Monthly Archives: April 2017

General Sessions is reportedly eager to bring back the national crime strategy of the 1980s and 90s. Photograph: Andrew J Mohrer/Getty Images

When I first read the Washington Post story that the US attorney general, Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III, wants to bring back the war on drugs, I thought to myself: bring back? Where did it go? Is General Sessions himself on drugs? Because, despite a few modest reforms, somebody would have to be high to think the war on drugs has really gone away.

But the framing of an impetus to bring back the drug war is the same as Donald Trumps fantasy of making America great again and must be understood for exactly what it is: a white power grab to control black and brown people couched in the restoration of past glory.

Drugs have long been used to scapegoat black and Latino people, even as study after study finds that white youth use drugs more than their non-white peers and white people are the more likely to have contraband on them when stopped by police. As Trump plans a deportation force, a war on drugs amped up on raids will help create darker-skinned scapegoats as he rips immigrant communities apart.

General Sessions will lead this war for Trump. Standing on the US-Mexico border, General Sessions mischaracterized immigration as consisting of criminal organizations that turn cities and suburbs into warzones, that rape and kill innocent citizens. Evoking the same racialized sexual fear to stoke anti-immigrant sentiment that his boss did when he began his campaign by calling Mexican rapists, Sessions ignored that immigrants commit fewer crimes as he defiantly took a stand against this filth.

The war on drugs is itself a kind of opiate of the white masses, hustled and imbibed to stoke white peoples fear about people of color even as there already about 1.5 million black men already disappeared from US society by early death or incarceration.

If you dont think nostalgia for the war on drugs and a desire to reboot it isnt racist, consider the hillbilly elegy love affair American politics, culture and media has been indulging regarding white people addicted to opioids lately.

Many rural counties hit hardest by the opioid epidemic voted for a man whose budget and failed healthcare plan would harm people like them. These sites of drug addiction are the subjects of public sympathy and are less likely to be battlefields in the war on drugs than cities and border towns.

Thats because, when a drug epidemics victims are white, even conservative politicians tell us to understand these people, to feel compassion for them and to see their addictions as public health, not carceral, matters, in the context of deindustrialization.

We never heard any messages like that from American politicians or media during the drug epidemics of the 1980s, which rocked black America. Drugs were seen as moral failings which needed to be violently policed and the economics of addiction were imagined as disconnected from deindustrialization, poverty or unemployment.

This is what Sessions wants to bring back. Thats not because he thinks it would help black or brown America or even poor white America. Rather, the intention is to subdue the illogical fears of white America (which is Trumps base and perhaps the only major demographic in America which approves of him) that most black and Hispanic men are rapists and thieves just waiting to harm, kill and rob them.

Sessions, the nations top law enforcement officer, has no moral authority to clamp down on law and order in the first place, as he absurdly had to recuse himself from investigating the presidents ties to Russia after he told Congress under oath that he himself had had no contact with Russian officials. (He did.)

But hypocrisy is no more foreign to General Sessions than is attacking the rights of people of color. Coretta Scott King wrote a 10-page letter to help, successfully, keep him from getting a judgeship in 1986. Sessions hounded people for trying to expand the black vote decades ago just as he dropped the Department of Justices lawsuit against onerous voting burdens in Texas, and is considering letting cities whose police departments have engaged in well-documented racial violence out of federal oversight. (Fortunately, at least in Baltimore, a judge is not allowing this.)

General Sessions is reportedly eager to bring back the national crime strategy of the 1980s and 90s from the peak of the drug war, an approach that had fallen out of favor in recent years as minority communities grappled with the effects of mass incarceration. This is unethical, considering Sessions himself recently admitted that crime is at near historic lows.

The Generals approach flies in the face of humane reforms that Barack Obama made (such as pardoning non-violent drug offenders and calling for the end of mandatory minimum sentences) and is counter to even more recent criminal justice reforms, such as New York Citys plan to close its notorious Rikers Island jail and New York States decision to raise the age of juveniles charged with crimes from 16 to 18.

But its not hard to understand if you know that racism rarely gets better in America, its means just evolve and a prime means of racial control is incarceration. The war on drugs has continued an overincarceration of black people which began after the civil war. This war has made it so that, for example, nearly 90% of NYPD arrests for marijuana have been of young black and Latino men.

The war made it so that crack cocaine (more associated with black American drug use) is punished much more harshly than powder cocaine (more associated with white America). Bipartisan legislation which sought to end this disparity is opposed by General Sessions and Trump.

