Pubdate: Sun, 08 Nov 2015
Source: Republican & Herald (PA)
Copyright: 2015 Pottsville Republican, Inc
Contact:  http://republicanherald.com
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1047
Author: Ann Coulter, Universal Press Syndicate

WHO ORDERED THE HEROIN?

Heroin use in the United States increased by nearly 80 percent 
between 2007 and 2012 alone, and The New York Times' main reaction to 
this depressing fact is to be overjoyed that the new addicts are mostly white.

The important point is not that ragingly addictive drugs are sweeping 
small-town-America or young lives are being cut short. What matters 
is that the drug epidemic is not having a disparate impact.

Excitedly reporting that "nearly 90 percent of those who tried heroin 
for the first time in the last decade were white"- yay!- the Times 
claimed that, with white kids dying from heroin overdoses, their 
parents are taking a "more forgiving approach" to heroin addiction.

Assuming that's even true, are grieving parents the best source of 
public policy recommendations?

Columbia professor Kimberle Williams Crenshaw lamented that if only 
whites had been dying of heroin overdoses sooner ,"the devastating 
impact of mass incarceration upon entire communities would never have 
happened ."

The implication that black people have always had a more "forgiving" 
approach to drugs- and whites are finally catching up-is insane. 
Black leaders have been begging for more aggressive drug laws forever.

In the' 90s, members of the Congressional Black Caucus repeatedly 
held hearing son the crack epidemic, crime and drugs. Rep. Charles 
Rangel, D-N.Y., called drug traffickers "a greater threat to our 
national security than communists ." Jesse Jackson demanded "a 
comprehensive war on drugs ."

Nor did black citizens take a particularly "forgiving" approach to 
their children's drug addictions. In March 1987, The Miami Herald 
told the story of an African-American woman who called the police on 
her own son when his drug habit led him to burglarize homes in their 
neighborhood.

By contrast, the Times' big ideas for reducing heroin addiction in 
America are: (1) stop stigmatizing drug use; (2) stop imprisoning 
drug offenders; and (3) make a heroin antidote, naloxone, widely 
available, so Americans are prepared when their friends and relatives overdose.

The Times objects to stigmatizing behavior only when it doesn't 
really mind the behavior. It never advocates a "forgiving approach" 
toward things the Times dislikes. There will be no "forgiving 
approach" to abortion-doctor killers, Catholic priests who molest 
children or corporate polluters- although those behaviors may also 
result from a "disease."

If the Times had any genuine interest in reducing drug addiction, I 
suspect the paper would prefer the "stigmatizing" approach. It might 
even advocate policies to stop drug addiction, rather than policies 
to treat it.

As Rangel said in a 1992 speech to the National Press Club: "We all 
know that the availability of heroin and cocaine on our streets is 
because our borders are a sieve. I would like to believe that if the 
communists were still alive and well, and they were pushing bombs 
into communities that could cause the havoc, the pain and the cost 
that drugs are, that somehow the secretary of state ... would be involved."

Rangel is right. The drug problem exploded in the U.S. after we 
opened our southern border to one of the world's major drug supplying 
countries: Mexico. The vast majority of all drugs in America-heroin, 
cocaine, marijuana and, increasingly, methamphetamine- are brought in 
by the people of Mexico.

In 2010, 38,329 people died from drug overdoses, twice the number a 
decade earlier. More people died of drug overdoses than from 
automobile accidents (30,196), murders (13,000) or gun accidents (700).

About 90 percent of heroin in the U.S. is brought in by Mexicans. In 
2013, U.S. authorities seized 2,162 kilograms of heroin coming across 
our southern border-compared to 367 kilos in 2007. The government has 
estimated that 660,000 Americans are using heroin and more than 3,000 
are dying of it every year-because Mexico is boosting the supply.

Even when Mexicans dump illegal drugs on our country, it's America's 
fault. As the Times explained in an Aug. 30, 2015, article, Mexico 
increased opium production by 50 percent in 2014, "the result of a 
voracious American appetite."

In what other circumstances do we absolve the seller of a dangerous 
product because a buyer exists? It's not the hit-man's fault - that 
lady wanted her husband dead.

In any event, the "appetite" argument may work for pot, but America 
did not place an order for black tar heroin. According toa DEA agent 
quoted in The Washington Post, Mexican drug pushers stand outside 
American methadone clinics, selling their wares.

Despite the Times' neurotic obsession with the racial breakdown of 
heroin users, it seems sublimely uninterested in the ethnic 
composition of heroin pushers. This is more than the left's usual 
affection for criminals.

Contrary to the cliches, most drug dealers aren't black: They're 
Hispanic. In 2013, 48 percent of drug offenders in federal prison 
were Hispanic. Only 27 percent were black and 22 percent white.

All the left's blather about drug laws being used to lock up "black 
bodies" is a lie. Once again, the left is using African-Americans as 
a false flag to push policies that help Democrats, but hurt black people.

The Times doesn't mind black neighborhoods being seized by Mexican 
drug cartels. It doesn't mind if more white people die from heroin 
overdoses. The Times just wants to increase the number of Hispanics 
out of prison, on their way to citizenship, so they can start voting 
for the Democrats.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom