Category Archives: War On Drugs

When Encanto was announced the winner of the Oscar for best animated film on Sunday night, Martn Anzellini the Colombian architect who helped develop the films representation of his home country had little idea. Instead, he was watching Encanto at home with his twin toddler daughters, who had yet to see it.

Once we finished watching the film, I checked my phone and saw my WhatsApp was going wow! Anzellini said. It was so exciting, I almost cried. And I hugged my daughters, as my work on the film was for them.

Though Anzellini may have been slow on the uptake, much of his country was united in celebration of the films success for breaking Colombias usual association with drugs and violence.

For Colombians its important to see ourselves represented in a positive light, given that were so used to being about cocaine and war, said Anzellini, who teaches at Javeriana University in Bogot. The most important thing with a film like this is that we can see ourselves differently.

Though the whimsical blockbuster was made by American directors and producers, the story it tells of the magical Madrigal family is steeped in Colombian folklore.

The film-makers worked with a number of Colombian consultants on the film across various disciplines, from architects and anthropologists to animators.

The film also alludes to the countrys history of violence and forced displacement, and while themes of intergenerational trauma may not seem like a recipe for box-office success, they reverberated intensely in Colombia, which has been racked by decades of civil war between the state, leftist rebel armies, rightwing paramilitaries, and drug traffickers.

More than 260,000 people were killed in the conflict that formally ended with a fragile 2016 peace deal, while millions were forced to abandon their homes. Children were often at risk of recruitment into violent groups or growing up as orphans.

Unfortunately, conflict is a recurring theme in Colombia, but if we dont acknowledge those wounds, then well keep on repeating them, said Alejandra Espinoza, a writer and researcher who consulted with the filmmakers on the films representation of Colombias history. The film takes place in a small town because violence in Colombia was historically in small towns, before people were displaced to the big cities.

The film also leans heavily on the imagery of Nobel Prize-winning Colombian author Gabriel Garca Mrquez, popularly known as Gabo.

Gabo once told me that all of my work comes from the popular culture of Colombias Caribbean coast, said Jaime Abello Banfi, who heads the Gabo Foundation in Cartagena. And while Encanto isnt an adaptation, its clear that [songwriter] Lin-Manuel Miranda and his team were very keen to base it on Colombian magical realism.

Magical realism has become a whole theme that marks our country, he said.

Colombian singer Sebastin Yatra performed a song from the film during Sundays ceremony, in a suit embroidered with a flutter of yellow butterflies, much like those that follow one of the characters in Mrquezs masterpiece One Hundred Years of Solitude.

As a Colombian in a globalized world, watching the Oscars, it was always something far away, said Hernando Bahamon, a Colombian animator who consulted on the film. It was something to see everyone mentioning Colombia on Sunday night.

In a country where the often faltering national football team is usually the only institution that unites the divided population, the films win brought praise from across society and the political spectrum.

Encanto, inspired by the cultural richness of our country, fills us with pride, tweeted rightwing president Ivn Duque on Sunday night, while Gustavo Petro, the leftwing frontrunner in upcoming elections, was similarly effusive.

I love that Encanto won an Oscar, Petro, a former guerrilla fighter turned firebrand politician, tweeted. Now the magic begins.

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Not just cocaine and war: Colombian pride at Oscar-winning Encantos positive portrayal - The Guardian

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At some point between the 80s and now, leaving children unattended in public became unthinkable. To let children as old as, say, 10 walk by themselves became grounds to investigate parents for neglect. As a child of the late 90s and early 2000s, I knew latchkey kids existed, but nearly exclusively from the aging 1980s childrens paperbacks in my elementary schools library. My friends whose parents worked too late to pick them up from school stayed in the building for a child care program or took a bus to the nearby Boys & Girls Club.

Statistics confirm the decline of the latchkey kid that I witnessed and that continues today. A primary reason for the change was the fear that children were constantly on the cusp of being kidnapped, abused, or taken advantage of, and thus could never be left alone.

Paul Renfro, an assistant professor of history at Florida State University, chronicled in his 2020 book Stranger Danger: Family Values, Childhood, and the American Carceral State, how such a notion became widespread in the 80s and 90s. Pictures of missing and abducted children were plastered onmilk cartons, as media ramped up coverage of random, isolated incidents of children being abducted in ways that it hadnt beforeeven as the number of children who were abducted did not substantially increase.

Critics of this moment often blame the media, who did play a part in elevating these concernsbut theres more to the story. Their coverage played right into the hands of, and was exacerbated by, a reactionary right-wing movement that was eager to notch culture war wins by conflating the so-called stranger danger threat to children with pornography, underage drinking, drugs, teen pregnancy, and the like. Ancillary battles on similar moral fronts hastened a harsher war on drugs, and the corresponding mass incarceration policies that disproportionately hurt Black America.

Today, the leveraging of unfounded fears that children are in unprecedented danger toward political ends isanimated by QAnon and Pizzagate conspiracy theories. While these are generally too absurd for elected politicians to directly endorsethe few that have, like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) have walked backSen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and most recently Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) have tried to tap into the same fear and energy QAnon has harnessed. They want to use it to push a reactionary political projectbut without having to say QAnon out loud.

DuringJudge Ketanji Brown Jacksons Supreme Court nominationhearings, Hawley repeatedly claimed that she had been soft on child pornography offenders, despite being accused, earlier in his own career, of displaying untoward leniency towards sexual abusers as a prosecutor and attorney general. He largely focused on Jacksons deviations from federal sentencing guidelines in child porn cases, even though judges appointed by Trumphave also deviated from the guidelines, which have been broadly and bipartisanly criticized.

In an email interview, Renfro explained the rights long tradition of hyping up concerns about the nuclear family and children, howHawleys attacks on Jackson are just the latest version, and what might make Americans less susceptible to repeated moral panics.

Your book talks about how panics over children have been weaponized to political ends. Can you give an overview of the argument and explain the modern genesis of this?

Moral panics concerning children have a long history in the United States, but my book concentrates on the stranger danger scare that erupted in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Fears about the sanctity and stability of the idealized American familyand the child at its heartwere intensifying during this period. As the power and influence of the Religious Right grew in the 1970s, its leaders railed against feminists, sought to curtail reproductive freedom, and smeared gay men as child predators who must recruit.

In this context, several high-profile child kidnapping or murder cases stoked fears of a widespread and worsening epidemic. The 1979 Etan Patz abduction in New York City, the 197981 Atlanta youth kidnappings and murders, and the 1981 Adam Walsh kidnapping and slaying in South Florida, among others, received tremendous national news coverage, much of which exaggerated the scope and the nature of the child kidnapping threat. On nightly news broadcasts and in print media, bereaved parents, concerned politicians, law enforcement officials, moral entrepreneurs, and others claimed that as many as 50,000 children fell victim to stranger kidnapping annually in the US.

