cannabisnews.com: From Nixon to Now





From Nixon to Now
Posted by CN Staff on August 03, 2002 at 16:18:29 PT
By Kevin B. Zeese 
Source: Playboy Magazine 
A Flawed Drug Policy Marches On. There's one thing you can say for the war on drugs: It's consistent. The effort is tinged with the same hypocrisy, dishonesty and propaganda that characterized President Richard Nixon's launch of it during the early Seventies. Earlier this year the National Archives released tapes Nixon made in the Oval Office during 1971 and 1972. Transcripts highlight the prejudice, ignorance and self-deception that precipitated a national tragedy.
While the president appointed a commission that called for decriminalizing the possession and small-scale sale of marijuana, Nixon pushed for an "all-out war, on all fronts," against pot smokers. Within a year marijuana arrests had jumped threefold, to 420,700 from 100,000. And since then, more than 15 million people have been arrested in the U.S. for marijuana. What was Nixon's big hang-up with weed? He saw it as a tool used by those who opposed him. The president claimed that "radical demonstrators are all on drugs." He told confidants that "every one of the bastards out for legalizing marijuana is Jewish. I suppose it's because most of them are psychiatrists." Nixon saw the drug war as part of a larger cultural war: "Homosexuality, dope, immorality in general - these are the enemies of strong societies. That's why the Communists and left-wingers are pushing the stuff. They're trying to destroy us." In his notes from the time, Nixon aide Bob Haldeman reported that the White House saw tough drug laws as a way to keep the black community in check. "The whole problem is the blacks," Haldeman wrote. "The key is to devise a system that recognizes this while not appearing to." The Nixon legacy? More blacks in prison, and fewer voting. While blacks make up approximately 15 percent of drug users, they represent 55 percent of drug convictions. Thirteen percent have lost the right to vote because of felony convictions, often for drug offenses. In Florida alone, and estimated 204,600 black men cannot vote - enough to have easily turned the presidential election, even allowing for quite a few dangling chads. While speaking with entertainer and antidrug crusader Art Linkletter, Nixon dismissed any comparison between the mood-altering effects of alcohol and those of drugs. He asserted that while people smoke to get high, they don't drink to get drunk but only to have fun. That simple but absurd distinction has influenced domestic policy for 30 years. The feds are punitive on pot use but compassionate about alcohol abuse. Critics of the drug war have called for an end to treating drug users as criminals. They point to the cost of this jihad. The government's response? Clever accounting. The drug war budget already does not include the cost of military personnel working on drug enforcement, such as the soldiers and civilian contractors employed in Colombia by the U.S. Now the White House also will exclude the expense of prosecuting and/or imprisoning offenders. According to drug czar John Walters, these are indirect costs for his office. It gets better. This year, for the first time, the cost of treating alcoholics - people addicted to a substance that's legal in every state - will be added to the budget. So much for Nixon's distinction between tokers and tipplers. Why these Enron-like tricks? The easy answer is that they allow President Bush to cut the federal drug budget from $19.2 billion to $11.4 billion without any sacrifice. More important, Bush and Walters can maintain that the split in the budget between enforcement and treatment costs approaches 50-50 (the actual split is 70-30). This not only allows the administration to claim the higher ground - it's compassionate conservatism at work - but it also reflects a growing belief among the public that incarceration is not the way to battle what is being recognized as a public health crisis. Unfortunately, it's all lies. The leaders of the drug war have become comfortable with their ability to churn out propaganda. They can assert with straight faces the $3 billion annual cost of incarcerating offenders is not a cost of the war. This sort of dishonesty shows the drug warriors realize they are losing support. According to one national survey, three in four Americans believe the war is a losing cause. Voters in California and Arizona have told authorities to provide treatment to offenders rather than send them to prison. More reforms are sure to follow. News article courtesy of Mapinc. -- http://mapinc.org/drugnews/v02/n1437/a06.htmlSource: Playboy Magazine (US) Author: Kevin ZeesePublished: Sunday, September 1, 2002Copyright: 2002 Playboy Enterprises, Inc. Contact: edit playboy.com Website: http://www.playboy.com/ Related Articles & Web Site:CSDPhttp://www.csdp.org/ Outside View: Nixon Tapes Pot Shocker http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread12680.shtmlTricky Dick's Guide to Drinking and Toking http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread12533.shtmlSecret Nixon Tapes Show Why US Outlawed Pothttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread12324.shtml Just What Was He Smoking? http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread12302.shtml 
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Comment #6 posted by Zero_G on August 04, 2002 at 08:16:57 PT
Monsanto
And, of course, our good friends at Monsanto are still in the chemical and biological defoliation business...Some things never change.
