? Ignore it or put them in jail are the two choices.

If the someone is black and they go to jail, people cry that the system is rigged against blacks.

If the someone is black and it is ignored, people cry that the system doesn't care about black neighborhoods.

There is no way to win, but that is really the point isn't it? Latch on to an unsolvable problem, then claim it is because of skin color.

legalize it