An unhappy anniversary
Posted by Richard on June 18, 2011
Mark J. Perry remembered the grim historical significance of this day (emphasis in original):
This is a post to recognize the 40th anniversary of the day in 1971 that President Nixon declared that the U.S. government would start waging a"War on Drugs"war on peaceful Americans who chose to use intoxicants not approved of by the U.S. government (HT: Don B.).
Q: Which repressive country puts the most people in jail for violating government laws?
A. IranB. Saudi ArabiaC. LibyaD. EgyptE. United States of America Well, it's not even close…………..
Read the whole thing. And read Perry's other recent posts on the subject here, here, and here.
It's widely known that in their youth, each of our last three presidents chose to use intoxicants not approved by the U.S. government. Yet each of them subsequently supported, advocated, and directed a policy of imprisoning hundreds of thousands of non-violent "drug offenders" every year, and even sanctimoniously claimed that it's for their own good.
Would Clinton, Bush, and Obama be better off today if they'd been arrested, convicted, and imprisoned for 3-5 years when they were young, destroying their careers before they got started? Would the country be better off today if they'd been …
Um … maybe I shouldn't go there. Just weakens my argument.
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