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Comment #5 posted by Zero_G on August 04, 2002 at 08:05:28 PT
Still Kickin' Dick Nixon
And usually with good cause. chemical warfare in the form of spraying peasents with defoliants (Agent Ornage was first used in Viet Nam, remember?); kaptinemoWe can't blame this one on Tricky Dick - Agent Orange was the code name for a herbicide developed for the military, primarily for use in tropical climates. Although the genesis of the product goes back to the 1940's, serious testing for military applications did not begin until the early 1960's. The purpose of the product was to deny an enemy cover and concealment in dense terrain by defoliating trees and shrubbery where the enmy could hide. The product "Agent Orange" (a code name for the orange band that was used to mark the drums it was stored in, was principally effective against braod-leaf foliage, such as the dense jungle-like terrain found in Southeast Asia.The product was tested in Vietnam in the early 1960's, and brought into ever widening use during the height of the war (1967-68), though it's use was diminished and eventually discontinued in 1971. from: http://njaoc.org/facts.htmand:Agent Orange was used in Vietnam by the Americans during the Vietnam War. Code named Operation Hades, Agent Orange was part of a defoliant programme to deny cover for the Viet Cong. The Vietnam War was not the first time defoliants had been used. The British used defoliants in Malaya during counter-insurgency operations. ICI supplied the chemicals and according to a Colonial Office report saw it as 'a lucrative field for experiment'. To cut back forest to deny the opportunity for ambush is nothing new. In England, in the Middle Ages, either side of a highway was cut back to a set distance to deny the opportunity for highway robbers. What was new was the use of toxic chemicals. Agent Orange (a 50:50 mix of 2,4-D and 2,4,5-T) was one of several defoliants used. The others were Agent Pink, Agent Blue and Agent White. The names were derived from the colour coding of the drums containing the defoliants. from:
http://www.heureka.clara.net/gaia/orange.htmTest trials of Agent Orange were carried out in Puerto Rico. The US imposed a military government on Puerto Rico a century ago when it was seized from the Spanish. The island of Vieques (40 miles off the coast, population 5,500) has been used for target practise by the US military for the last 60 years. Since 1980 it has been used for test firing of depleted uranium munitions, chemical contaminants have found their way into ground water, local crabs have 20 times the normal levels of heavy metals, cancer rates amongst the island's population is twice the national average. Agent Orange was manufactured by Monsanto, Dow Chemicals (manufacturers of napalm), Uniroyal, Hercules, Diamond Shamrock, Thompson Chemical and TH Agriculture. Monsanto were the main supplier. The Agent Orange produced by Monsanto had dioxin levels many times higher than that produced by Dow Chemicals, the other major supplier of Agent Orange to Vietnam. Much more in the articles, including the horrific legacy of birth defects, and deaths.Seems Nixon ended the practice of using Agent Orange, but, as recently released documents point out, he was considering going nuclear (that's new klee ur, Mr. Resident); "I'd rather use the nuclear bomb," Nixon is heard to say in a matter-of-fact tone. "That, I think, would just be too much," Kissinger replies cautiously. "Does that bother you?" Nixon is heard to reply sharply, adding, "I just want you to think big." A later conversation taped in June the same year with domestic adviser Charles Colson reveals an extremely angry Nixon gruffly dismiss Vietnam. "We want to decimate the goddamn place," he barks to Mr Colson. "North Vietnam is going to get reordered...it's what should have been done a long time ago." from: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/1847733.stmAnd the U.S. is still trying to reorder the world...Zero G
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Comment #4 posted by xxdr_zombiexx on August 04, 2002 at 07:20:46 PT
Post-reagan nixonianism
That's all the drug war is now. A racist paranoid idea that grew up into an transnational corporation.Nixon hated the Hippie Movement. There were people in his administration who fully believed it was created and perpetuated by "the Commies". The others were the sorts sitting around listening to led zeppelin backwards searching for messages from Satan.When Reagan was elected..all that returned, along with forfieture laws and drug testing and eveything that made it the War on Drugs, inc.That sae team now runs the White House again...thus the fancy academic name I suggest is: Post Reagean Nixonianism, as Team Bush is doing nothing new.
The Party's Over
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Comment #3 posted by John Tyler on August 04, 2002 at 06:43:08 PT
Drug War
The whole Drug War is based on racism, greed and ignorance. The history of drug prohibition clearly show that it was meant to oppress minorities, be they Chinese, Mexicans, or blacks. The way laws are written and enforced can be used to destroy and oppress the enemies of the state. 
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Comment #2 posted by p4me on August 03, 2002 at 19:45:20 PT
If only they read the articles
Thank you Playboy for another fine article. My belief is that the Playboy article titled "Put these guys in rehab" was the article of the year so far and would be hard to top: http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/13/thread13091.shtmlNo editorial expecting respect is going to call for a continuation of the WOSD as presently practiced and that ought to tell you more than something. The fact that there is no outcry to continue the same old tired mistakes should tell you everything. The prohibition of MJ is led by a bunch of cave dwellers well isolated from reality and pragmatism only interested in the old chants and the old ways and the old paycheck.73% of the people are for MMJ and all the cavedwellers do is chant. We outnumber them 3 to 1 and they are in righteous disbelief that we attack while they are chanting as loud as possible. The stone wall is protected by the Liars and they hate it when we kill their liars. Wethepeople even admire the construction of their stone walls and are damned well tired of any complaints about us converting some of their precious wall into gates. Well if there were as many of them as there are of us then they would understand why we have to stop and convert some wall to new gates. Of course they understand us already as it is necessary in their defense. We will work on the gates until election day. After election day we are going to put an end to those chants one way or another.We outnumber them 3 to 1. Our plans are clear- vote and then attack with a few occassional slings and arrows to protect our work of rearranging the great stonewall of the prohibitionist.We are the next demographic. I just had to throw a scare into controlled media.1,2
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Comment #1 posted by kaptinemo on August 03, 2002 at 18:43:32 PT:
More proofs of the racist rationale behind
the DrugWar:In his notes from the time, Nixon aide Bob Haldeman reported that the White House saw tough drug laws as a way to keep the black community in check. "The whole problem is the blacks," Haldeman wrote. "The key is to devise a system that recognizes this while not appearing to." The Nixon legacy?But this was not the only 'Nixon Legacy'...others were the use of Federal agencies as weapons of vengeance against political enemies real and imagined, the rightward turn of the Supreme Court, the creation of RICO (the basis for all forfeiture laws), chemical warfare in the form of spraying peasents with defoliants (Agent Ornage was first used in Viet Nam, remember?); need I go on? The practices of todays DrugWarriors were born of the twisted minds inhabiting the White house back then. Tricky Dick's dead cold hand is crushing our liberties still. He didn't get half the kicking around he deserved....
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