Even though the actual number of stranger kidnappings was and remains somewhere around 100and children are far more likely to be abducted, abused, or killed by a family member or acquaintancemany everyday Americans were convinced that their families and children were facing a grave and growing threat. The nation was in the throes of a moral panic, the consequences of which would be multifaceted. Parents grew increasingly protective of their children, restricting their movements and demanding stronger and more punitive state responses to the perils of child kidnapping and exploitation. They found an ally in President Ronald Reagan, who targeted, inflated, and often conflated various presumed threats confronting the American familyfrom stranger danger to underage drinking, from adult pornography to child pornography, from drugs to teen pregnancy, from heavy metal to satanic ritual abuse.

Developments in the Reagan eraincluding the Missing Children and Missing Children Assistance Acts of 1982 and 1984, respectively, as well as the Child Protection Act of 1984, the Child Sexual Abuse and Pornography Act of 1986, and other measuresset the stage for the surfeit of child protection laws enacted on the federal level during the Clinton and Bush II years. Its important to note, then, that child protection and family values were (and remain) bipartisan issues. (As Greg Grandin wryly notes, Clinton was Reagans greatest achievement.) Under Clinton and George W. Bush, the federal government mandated the adoption by states of sex offense registries and community notification protocols. Accordingly, the number of individuals charged with and incarcerated for various sex offenses (some but not all of which involve actual sexual harm)and the number of people forced to register as sex offendersskyrocketed. Today, nearly one million individuals are listed as sex offenders in the US.

And so now Hawley is playing on this tradition in the Senate confirmation hearings. How savvy do you think Hawley is being? Is he just making the calculation that people dont like children being harmed, or do you think hes aware of just who he is tapping into and going after?

Hawley probably knows what hes doing. The moral panic I write about in Stranger Danger never really dissipated, and in moments of national chaos and uncertainty (such as the late 1970s or the 2020s), many Americans look to shore up the nuclear family and preserve childhood innocenceboth of which have particular racial, class, and spatial connotations. Not unlike Glenn Youngkin (whose successful gubernatorial bid in Virginia last year centered around the slogan, Parents Matter), Hawley recognizes that he can mobilize (white) suburban parents by tapping into their fears about child safety and innocence. He and others can reach these audiences by discussing a range of different issuesincluding critical race theory, gender-affirming care for trans kids, or Ketanji Brown Jacksons presumed softness on sex offenders.

How do QAnon and Pizzagate factor into this? Do you think that Hawley is trying to stoke the energy of that community?

These topics enable Hawley and others to gesture toward the QAnon conspiracy theory without explicitly mentioning it. But hes coming pretty damn close by arguing that Jackson, a Black woman nominated by a Democratic president, is endanger[ing] our children. Whose children, exactly? Plus, a quick glance at Hawleys online storewhich features koozies, mugs, and T-shirts emblazoned with the image of Hawleys infamous fist salute on January 6, 2021reveals that hes more than willing to associate himself with QAnon supporters and other extremist elements. And hes been nodding to Q for quite a long time now; for example, while serving as Missouri attorney general in 2018, Hawley lamented the human trafficking crisis and blamed it on the sexual liberationism of the 1960s and 1970s. The sexual revolution has led to exploitation of women on a scale that we would never have imagined, he asserted.

Is there a close historical antecedent to what Hawley is doing? Based on what youve witnessed in past trends does this represent another step on the bridge of bringing QAnon-styled conspiracies into the conventional political realm?

In many ways, Hawley, Ron DeSantis, Greg Abbott, and others are building on the culture wars of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Todays handwringing about critical race theory and illiberalism on college campuses recalls the debate over political correctness and the canon in the 1990s. Further, their antigay and anti-trans politicking is reminiscent of the efforts undertaken in the 1970s and 1980s by Religious Right figureswho depicted gay men as depraved predators who groomed or recruited childrenas well as the campaign against marriage equality, waged by Republicans and Democrats alike in the early to mid-2000s.

But Hawley and others also seem to be laundering certain ideas associated with QAnon. This is a strategy that the organizers of the summer 2020 #SaveTheChildren and #SaveOurChildren rallies undertook, consciously obscuring connections to QAnon through abstract (and virtually unassailable) language concerning child protection and trafficking.

Ted Cruz tried his own version of this in 2020 over a Netflix film. Are politicians just going to take these kinds of shots when they see them?

Until voters or elected officials within the GOP thoroughly rebuke Hawley (and other Q sympathizers like Marjorie Taylor Greene), theres little reason for him and others to distance themselves from such elements.

There is a conspiratorial tradition of reaction that I think goes beyond stranger danger: the myth of the black males threat to white women; Red Scare fears of communists infiltrating every level of government; gay men being threats to their communities, etc. Do you think that child sex panics of that kind of genre, or do they run parallel?

As Ive argued elsewhere, notions of white innocence and victimhoodwhich oftentimes but not always concentrate on the idealized child and familyare incredibly potent and, indeed, loom over all of the phenomena to which your question refers. Those ideas helped propel the (bipartisan) war on drugs and mass incarceration, the Second Red Scare, the opposition to busing and school desegregation, the global war on terror, and beyond. Moral/sex panics concerning children flow from these powerful ideas and help shape rhetoric and policy on a whole range of issues in US political culture.

A lot of people just hear that kids are being threatened andeven if you show them theres not a spike and that the biggest threat is inside the home, not out of itthey just dont care. Is there a way to break the pattern and neutralize the power of these moral panics and conspiracies influencing politics and policy?

This is a tough one. Moral panics thrive off of instability and insecurity, and because the US is so unstable and unequal, Americans are particularly susceptible. But it stands to reason that moral panics might lose their luster if American society became more egalitarian, less hierarchical, less atomized, and less anxious. For instance, ending the (bipartisan) fixation on family values might bolster alternative forms of kinship and supportsuch as a more robust social safety net and communal systems of childrearing and educationwhich could potentially curb the abuse and exploitation that takes place in the household. Further, we should think very seriously about why the political and media classes continually promulgate wild, baseless ideas to garner votes and generate attentionespecially as Americans quality of life fails to improve in the twenty-first century. Doing so might force politicians and the chattering classes to change their ways.

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Stranger Dangers: The Right's History of Turning Child Abuse Into a Political Weapon Mother Jones - Mother Jones

We must not return to the failed, punitive policies that do not improve public safety or save lives.

By Taylor Pendergrass

The fentanyl crisis continues to cause unfathomable loss across the country. Amid so much pain, we have a responsibility to embrace bold, proven, and life-saving public safety solutions. Now is the moment when we must also put to bed, forever, decades of failed, punitive policies that led to this unprecedented crisis. It is far past time for lawmakers to take aggressive action to protect families by investing in evidence-based solutions that save lives.

For over 50 years, the United States had only one answer to the question of how to save lives and reduce harm from drug use: punishment and prison. The result of this horrifying experiment is a mountain of evidence showing the overall effect of imprisonment is null. Prison sentences do not improve safety. They do not save lives. They do not help people recover from substance use disorder. They do not keep us safe from or reduce the supply of dangerous drugs, or save lives in the event of an overdose.

Here is the cold, hard truth: We could increase prison sentences 10-fold, cut them by half, triple them, then eliminate them, and all those changes would do absolutely nothing to protect our families and loved ones from future fentanyl tragedies.

Examining the research is hardly necessary for most American families. They know all too well from their experience with a family member, friend, or even their own lived experience that locking someone up with a substance use disorder will not provide them with the resources and treatment they need. Locking people up only wreaks tremendous intergenerational costs and a never-ending cycle of harm for families and children.

Unfortunately, some lawmakers appear to have no solutions at all, offering only stale and warmed-over war on drugs leftovers. At best, increasing prison sentences for drug-related offenses will have no impact whatsoever on this crisis. At worst, and far more likely, it will stigmatize people who need treatment, exacerbate racial injustice, and squander valuable resources. It is imperative that money be spent on addressing the root causes of the overdose epidemic.

We are thinking far too small for this enormous crisis when we debate about tinkering at the edges of our ancient and ineffective mass incarceration architecture. It is also a colossal waste of time when lawmakers should be laser-focused on rapidly scaling up evidence-based solutions that have proven effective at saving lives: overdose prevention centers, fentanyl test strips, safe supply, drug decriminalization, public education campaigns, and low-barrier access to naloxone and other rehabilitative and life-saving therapies.

Voters of all stripes agree the war on drugs has failed, Democrats (83 percent), Independents (85 percent), and Republicans (82 percent). Voters also know that there is nothing more soft on crime than politicians who are too scared to act decisively and aggressively to prevent death and harm from happening in the first place.

Lawmakers claiming the same failed approaches that havent worked for the last 50 years are now suddenly going to succeed are displaying a very dangerous mix of willful ignorance, magical thinking, and political expediency. If they have no real solutions to offer, they should step aside and let lawmakers with a real vision and commitment to keeping families safe lead the way. We can and must meet this moment.

Taylor Pendergrass is the Director of Advocacy and Strategic Alliances for the ACLU of Colorado.

Here is the original post:

Guest Commentary: The War on Drugs Failed Lawmakers Must Meet the Fentanyl Crisis With New Solutions - The Peoples Vanguard of Davis

The CIA sold drugs in the 1980s. That is a bold statement and not entirely true, but it is what was picked up by most of the population when journalist Gary Webb reported on it. This, added with the fact that in 1971, President Richard Nixon declared drug abuse the publics biggest enemy, and later President Ronald Reagans expansion on these policies, created an endless war on drugs.

Throughout this war, many things have happened and been tried, such as an opioid epidemic and the legalization of weed on the state government level. Despite the current legalization of weed, drugs should not be legalized. Instead, the United States should aim to decriminalize drugs so that there can be an end to this war.

The start of this war goes back to 1979, in the jungles of Central America, when the Nicaraguan dictatorship was overthrown by socialist revolutionaries called the Sandinistas. In response to this, a right-wing group called the Contras began a brutal paramilitary campaign and received money and weapons from the CIA, adds Vice Reporter Jamie Clifton. However, in 1982, Democrats in Congress passed laws to cut off support for these Nicaraguan rebels.

Subsequently, the Contras and the CIA had to find a new way to fund their struggles. They turned to cocaine. In the early 80s, smokable cocaine and crack exploded across American cities. This created a goldmine for multiple groups, especially the CIA. In essence, the CIA had knowledge of this drug trafficking, allowed it to happen, funded it and even made money off it. Now, these drugs are found everywhere in our society, spurring rampant corruption and gang violence.

One way to try and help the issue is by legalizing drugs something that most progressives endorse. They say it is a great form of harm reduction: A range of public health policies designed to lessen the negative social/physical consequences associated with human behaviors.

Moreover, legalization when it comes to drugs removes all penalties for possession and personal use of a drug. Legalization also includes regulations so that these drugs can be properly managed in terms of production and sale; penalties may apply if sales and production occur outside of this regulation.

However, the issue with legalization is that its biggest enemy is capitalism. This can be seen within the opioid epidemic.

The opioid epidemic began in the late 1990s with the 1996 birth of Purdue Pharmas OxyContin. After this birth, the federal government pressured doctors to prescribe opioids through a campaign known as Pain as the Vital Sign. This campaign was as it sounds: It introduced the concept of pain seen as the fifth vital sign alongside the typical things doctors normally check during routines.

This campaign allowed drug companies to misleadingly market opioids as a treatment for chronic pain. Because of drug company lobbying, the government loosened access to opioids by requiring insurers to cover the drugs. Eventually, in 2014, the Drug Enforcement Administration rescheduled opioid painkillers to put harsher restrictions on them. In 2016, Congress finally passed a law that seriously addressed the epidemic.

The worst part was that this epidemic could have easily been prevented with better regulation. To stop this, for starters, the Food and Drug Administration could have blocked/restricted the use of opioids to better account for the risks and lack of scientific evidence that they are effective. The Drug Enforcement Agency could have limited the opioid supply and set production quotas for some opioids such as hydrocodone and oxycodone.

Instead, the DEA let these quotas rise and focused on illegal facilities that act as regular health clinics but would prescribe painkillers without going through the proper channels; These were called pit mills. This is just one example of bad government regulation and policies.

Another example of bad government regulation and policies can be seen in Switzerlands Needle Park. In the late 1970s, there was an abundance of the use of heroin and cocaine in Zurich, and by 1980, one could see groups of 100-400 people using these drugs openly. The police tried to disperse this to no avail, as the users would just go somewhere else. Realizing the scope and gravity of the situation, the government wanted to help these people.

So, a public park behind Zurichs main train station became a supervised zone for drug users in 1987. Platzspitz Park became a needle hotspot for heroin users as addicts and dealers came from across Europe to partake in this activity without being arrested until 1992, when authorities shut it down due to heavy political pressure. Up until its shutdown, Platzspitz had dealers, addicts and doctors all packed in the park selling, using and treating.

After the shutdown, the government did not give up and instead learned from its mistakes. The use of drugs without arrest does not mean a lack of regulations. Following this incident, in 1994, Switzerland adopted a four pillars policy: prevention, therapy, harm reduction and repression. This has proven quite effective as the number of drug consumption deaths and crime has decreased as well as 1,700 addicts having benefited since the policys implementation. On top of this, Switzerland barely sees new heroin users. This is a great example of how government regulation could make all the difference.

On the other side, there is the option of decriminalization left to explore.

Aditya is a junior in Business.

[emailprotected]

Originally posted here:

Opinion | Let drug decriminalization win the War on Drugs - Daily Illini

Breonna Taylor's father, who remained close to all six children, including Breonna while she was alive, is being held in a Michigan prison. An incarcerated writer makes the case for Everettes freedom.

The assassination of Breonna Taylor two years ago in her Louisville, Kentucky, home by police rocked the nation and united millions to pressure the government for real police reform and a ban on no-knock warrants. This injustice, along with the public lynchings of George Floyd and others, also sheds light on the systemic and institutional racism that has infected all areas of our society. Yet, whats missing from this set of revolutionary demands is comprehensive sentencing reform.

The source of the problem is systemic. When school systems are underfunded in our inner cities, children of color lose out. Then, employers tend to choose White male workers over Black, Latino, or women workers. Because of these failures, many young Black inner-city men find that the best way to get ahead is selling drugs. The problem is further compounded when a young Black man, like Breonnas father, comes in contact with the police. In such encounters, Black men are lucky to walk away alive.

