Richard Nixon's war on drugs, announced in June 1971, had one purpose and one purpose only: to create a tool to harass, persecute and incarcerate the hippies and blacks who were protesting the Vietnam War, according to an article in the current Harper's magazine.

Nixon's closest adviser, John Ehrlichman, and the president concocted this hoax for purely political reasons! Two men lied and a million died.

Marijuana was at the heart of the war on drugs, and it was classified as a Schedule I drug, one that had no medical use and was highly addictive, both lies. The justification for the prohibition of marijuana has been destroyed; Obama should immediately declare the "war" over; our jails should be emptied of nonviolent drug offenders, and some reparations should be considered for the victims of Nixon's horrendous crime.

I am amazed that the Ehrlichman revelation was not on the front page of every newspaper in the world.

Louis Philippe Goldman

Ashland

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