The line that stood out to me the most was a quote from Brad Pitt. And consequently I have no idea where he borrowed this quote from. But let's just say for cinematic amusements and literary talent that he originated it. He said, and I quote: "you don't know someone until you know what they want."
What does that mean? Well it means what it says it means. People do things all the time, people say things all the time. But the truth is people are always wearing some sort of mask to conceal their true intentions. We appeal to each others' so called common interests and shared values to move initiatives in order to transform culture and organize institutions. Following this trend, there then comes a point where the truth becomes irrelevant. What usurps its authority is validation. Validation that everything you were taught makes sense and falls in line with the other elements of society that you have invested in and made choices because of. It's about structure. It's about humanity's unyielding need to conform.
I posted something on Twitter last month about smoking weed. I happen to be a church going man though I myself take issue with the construct of religion. Nonetheless I was aware of the backlash I would receive and I received it.
The fact of the matter is that there is truth. There is truth and then there is everything else. Laws do not change the truth. Laws create a societal norm that there are consequences for disengaging from. Laws provide a standard of behavior we are all encouraged to take part in. But laws cannot be confused with the truth. The truth progresses. The truth heals. The truth builds and ultimately tears down what does not belong. The truth is like water. It is water. It will not stop and it molds everything it encounters. It becomes that which seeks purpose.
And so we find, in this generational push for marijuana legalization, that there is much afoot in this agenda, on both sides. The genesis of which can be placed at the feet of Ronald Reagan who presided over one of the most racial and culturally charged political strategies of modern times. I am talking about drug wars. What are they? Why are they so important? and what is the truth about them?
To know someone you have to know what they want. I go back to this point because it is the platform of this article. So let's be clear. The reason(s) the drug war began are only partially responsible for its continuation. Ronald Reagan did not start the drug war. The war on drugs was a long evolving political strategy that began long before Reagan took office.
First we must grasp the concept that drugs were not always illegal. And I'm not just talking marijuana, I'm talking what we would refer to today as hard core drugs: Heroin, Cocain. This drug market was unregulated at the beginning of the century and individuals used them freely. In fact they were used commonly as medical remedies and supported by industry authorities. What was loosely regulated was the amount of drugs individuals could buy. Nonchalant attitudes towards dosage could mean the difference between life and death. And yet there is law and then there are regulating authorities. The regulating authorities did not exist in any substantial way.
In fact there was a law firmly in place that prohibited state governments from regulating interstate commerce; legal or illegal. You see it wasn't the drugs that were the problem. It wasn't even the drug use. It was the distribution. More specifically, who the distributors were. In any society who the distributors are determines how the wealth is transferred. In most industrialized nations the wealth is transferred from the bottom. Those on the bottom end of the income scale are consumers and pay into the wealth of those making more money.
This unregulated drug industry threatened to change all of that. The threat was that low income white folks and newly freed slaves, rail road dog Chinamen and greasy Mexicans would build financial stature from the distribution of narcotics to wealthy society elites who were the only individuals who could afford to pay for these now incredibly expensive drugs.
Businesses are responsible for commerce. Governments are responsible for regulation. This is how it's always been. The government failed to regulate. This failure began to unfold conspicuously in the public eye upon the inception of the automobile. Local authorities could monitor abuse on a local level; all the county sheriff had to do was look at the store clerk's ledger and compare it to his supply. But the automobile allowed for large scale independent distribution. Without a concise regulatory strategy in place, abuses began to grow and the problem needed to be addressed.
A new piece of legislation called the Harrison Narcotic Tax Act was introduced in 1914. This was used not to prohibit the sale of heroin but to control it and eventually cocaine became subject to the law as well. Essentially, the government taxed the hell out of these drugs and required heavy fees for distributers to register which created a vaccum and eventually drug habits became known as the habit of choice for society elites. If you didn't register you were considered an outlaw. If you did register you would have an abysmal profit margin. This attempt to regulate the industry also created a small but wealthy market for only the wealthy could now afford to buy narcotics.