This system also pits Black men against each other. Sooner or later, if the police dont arrest one drug seller, another, who has been betrayed by the same systemic racism, may try to rob him. The outcome is often death for one and prison for the other.

Taylor has molded himself into a strong, resilient man who wants to help his community.

This is essentially Everette Taylors story. He was selling drugs because our society failed him, and he gave up on a legitimate livelihood. When he was 21, another Black man, also failed by society, came to rob him, and Taylor and his friends defended themselves. The other man died, and Taylor, although he wasnt the shooter, faced a first-degree murder charge. The jury sentenced him to second-degree murder, in view of the fact that it was a drug deal gone wrong. The sentence was 2550 years, plus two years for felony firearms possession.

Taylor could have gotten out of prison in 27 yearsan extraordinarily long sentence, but not long enough for the state of Michigan, apparently.Michigans tough-on-drugs laws, with mandatory sentencing rules, removes a judges prerogativeto render appropriate judgment in certain situations. Police later searched Taylors car and found the drugs that the man who came to rob him was after. Because Taylor received bad legal advice, the drug trial took place after the murder trial, and Taylor was then sentenced to another 2040 years for drug possession. The judge was forced to stack this new sentence of 2040 years on top of the 25-to-50-year sentence. Taylor was effectively relegated to life imprisonment.

The judge had no discretion to consider that Taylor was a 21-year-old young man with a brainnot yet fully developed, who society had failed, and who was forced into selling drugs because of underfunded schools, poor education, and being passed over for good jobs because he was Black.

Everette, who remained close to all six of his children, including Breonna while she was alive, is still being held in a Michigan prison after 23 years.

While Breonna may never get justice, there is still a chance to win it for her father.

Michigan has mandatory sentencing rules from an earlier era when old White state legislators in Lansing referred to young Black men assuper-predatorsas they competed with one another to see who could be more tough on crime. Hence, Michigan, like other states, has a mass incarceration epidemic.

Today, Taylor has molded himself into a strong, resilient man who wants to help his community. My organization,The Adolescent Redemption Project,is a new nonprofit taking up Taylors cause (and that of others like him) to ask the governor to commute his sentence and give him a second chance at life.This could mean he might be eligible for release in three years.

TARP advocates for justice for the men and women sentenced to die in prison for crimes committed when their brains were not fully developed. We fight to give judges discretion so they may consider the mitigating factors, such as childhood trauma and economic distress, for the offenders they are sentencing.

The truth is, mandatory sentencing laws were created by using racist fears to make citizens think our elected judges were incapable of rendering judgment. This was a trick. The drafters of such laws knew they would primarily affect urban youth and Black and Brown children who now fill our jails unnecessarily.

While Breonna may never get justice, there is still a chance to win it for her father.

Read more:

Why Is Breonna Taylors Father Still in Prison After Decades?In Conversation with Everette Taylor, Breonna Taylors Father

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Opinion | Why Everette Taylor Is a Victim of Our War on Drugs - YES! Magazine

When I tell Adam Granducielthe mastermind behind Philadelphia-based indie-rock band The War on Drugsthat well be talking about his favorite guitars, pedals, and home recording gear, he immediately lights up. Whoa! Oh man, I should put on nicer clothes! he says, laughing. Awesome.

For the past decade, Granduciel has been building his profile as one of Americas great modern rockers, and has released a series of marvelous records that showcase an ever-increasing mastery of mood, texture, and sheer guitar-and-synth ecstasy. Granduciels wide-eyed study of figures including Bob Dylan, Jeff Tweedy, Bruce Springsteen, and Talk Talk has helped him forge his own musical identity, and through a decades-long obsession with dominating the tools of musical production, hes given that identity an instantly identifiable sound, most recently on The War on Drugs' newest record, 2021s superb I Dont Live Here Anymore.

In 2008s Wagonwheel Blues and 2011s Slave Ambient, Granduciel experimented with drones and loops, and distinguished himself among a sea of indie rockers by figuring out how to make his rollicking, guitar-steeped tunes sound humongous. Three years later, on the band's 2014 breakout LP Lost in the Dream, he went full-on heartland darkness, creating one of the best-sounding guitar records in recent memory. The album is 10 tracks full of epic grooves and shimmering reverb, so precise and focused that they almost seemed like they were constructed in a laboratory. In a way, they wereGranduciel used those early albums to figure out how to bring his musical fantasies to life.

With I Dont Live Here Anymore, Granduciel has reached even greater levels of restraint and technical precision, and has explored new paradigms of recording and collaboration. The title track, filled to the brim with sparkling keyboard riffs and crisp guitar layers, is a master class in how great studio work can corral a humble set of melodic ideas into a massive-sounding, arena-ready banger. In the hushed acoustic guitars of songs such as Living Proof and Rings Around My Fathers Eyes, Granduciels tender touch is rendered with incredible clarity; among the neon-shaded synths, motoric beats, and colossal lyricism of tracks including I Dont Wanna Wait and the hypnotic Victim, the band plays with a renewed intensity and aggression.

A known gear-head and obsessive technician, Adam Granduciel is one of the most respected rock musicians on the scene today, and one of the most knowledgeable when it comes to DIY recording, since he essentially started from scratch and worked his way up to arena rock. While crafting his earlier records, Granduciel relied on home recording and mixing tools including the Boss BR-8 Digital Recording Studio and later, a Tascam tape machine to capture his sound. When I signed with Secretly Canadian, I think I got $3,000 for my first record, he explained. I bought the Tascam 16-track one-inch tape machine, and that kind of opened my eyes to a whole new way of recording. I started to get more into sound experiments, like recording experiments and drones, tape speeds, sampling with digital samples and then recording it back onto tape.

Eventually, he began to explore the digital side of production, embracing the industry-standard music software Pro Tools, explaining that many of his songs start with a simple loop over a Pro Tools drum machine. Maybe its just something that's just a couple chords, and maybe Ill make a loop with the keyboard, loop it across the grid so I have a vibe going. That's what I did for I Dont Live Here Anymore. For other songs its differentsometimes the voice memo is all you need before going into the studio. When The War on Drugs released the robust A Deeper Understanding in 2017, the album cover showed Granduciel looking up from a small, lamplit piano in an otherwise dark studio; a guitar and a tape machine can barely be made out in the background. The albums music was full of moody echoes and cascading pianos, blissed-out landscapes and expansive layers of synth, pristine vocals, and meteoric guitars; if anything, it felt like the perfect expression of everything hed learned to date. For their work on A Deeper Understanding, The War on Drugs won the 2018 Grammy Award for Best Rock Album.

When I spoke to Granduciel on a chilly January morning, he was preparing for The War on Drugs first real tour in years; that evening, theyd play Austin City Limits Live, followed by over 50 dates around the world, including a headlining show at New York Citys Madison Square Garden. (They had a good warmup in their endearing NPR Tiny Desk Concert.) We have two more rehearsals, and then tonights the first show, he said. Were so excited, nervous, all of the things. Prepared and not prepared. Its an exciting and weird time. But despite the pressure of following up a Grammy-winning record, recording, and touring during a pandemicand trying to raise a young son, Granduciel is ready to blast his way forward.