A friend of mine predicted that many of Trumps voters were in on his con all along: that they knew he wasnt a successful businessman, a Christian moralist or a bona fide conservative. What he was, however, was a strongman willing to enact their revenge.

By railing against the inner cities and holding steadfast to his belief that the Central Park 5 were guilty even after DNA evidence exonerated them Trump signalled he would clean up after a black president and put black and brown people in their place.

General Sessions is the henchman he has dispatched to the frontlines of this task, using the war on drugs as his battering ram.

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The war on drugs is racist. Donald Trump is embracing it with open ... - The Guardian

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Top officials in the Trump administration are taking sharply divergent positions on the issue of federal marijuana policy and its role in fueling the war on drugs.

Department of Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly said Sunday he believes marijuana plays no role in the current war on drugs, instead singling out methamphetamine, heroin and cocaine as the primary problems. His statements are in line with previous remarks where he spoke positively about the benefits of medical marijuana for certain patients, including veterans. Kelly also stated his belief that the war on drugs can only be won by addressing domestic demand, particularly for heroin, reports The Washington Post.

The comments stand in stark contrast to those from Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who is critical of legalization efforts in the U.S. Theres more violence around marijuana than one would think, he remarked in February. Heis currently reviewing the Cole Memorandum,a set of guidelines established in 2013 that direct DOJto focus marijuana enforcement efforts on violent crimes and distribution in states without legalization laws. He recently dismissed preliminary research showing marijuana can serve as an alternative painkiller and aid those with opioid addictions.

Advocates launched heaving criticism at Sessions and the Department of Justice in March after he said marijuana is only slightly less awful than heroin.

Kelly previously served as the head ofU.S. Southern Command, often dealing with narcotics smuggling from Central and South America and the Caribbean. Unlike Sessions, who is his focusing his efforts on law enforcement and increased criminal penalties to deal with the opioid crisis, Kelly advocates prioritizing treatment and rehabilitation to address U.S. demand for narcotics. (RELATED:Critics Blast Sessions As Anti-Facts For Comparing Marijuana To Heroin)

Yeah, marijuana is not a factor in the drug war, Kelly told Chuck Todd on NBCs Meet the Press Sunday. Its three things. Methamphetamine. Almost all produced in Mexico. Heroin. Virtually all produced in Mexico. And cocaine that comes up from further south.

The solution is not arresting a lot of users, Kelly added. The solution is a comprehensive drug demand reduction program in the United States that involves every man and woman of goodwill. And then rehabilitation. And then law enforcement. And then getting at the poppy fields and the coca fields in the south.

Marijuana advocates likely wont know the true intentions of the Justice Department regarding legal pot until July, when the task force reviewing the departments policy will give Sessions recommendations on how to proceed.

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Trump Administration Sharply Divided On Marijuana's Role In The War On Drugs - Daily Caller

Leonard Pitts Jr. Published 2:34 p.m. ET April 16, 2017 | Updated 22 hours ago

Leonard Pitts for his column(Photo: MIAMI HERALD STAFF)

Looks like the War on Drugs is back.

The Washington Post reported Sunday that the new attorney general, Jeff Sessions, is preparing a return to the same hardline strategies that have so spectacularly failed to reduce drug use since 1971. Indeed, the nation has spent more than a trillion dollars, made itself the biggest jailer on the planet and yet seen the use, availability and quality of drugs rise like a rocket from a launch pad while the cost dropped like a watermelon from a skyscraper.

That's why it was welcome news when President Obama quietly dismantled much of the machinery of the drug war. His Department of Justice radically scaled back federal involvement in so-called "civil asset forfeitures," a program wherein police confiscate your cash and require you to prove it's not drug money before you can get it back. The Obama DOJ looked the other way as states liberalized marijuana laws. It also extended clemency to incarcerated nonviolent drug offenders and declined to seek harsh mandatory minimum sentences for the ones facing trial.

It made sense, so it couldn't last. In February, Donald Trump announced there would be a new drug war and it would be "ruthless." Leaving aside that the old drug war was hardly ice cream and roses, there is no reason to believe being more "ruthless" will help.

After all, you can be beheaded for drug-related offenses in Saudi Arabia. Yet the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime reports that in 2008 -- the most recent year for which statistics seem to be available -- the Saudis seized 12.8 tons of amphetamines.

