Pubdate: Sat, 17 Jan 2015
Source: Courier News (Bridgewater, NJ)
Copyright: 2015 Courier News
Contact:  http://www.mycentraljersey.com/news/courier-news/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2163
Author: Joseph Galeani

DRUG WAR FUELING RACIAL UNREST

Everyone's talking about America's racial problems without mentioning 
the armor-plated Humvee in the room.

America's drug policy is the leading cause of the animosity between 
the police and the communities they're charged with protecting.

Everyone cheers the police when they arrest a burglar or arsonist, 
but it's hard to see how institutionalizing locals for weed does 
anything other than harm a community.

The police are not racist, the laws are. From its Jim Crow origins to 
the racially coded language of Nixon and Reagan to different 
sentencing for cocaine and crack, the war on drugs is, and has always 
been, a racist enterprise.

The laughably disproportionate statistics bear this out, yet no one 
links racial strife to prohibition. Why not?

Our drug laws also escape criticism for their role in the 
militarization of the police, the rise of gangs, the overpopulated 
prisons, and the destabilization of nations in Latin America and 
around the world.

How much more damage must our society sustain before we embrace the 
inevitable and end this ill-conceived war on drugs?

Joseph Galeani

MIDDLETOWN
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