I'd come to pick his brain about the home recording equipment that built his career, the gear that he relies on to keep producing fantastic songs, and how he executes his musical visions. Below, he takes VICE through his early days of self-recording, his favorite guitars, his most important pedals, the amp that was integral to his new record, where that crazy Victim solo came from, and more.

Hi, Adam. Can you tell me about what it was like to record I Dont Live Here Anymore? The members of the band now live in different places, right?

I live in Los Angeles now. Dave [Hartley] lives in Asheville, North Carolina, Anthony [LaMarca] is in Youngstown. Jon [Natchez] is in Los Angeles. Robbie [Bennett] and Charlie [Hall] are still in Philly, basically. The record started with basically myself, Dave, and Anthony doing some remote recording. Then, in early 2018 in upstate New York, I had some ideas and we got together and worked them out as a three-piece. This isnt the kind of thing where the six of us get together for a month at some studio and hope to have a record done. We got together a handful of times in L.A. and New York. In between those times I'd be working on it myself with [producer] Shawn [Everett] in L.A. at his house.

When the pandemic hit, we were sitting there with a record that was 60-percent done. Everything was written for the most part, but we spent the next year-plus rearranging songs. You kind of have a handful of songs that you want to pursuein this case it was 13, maybe 14 songs, and as you get closer to the finish line, it becomes 12 and then 11, and then the 10 that you love.

The War On Drugs

Which guitars and instruments were central to I Dont Live Here Anymore?

The electric guitar I use most in the studio is this Gibson SG, I think a 67 or 69. I don't really use it liveI'm now using it live because its on Living Proof, because that's the guitar on that solo. It sounds completely different than my other guitars. In a live environment, the rig is designed for my Jazzmaster and Strats, I use that SG all the time on the record, along with my 62 Jazzmaster. My acoustic is a Gibson J-50. I gave my friend a 65 Jazzmaster and he gave me a J-50. I think I initiated the tradehe wanted me to see this J-50, and I was like, I kind of want that J-50.

Gibson

Gibson

Fender

I wrote I Dont Wanna Wait '' on the Tom ThumbI have this tiny piano at my house, this Tom Thumb piano, 66 keys. If I write on guitar, I just start ripping licks. On the piano, if I play a pretty basic chord inversion, to me its exciting. Its like, Dude, did you see what chord I just played?! With guitar, that stuff doesnt impress me. Its a good way of tricking yourself into thinking youre really musical.

Lester

What about guitar pedals? What were the most important ones in your arsenal for making this record?

When I record, I dont really use my big pedal board in the studio. I tend to plug my SGif I need an echointo this old, blue Memory Man that sounds really awesome. But I wouldnt use it live. I use this pedal called the Hot Cake, by Crowther Audio, this New Zealand guy. I basically just turn all the dials up to 10, and thats the sound of any sort of distortion. Its pummeling the front of whatever amp is there. I usually use that pedal with my 62 Jazzmaster on the bridge pickupthats the secret. And I have this tiny little 68 Vibro Champ amp that I think normally would have an eight-inch speaker, but somebody put a 10-inch in, so its like a mod. But I just use that all the timeI bring it wherever I go.

Electro-Harmonix

Fender

Crowther

The guitar solo in Victim is really wild. Can you explain how you arrived at that sound?

Thats the SG, actually. I was at Shawns and we were working on that song, and I was doing vocals, but when I do vocals I like to have a guitar and amp going. We always take a [direct input] of guitar, just to have it; whatever my hands are doing, its recording, without any pedals or amps or anything. I wasnt expecting to do a solo in that sectionI didnt even have an idea of what a guitar would do in this song. but then that section came and I just played that solo. I had it cranked, my Vibro Champ, the whole thing was going. It was an SG ripping through an amp, that solo.

I took it home and for the next few weeks I was just in my basement studio, playing with all my gear. I just processed things all day, like, Let me run this fuckin piano through this. I just had that [direct input], the straight guitar, and I was like let me run the clean, straight signal through the Prunes and Custard pedal, made by Crowther. It's probably made most famous by Jeff Tweedys solo on A Ghost is Born. That sound is him, but its that pedal. So I had one of those and I never really had a use for it, so I just ran that solo through that pedal into a Moog Cluster Flux stereo. And I was like, Oh thats really cool! But you never really know. And then more people heard it in the band and were like, That's great! And I was like, Oh cool. I dont know, I thought it sounded cool, but maybe it was too insane-sounding. But it works.

Crowther

Moog

Youre a big fan of the Roland Jazz Chorus. Can you talk about why that amp is so important to you?

Theres just something about it. I like playing guitar through it, because it reminds me of [The Smiths'] Johnny Marr or something. We used it on the album for re-amping, so you can run a stereo stem out of Pro Tools into the amp. For the song I Dont Live Here Anymore, we basically reamped every single sound on that song through the Roland Jazz Chorus. For each sound, Id change it to chorus, extreme chorus. I would switch it over to a subtle vibrato. Everything has that solid state Roland sheen on it, you know what I mean? And you can meticulously tuck it in behind the source track. I do like those amps a lot. It's super clean, but theyre not for everything.

We were working on that song, and it had a pretty identifiable spirit to it, and then I looked across the room and saw that Roland JC-120 sitting there and I was like, Oh. Duh. Lets just run everything through that amp. Four hours later, we were running everything through it.

Roland

What piece of gear, whether recording equipment or instrument, do you wish you knew about 10 years ago?

Interesting question. I feel happy that certain things I didnt know about, because then everything comes at the right time. So you dont overuse things. Everything I had 10 years ago led to what I have now. I could say Pro Tools, but I like that I didnt have Pro Tools for so long. Even making Lost in the Dream, I really didnt have a functioning Pro Tools rigI was working in the studio with the producer, and when I wasn't in the studio, I was at home making sound experiments in my tape machines or demoing. I couldn't really take tracks home and obsess over them, collecting crazy gear. I feel like everything I had 10 years ago informs stuff now. Even the Jazzmaster. I didnt get into the Jazzmaster until 2014 when Fender gave me one for free. I didn't even like it the first time I played it, but then I had a breakthrough moment with it in Minneapolis. Up until then, I'd just play whatever. Id borrow guitars from friends.

I had a Firebird at one point, and this garbage Strat that I loved. It felt like I had the best guitar at the time. I love that weird knockoff Strat that I had that didnt stay in tune.

Epiphone

Fender

There's a million pieces of gear I love, that I use a lot, but nothing that I feel like if id known about it sooner, that Id have approached things differently. It was about making the most of whatever was around or whatever we could get our hands on, and that just being the sound.

Catch The War on Drugs on tour this year and pick up I Don't Live Here Anymore on vinyl at Rough Trade, Amazon, or your local record store.

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The War on Drugs' Adam Granduciel Shares His Fave Home Recording Gear - VICE

BISMARCK Overdoses have skyrocketed in recent years as opioids flood the area and addicts play a lethal lottery by using street drugs with unpredictable potency that are claiming more and more lives.