So much for ruthless.

There is a reason the 18th Amendment, the one outlawing liquor, was the only one ever repealed: Prohibition doesn't work. You cannot arrest people out of wanting what is bad for them. But, as we've seen with liquor and tobacco, you might be able to educate, legislate and persuade them into wanting it less.

Diane Goldstein, a retired lieutenant commander with the Redondo Beach Police Department, calls the new drug war "a horrible idea." Goldstein is an executive board member of Law Enforcement Action Partnership, a group of law enforcement veterans who think that in asking police to solve a medical problem, we've made a costly mistake.

She cites a 1994 Rand Corporation study which said that using healthcare strategies to combat drugs "returns seven times the value for every dollar spent on it to the taxpayer. Shouldn't we be looking at what is not just cost effective, but also returns better results for people who are impacted by chronic substance abuse?"

Problem is, that wouldn't allow some of us to brag how "ruthless" they are.

African Americans, who have been locked up at obscene rates, even though whites are the nation's biggest users and sellers of drugs, should regard this new "war" as a clear and present danger. Pot users of all colors in states where marijuana is now legal should feel the same; from now on, the feds will no longer be looking the other way.

They, and anyone else who is appalled by this, should tell that to the attorney general.

You'll find an online contact form at: https://www.justice.gov/doj/webform/your-message-department-justice.

The DOJ comment line is: 202-353-1555. The main switchboard is: 202-514-2000.

And here's the street address: U.S. Department of Justice, 950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Washington, D.C. 20530-0001.

However you register your opinion, please do. We've already had a War on Drugs.

And one was more than enough.

Leonard Pitts is a columnist for The Miami Herald, 1 Herald Plaza, Miami, Fla., 33132. Readers may contact him via e-mail at lpitts@miamiherald.com.

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Opinion: The War on Drugs is back - Citizen Times - Asheville Citizen-Times

Looks like the War on Drugs is back.

The Washington Post reported Sunday that the new attorney general, Jeff Sessions, is preparing a return to the same hardline strategies that have so spectacularly failed to reduce drug use since 1971. Indeed, the nation has spent more than a trillion dollars, made itself the biggest jailer on the planet and yet seen the use, availability and quality of drugs rise like a rocket from a launch pad while the cost dropped like a watermelon from a skyscraper.

It made sense, so it couldnt last. Back in February, Donald Trump himself announced that there would be a new drug war and it would be ruthless. Leaving aside that the old drug war was hardly ice cream and roses, there is no reason to believe being more ruthless will help.

After all, you can be beheaded for drug-related offenses in Saudi Arabia. Yet the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime reports that in 2008 the most recent year for which statistics seem to be available the Saudis seized 12.8 tons of amphetamines.

So much for ruthless.

There is a reason the 18th Amendment, the one outlawing liquor, was the only one ever repealed: Prohibition doesnt work. You cannot arrest people out of wanting what is bad for them. But, as weve seen with liquor and tobacco, you might be able to educate, legislate and persuade them into wanting it less.

Diane Goldstein, a retired lieutenant commander with the Redondo Beach Police Department, calls the new drug war a horrible idea. Goldstein is an executive board member of Law Enforcement Action Partnership, a group of law enforcement veterans who think that in asking police to solve a medical problem, weve made a costly mistake.

She cites a 1994 Rand Corporation study which said that using health care strategies to combat drugs returns seven times the value for every dollar spent on it to the taxpayer. Shouldnt we be looking at what is not just cost effective, but also returns better results for people who are impacted by chronic substance abuse?

Problem is, that wouldnt allow some of us to brag how ruthless they are.

African Americans, who have been locked up at obscene rates, even though whites are the nations biggest users and sellers of drugs, should regard this new war as a clear and present danger. Pot users of all colors in states where marijuana is now legal should feel the same; from now on, the feds will no longer be looking the other way.

They, and anyone else who is appalled by this, should tell that to the attorney general.

Youll find an online contact form at: https://www.justice.gov/doj/webform/your-message-department-justice.

The DOJ comment line is: 202-353-1555. The main switchboard is: 202-514-2000.

And heres the street address: U.S. Department of Justice, 950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Washington, D.C. 20530-0001.

However you register your opinion, please do. Weve already had a War on Drugs.

And one was more than enough.

Excerpt from:

Pitts: The War on Drugs is back, unfortunately - The Mercury News - The Mercury News