Bismarck police reported 22 overdoses and one drug-related death in 2017. By 2019, the Burleigh County jumped to 34 overdoses and four deaths, increasing to 74 overdoses and eight deaths in 2020.

Last year, the toll exploded to 134 overdoses and 19 deaths and the pace so far this year, if it continues, could again double, suffering 270 overdoses and claiming 40 lives.

Thats unacceptable to me, said Bismarck Police Chief David Draovitch, who added that there would be an uproar from the public if Bismarck saw 19 homicides in a year. Its crazy what opioids are doing in this town.

Bismarck police and fellow law enforcement officials vow to crack down on dealers and are advocating tougher prosecutions and sentences to act as a deterrent. But Draovitch and his colleagues know their efforts have limits.

Theres no way as law enforcement that we can arrest our way out of this problem, the police chief said. We just need to take the demand away.

The war on drugs here is headed to the emergency room.

The Bismarck Police Department, together with Heartview Foundation and Sanford Health, has a $900,000, three-year federal grant to start medication addiction treatment for opioid addicts who come into the emergency room. The Heartview Foundation is a nonprofit substance use disorder program with locations in Bismarck and Cando.

Opioid abusers who overdose and are revived by naloxone, a treatment that blocks the drug from reaching the brain, leave the ER with acute withdrawal symptoms, including sweating, vomiting, fever, diarrhea and seizures.

What do they do?" said Kurt Snyder, Heartview Foundations executive director and a licensed addiction counselor. "They go use."

To break that cycle, the treating emergency room doctor will administer a drug that eliminates that craving, and an addiction specialist from Heartview will be in the ER to make sure the person gets referred to treatment.

Officials are preparing to launch the intervention and recovery program soon with a goal of starting in April.

Were really looking forward to this, Draovitch said. Were hoping it will turn some people around and get them the help they need.

Dr. Chris Meeker, chief medical officer for Sanford Bismarck, said emergency room physicians will be able to prescribe enough medication for patients to transition to care at Heartview.

Were working closely with our partners to finalize plans and hope to make a difference soon in the lives of patients and families suffering with addiction, he said.

Those in Bismarck-Mandan who are battling the scourge of opioid abuse say the need for action is urgent. They fear the problem is poised to get worse.

Kurt Snyder, executive director of the Heartview Foundation in Bismarck, speaks during a press conference at the Bismarck Police Department on Tuesday about the increase use of heroin and fentanyl in the area. Next to Snyder is Bismarck Police Detective Jerry Stein and Dr. Melissa Henke, Heartview Foundation's medical director. Bismarck Tribune photo.

Its like its on jet fuel, Snyder said. I think were at the very edge of a huge surge of overdose deaths again.

'Honey spot' for drug dealers

A drug enforcement task force recently confiscated a press for making pills in a Mandan raid a seizure police found alarming, because it means opioid counterfeit pills are being made locally.

Right within our state, people are making pills and selling pills, said Luke Kapella, a special agent with the North Dakota Bureau of Criminal Investigation and head of the Metro Area Narcotics Task Force.

Pill seizures in Bismarck-Mandan have doubled every year since 2019, when agents seized 1,500 pills, a number that last year soared to 9,500.

This year, we are already at 9,500, Kapella said, adding that the task force is on pace to seize 40,000 pills this year.

The influx of opioids seems especially pressing around Bismarck-Mandan, Minot and the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation, an area that has been hard hit since the boom in the Oil Patch, he said.

A dealer can buy a pill for $1.50, turn around and sell it on the street for $50 even $80 at Fort Berthold, Kapella said. One dealer alone estimated that last year he sold more than 100,000 pills, a number representing an illegal profit of $2 million or more, he said.

Thats just seizures in Bismarck-Mandan, Kapella said. Thats what were seeing. Thats what were fighting.

This week, Bismarck and Mandan police warned the public to be aware that they have responded to overdoses apparently involving fentanyl, which is 30 to 50 times more potent than heroin. A dose equal to a few grains of sand can be lethal.

Police have uncovered a pipeline from gangs in Detroit who bring drugs into North Dakota, where they are unlikely to encounter violent rival dealers and have found a lucrative market, he said.

That outside connection since has broadened, with drugs also coming in from Chicago and Arizona. Detroit figured it out first, but other people have followed, Kapella said. Everybodys in the game now.

North Dakota is well-known as a honey spot for drug dealers and is celebrated as a haven for traffickers in rap songs, he said.

The alarming increase in the supply of opioids and the corresponding upswing in overdoses and deaths has prompted a series of roundtable discussions among law enforcement agencies, drug treatment professionals and others. The first was held in the Bismarck-Mandan area.

The idea behind the roundtable discussions is to reignite the conversation about opioids and related overdoses and to strengthen relationships between entities working toward positive outcomes, said Sgt. Wade Kadrmas of the North Dakota Highway Patrol, which is working with the Department of Human Services on coordinating the roundtables.

Draovitch and Kapella say prosecutors and judges need to get tougher on the dealers who are flooding the state with opioids. Our criminal justice system is a revolving door, Kapella said..

The approach to start working on treating addicts when they arrive in the emergency room will be an important part of reducing demand for highly addictive opioids, Kapella said.

Under the current approach, Theyre not getting help right away, he said. This will hopefully get these people help right away.

The program Bismarck police and its partners are launching is called an opioid overdose bridge.

It calls for a comprehensive and coordinated approach to address the opioid overdose crisis.

Through the grant, opioid addicts will start medication-assisted treatment right away, and also will get start recovery treatment right away, rather than having to wait for an opening.

To have a broader impact, the effort also includes increased communication efforts to reduce the stigma associated with substance abuse disorder, opioid use disorder and medication addiction treatment.

The partners will work with a steering committee of clinical professionals, law enforcement officers and survivors.

The program is patterned after CA Bridge , an initiative in California that started in 2018 with eight hospitals and has grown to 155 hospitals providing medication for addiction treatment. A large national study has shown the method is associated with the largest decrease in overdoses and a reduced likelihood of a serious opioid-related hospitalization.

The CA Bridge program plans to be in all California hospitals by the end of 2023. The approach is catching on nationally and is being used in more than 30 states, said Sarah Windels, a national adviser for the project.

Weve had great success, she said, adding that California hospitals have treated about 100,000 patients in the last two years.

Its actually going to be the standard of care pretty soon throughout the country, she said. The Biden White House this week proposed $10.7 billion to fund research, prevention, harm reduction, treatment and recovery support services.

The initiative would include $5.8 billion for interdiction efforts to reduce supply and advocates universal access to medication for opioid use disorder by 2025. The plan would allow providers to begin treating patients with medication for opioid use disorder via telehealth and would eliminate outdated rules that place unnecessary administrative burdens on providers.

People are treated with medication to curb opioid cravings help to keep them in treatment so they can overcome the illness of substance use disorder, Windel said. Just medication alone makes a dramatic impact on lives saved, she said.

Fargo Police Chief David Zibolski said the Bismarck project sounds promising, and hell be eager to learn the results. Since 2016, Fargo has seen drug overdoses jump 200%, and fatal overdoses are up more than 100%, resulting in 98 overdose deaths, including 23 last year.

Thats a lot, he said.

Excerpt from:

'It's crazy what opioids are doing in this town:' Bismarck takes the war on drugs to the emergency room - INFORUM

New Yorks first cannabis sale permits will be given to those impacted by the war on drugs, according to officials.

Over 100 licenses will be given to people with marijuana-related offenses that occurred before March 31, 2021, when New York legalized recreational use of the drug.

This is in an effort to make up for the disproportionate number of Black and Brown people arrested and jailed on nonviolent drug charges, the states cannabis control board said Thursday.

Were jumpstarting the cannabis industry today, and its investment into the communities that have been most impacted by the criminalization of cannabis prohibition, said Chris Alexander, executive director of the state Office of Cannabis Management.

Brittany Carbone, a board member of the New York Cannabis Growers and Processors Association, said the reparations for years of abuse were a good start.

Allowing people who have previous convictions access to retail dispensaries is such a huge step in the right direction, Carbone said. Not only does it go toward repairing the damage caused by the war on drugs, but it also gives them a head start in the market. This is really important because these populations are not the populations that are going to be entering into a venture like this super well-capitalized.

Getting a head start in the market will prevent big businesses from coming in and monopolizing the market, Carbone said.

Access to capital is so restricted because of the federal status of cannabis, Carbone said. You see these large companies come in right away and shut a lot of people out.

Excerpt from:

First licenses to sell marijuana will be given to New Yorkers impacted by the war on drugs - WSHU

Check Out Photos of St. Vincent, Tame Impala, The War on Drugs, and More From the Innings Festival, February 26th, 2022

Mar 11, 2022By Joshua MellinPhotography by Joshua Mellin

Innings Festival, a celebration of both music and baseball, had its 2022 edition in Tempe, Arizona on February 26 and 27. It proceeded undeterred from the news of the MLB lockout. Despite the delay to the preseason Cactus League games that usually complement the two-day festival, faithful fans descended on Tempe Beach Park sporting their favorite teams jersey for an early spell of summer with some of the festival seasons All-Stars.

As part music festival/sports convention, attendees were treated to headlining sets from Foo Fighters and Tame Impala alongside days of hitting the batting cages and fast pitch with MLB legends like Roger Clemens, Rick Sutcliffe, and Kenny Lofton.

Black Pistol Fire and Dashboard Confessional turned in energized opening day sets, as Billy Strings mesmerized with a surprising lightshow reminiscent of an EDM act to complement his fiery bluegrass finger-picking like a pitcher with a slider that drops off the table.

Annie Clarks St. Vincent took the opportunity of the first show of the new year to revive 2011 Strange Mercy track Year of the Tiger for the first time since 2018, in her final stateside show untl September 10th atyou probably didnt guess itBostons Fenway Park, opening for Red Hot Chili Peppers alongside Thundercat.

After being acquired via trade for original headliners My Morning Jacket, The War on Drugs played suitable fill-in for a breezy dessert evening before Kevin Parker and Tame Impalas psychedelic Rushium-era-induced haze descended over the crowd to close out the weekends preseason program.

Check out photos from the event below.

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Check Out Photos of St. Vincent, Tame Impala, The War on Drugs, and More From the Innings Festival - Under the Radar Mag

A number of people have said it, but and I feel it, actually: Im a wartime president. This is a war. This is a war. A different kind of war than weve ever had. ~ Donald Trump, Former President of the United States

We are at war. All the action of the government and of Parliament must now be turned toward the fight against the epidemic, day and night. Nothing can divert us. ~ Emmanuel Macron, President of France

This war because it is a real war has been going on for a month, it started after European neighbors, and for this reason, it could take longer to reach the peak of its expression. ~ Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, President of Portugal

We are at war with a virus and not winning it. ~ Antonio Guterres, UN Secretary General

We must act like any wartime government and do whatever it takes to support our economy. ~ Boris Johnson, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

The president said this is a war. I agree with that. This is a war. Then lets act that way, and lets act that way now. ~ Andrew Cuomo, Former Governor of New York

You get the picture. Leaders at the start of the COVID-19 pandemicreallywanted us to think of ourselves as combatants possessing a civic duty to fight an insidious, unseen enemy. They wanted us to think that victory was possible. They wanted us to understand that there would be casualties, and collateral damage, and to steel ourselves for the inevitable enactment of broad and unfocused policies that would keep us safe, no matter the cost.

This isnt all that surprising in hindsight. Politicians love to use war as a metaphor for just about every collective enterprise: the war on drugs, the war on poverty, the war on cancer. They understand that war provides an incomparable motivation for people to make sacrifices for the greater good of their countries, and when they want to harness some of that motivation, they pull out all the metaphorical stops.

Leaders have been searching for a moral equivalent of war for a very long time. The idea was introduced by psychologist and philosopher William Jamesin a speechat Stanford in 1906 that has been credited for inspiring the creation of national projects such as the Peace Corps and Americorps, both organizations aspiring to enlist young people into meaningful, non-military service to their country:

I spoke of the moral equivalent of war. So far, war has been the only force that can discipline a whole community, and until an equivalent discipline is organized, I believe that war must have its way. But I have no serious doubt that the ordinary prides and shames of social man, once developed to a certain intensity, are capable of organizing such a moral equivalent as I have sketched, or some other just as effective for preserving manliness of type. It is but a question of time, of skillful propagandism, and of opinion-making men seizing historic opportunities.

People are willing to do things during a war that they wouldnt be willing to do during peacetime. During World War II, it was impossible that German bombers would reach the middle of the United States, yet citizens in theU.S. Midwest practiced blackoutsto demonstrate their commitment to defeating an enemy they had in common with people far away. People that actually had to sit in the dark at night to be safe.

This was what leaders using war metaphors were asking from their citizens at thestart of the pandemic:

The war metaphor also shows the need for everyone to mobilize and do their part on the home front. For many Americans, that means taking social distancing orders and hand washing recommendations seriously. For businesses, that means shifting resources toward stopping the outbreak, whether in terms of supplies or manpower.

However, it wasnt just social distancing and handwashingleaders were asking for cooperation for a complete lockdown, a complete suspension of normal life for a short, yet vague and undefined period of time. There was no thought to how this would actually stop a highly contagious virus, or how people would be expected to return to normal life when the virus hadnt completely disappeared. There wasnt a desire to mobilize the engines of democracy for war. Instead, there was a mandate to shut them down. Economic production wasnt maximized, it was minimized.

I was skeptical of the ability of shutdowns to do much good from the beginning, and was very much afraid thatpanic and overreactionwould have serious consequences. I didnt use war metaphors because it never occurred to me that they would be in any way helpful. Yet when I advocated trying to minimize collateral damage byallowing people who were less vulnerable to severe disease to resume their lives, others criticized that I was for surrendering to the virus. The use of war metaphors wasnt just limited to leaders, but had quickly spread to the broader population.

Some international leaders tried to resist the temptation to use war metaphors, but ultimately failed. After telling the Canadian House of Commons that the pandemic wasnt a war,Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau couldnt resist: The front line is everywhere. In our homes, in our hospitals and care centers, in our grocery stores and pharmacies, at our truck stops & gas stations. And the people who work in these places are our modern-day heroes. Trudeau later also couldnt resistusing extreme measuresnormally reserved for wartime to quell a protest led by the very truck stop heroes he had once glorified.

War metaphors have their uses, asexplained by sociologist Eunice Castro Seixas:

Indeed, the findings of this study show how, within the context of Covid-19, war metaphors were important in: preparing the population for hard times; showing compassion, concern and empathy; persuading the citizens to change their behavior, ensuring their acceptance of extraordinary rules, sacrifices; boosting national sentiments and resilience, and also in constructing enemies and shifting responsibility.

Constructing enemies and shifting responsibility would play an important role later on in the pandemic, when extreme and damaging measures didnt work and politicians resorted to blaming their own citizens for failing to cooperate with damaging and unsustainable measures.

Some academics, like anthropologist Saiba Varma,warned that:

Analogising (sic) the pandemic to a war also creates consent for extraordinary security measures, because they are done for public health. Globally, coronavirus curfews are being used to mete out violence against marginalised (sic) people. From the history of emergencies, we know that exceptional violence can become permanent.

It was obvious that working class and poor individuals would be disproportionally harmed by draconian COVID measures, and that the wealthy, or Zoom class mightactually benefit:

We have, for example, already witnessed how people in already quite privileged positions are the ones who have the ability to work from home, which means that they also have more potential to act according to health recommendations, while others run the risk of being dismissed from their work or of their businesses going bankrupt. Then, there are those in positions identified as socially important functions that cannot choose to avoid risks, particularly in the care sector, where the risk of infection is the largest and shortages of protective equipment exist. Last, not everyone has the resources that are required to participate in pandemic self-governance (knowledge of how and when to shop, having people who can help you, the hospital closest to you having enough respirators, etc.).

The authors to the above article, Katarina Nygren and Anna Olofsson, also commented on the criticism of lax pandemic response measures in Sweden, noting how the pandemic response in Sweden was vastly different from that of most other countries in Europe because it emphasized personal responsibility rather than relying on government coercion:

Thus, the Swedish strategy to manage Covid-19 has been largely based on the responsibility of the citizens who receive daily information and instructions for individually targeted self-protection techniques by the Public Health Agency of Swedens website and press conferences held by state epidemiologist Anders Tegnell, Prime Minister Stefan Lfven, and other representatives of the government. They continue to underline the importance of all citizens playing their part to stop the virus from spreading and avoiding the enhancement of law enforcements restrictions on citizens rights as long as possible.

With recommendations rather than prohibitions, the individual becomes the unit of decision making towards whom claims of liability are directed if he or she does not manage to act ethically according to social expectations. This kind of governing of conduct, which has been characteristic of the Swedish risk management strategy during the pandemic thus far, targets the self-regulating individual in terms of not only trust but also solidarity. This type of governing was explicitly made by the prime minister in his speech to the nation on the 22nd of March (speeches that are extremely rare in Sweden) in which he particularly emphasized individual responsibility not only for the sake of personal safety but for the sake of others.

The Swedish Prime Minister, Stefan Lfven,used precisely zero wartime metaphorsin his March 22, 2020 speech to the nation about the COVID pandemic and the response of the Swedish government. Within the next few months, the Swedish response was, rather predictably,viciously attackedby other leaders and media outlets for its failure to conform to the rest of the reflexive lockdown-mandating world. Yet the Swedish strategy has overall not resulted in much higher deaths,currently 57th in COVID deaths per million inhabitants, well below many of its critics.

There were only a few other notable exceptions in the metaphorical blitzkrieg of war imagery by world leaders in their early pandemic speeches. Another was German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, whosaid of the pandemic, It is not a war. It is a test of our humanity! The reluctance of a German leader to use a war metaphor for something that is clearly not a war is both understandable and admirable.

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro was contemptuous of lockdowns and refused to use war imagery in his speeches, making it quite clear thatpandemic deaths had no easy collective solution, only hard choices: Stop whining. How long are you going to keep crying about it? How much longer will you stay at home and close everything? No one can stand it anymore. We regret the deaths, again, but we need a solution. Not surprisingly, he was widely condemned for these comments.

Interestingly, much of the analysis and criticism of the use of war metaphors for the early pandemic response came from left-leaning outlets, likeVox,CNN, andThe Guardian, where journalist Marina Hyde wrote:

As the news gets more horrifyingly real each day and somehow, at the same time, more unmanageably unreal Im not sure who this register of battle and victory and defeat truly aids. We dont really require a metaphor to throw the horror of viral death into sharper relief: you have to think its bad enough already. Plague is a standalone horseman of the apocalypse he doesnt need to catch a ride with war. Equally, its probably unnecessary to rank something we keep being informed is virtually a war with things in the past that were literally wars.

Anarticle in Voxwarned of the consequences of too much power in the wrong hands:

A war metaphor can also have dark consequences. If we look at history, during times of war, its often been the case that war is accompanied by abuses of medicine and the suspension of widespread ethical norms, Keranen said, citing Nazi use of medicine or other public health trials that have been conducted on prisoners and war resistors over the years. Especially now, we need to be on guard for this with the clinical trials and other product development that were undergoing, so that in our haste to fight the disease with a military metaphor, were not giving away our fundamental ethical concepts and principles.

Giving away our fundamental ethical concepts and principles is arguably exactlywhat happenedinmanywestern nations, yet hard-hitting and often accurate criticism from left-leaning media outlets speaking out against the pandemic as a war view had all but gone silent sometime after November 3rd, 2020. Coincidently, the conflation of a pandemic public health response with a military one has all but been erased by an actual war when Russia invaded Ukraine. An actual war tends to bring perspective back to places where it has been lost rather quickly.

With two full years of hindsight, its clear that lockdowns were a disaster and that mandated measures caused more harm than benefit, yet this has not prevented leaders fromdeclaring victory, crediting their own brave and resolute leadership for saving millions of lives and routing the viral enemy. However, SARS-CoV-2 isnt a real enemyit doesnt have an intention other than to exist and spread, and it wont agree to an armistice. Instead, we will have to live with the virus forever in an endemic state, and skip the victory parades.

Theres no evidence that calling the pandemic what it truly was a global natural disaster, admitting our limitations for defeating it, and calling on people to stay calm and avoid acting in irrational fear wouldve resulted in a worse outcome. Its more likely that the collateral damage of broad and unfocused responses would have been avoided in a pandemic-as-disaster scenario.

There would be no need to view leaders as military commanders or experts as heroes or high priests of absolute truth. Rather, the humble and rational response that Swedens leaders enacted and the proponents of theGreat Barrington Declarationproposed will be remembered as the least damaging among many others that resulted in failure and defeat on the metaphorical battlefields of public health.

Republished from Substack

Associate Professor of Microbiology and Immunology at Indiana University School of Medicine - Terre Haute. Formerly CDC/NIOSH. Immunology of Infectious Disease.

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War Was Always the Wrong Metaphor - Brownstone Institute