Here is where things begin to become political. After these laws expanded and others were introduced, it still did not slow the interstate trafficking of drugs. Furthermore, only the elites of society could afford to buy it. Yet it became evident, even in its early stages, that this could possibly be the beginnings of an industry that would transfer wealth from society elites to the scourge of the nation. The negroes, the Chinamen and the Mexicans. Because it was largely difficult to regulate, only white people could afford it but minorities had plenty of ways to smuggle it's distribution. In essence, negroes were getting rich off wealthy American elites. What commenced is the following chronology:
Theodore Roosevelt appointed Dr. Hamilton Wright as the first Opium Commissioner of the United States in 1908. In 1909, Wright attended the International Opium Commission in Shanghai as the American delegates. He was accompanied by Charles Henry Brent, the Episcopal Bishop. On March 12, 1911, Dr. Wright was quoted in as follows in an article in the New York Times: "Of all the nations of the world, the United States consumes most habit-forming drugs per capita. Opium, the most pernicious drug known to humanity, is surrounded, in this country, with far fewer safeguards than any other nation in Europe fences it with."[4] Wright further stated that "cocaine is often the direct incentive to the crime of rape by the Negroes of the South and other sections of the country," even though there was no evidence to support this claim.[citation needed] Wright also stated that "one of the most unfortunate phases of smoking opium in this country is the large number of women who have become involved and were living as common-law wives or cohabitating with Chinese in the Chinatowns of our various cities".[5][6]
By 1914, the problem had grown to the point where an estimated one U.S. citizen in 400 (0.25%) was addicted to some form of opium.[4] The opium addicts were mostly women who were prescribed and dispensed legal opiates by physicians and pharmacist for ”female problems,” probably mostly pain at menstruation, or white men and Chinese at the Opium dens. Between two-thirds and three-quarters of these addicts were women.[7] By 1914, forty-six states had regulations on cocaine and twenty-nine states had laws against opium, morphine, and heroin.[3][6][8][9]
Several authors have argued that the debate was merely to regulate trade and collect a tax. However, the committee report[10] prior to the debate on the house floor and the debate itself, discussed the rise of opiate use in the United States. Harrison stated that "The purpose of this Bill can hardly be said to raise revenue, because it prohibits the importation of something upon which we have hitherto collected revenue." Later Harrison stated, "We are not attempting to collect revenue, but regulate commerce." House representative Thomas Sisson stated, "The purpose of this bill--and we are all in sympathy with it--is to prevent the use of opium in the United States, destructive as it is to human happiness and human life."[11]
The drafters played on fears of “drug-crazed, sex-mad negroes” and made references to Negroes under the influence of drugs murdering whites, degenerate Mexicans smoking marijuana, and “Chinamen” seducing white women with drugs.[12][13] Dr. Hamilton Wright, testified at a hearing for the Harrison Act. Wright alleged that drugs made blacks uncontrollable, gave them superhuman powers and caused them to rebel against white authority. Dr. Christopher Koch of the State Pharmacy Board of Pennsylvania testified that "Most of the attacks upon the white women of the South are the direct result of a cocaine-crazed Negro brain".[3]
Before the Act was passed, on February 8, 1914, The New York Times published an article entitled "Negro Cocaine 'Fiends' Are New Southern Menace:Murder and Insanity Increasing Among Lower-Class Blacks" by Edward Huntington Williams which reported that Southern sheriffs had increased the caliber of their weapons from .32 to .38 to bring down Negroes under the effect of cocaine.
The murderous, drug crazed negro fiends and their Chinese and Mexican counterparts apparently were running rampant with their destruction and unquenchable thirst for the white woman's womb and the white man's blood. The problem of course is that the documentation of these atrocities are scarce. And in most cases non existent. At a time when the nation documented everything, evidence of these horrors proved scarce. Unless of course you count interviews and reports of sheriffs increasing their artillery size to bring down the crazed negroes as sufficient evidence.
Meanwhile the noose of the Harrison Act tightened. Trials were arranged. There was United States v. Doremus, 249 U.S. 86 (1919), in which the Supreme Court ruled that the Harrison Act was constitutional, and in Webb v. United States, 249 U.S. 96, 99 (1919) that physicians could not prescribe narcotics solely for maintenance.[7]
Laws were introduced and passed limiting the distribution of narcotics, not because of drug abuse but under threat that the status quo of society was poised to be compromised by what was potentially the greatest transfer of wealth in this nation's history. And of course the fear of white males that the newly freed slaves were laying jungle pipe to their aristocrat wives and beady eyed Chinamen were lulling them into a trance at opium houses.
By 1937, the federal government finally had it's hands firmly in control of the laws which made all narcotics illegal. Fresh from their prohibition victory, which successfully vilified the native Americans and rallied support for their banishment on reservations forever, alcohol became legal again. And so they turned their attention firmly in the direction of narcotics and their negro and Asian contributors.
Following the footsteps of cocaine and heroin, the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937 was introduced seeking to tax marijuana completely into obscurity. Common knowledge conceded the healing powers of the so called drug but authorities were afraid that it would become a "gateway drug to cocaine and heroin" meaning that if marijuana remained legal, there would grow an industry that provided an even economic playing field between society cultures and the threat of transferring wealth would arise again; this time targeting Mexican immigrants.
Understand the politics here. Under the creation of a new post antebellum nation, there had to be societal structure and institutions had to be created in support of that structure. Economic wealth and who it belonged to would determine who had access to this wealth and how it was distributed. The negro, the Chinaman, the red man and finally the Mexican. But the most incredible fact is that the rising society elites were not done yet. Once all three society threats were firmly agreed upon as illegal, dangerous and a threat in the eyes of the public it was now time to call for an outright war on these very same drugs.
But wait a minute. The drugs were never the problem or the issue. The issue was always the economic opportunity for American minorities which these drugs created. The so called war on drugs, in fact- instituted by president Dwight D. Eisenhower was never about the narcotics themselves it was about the people the newly formed institutions were afraid of, spearheaded by one of the most radical cowards ever to ascend this nation's halls of power Theodore Roosevelt himself.
And yet fear is contagious. And it spreads. And it is accepted. Until it becomes needed because you see, once something is needed it becomes more important than the truth. It becomes tradition and everyone invests in it. So now we have the prison industrial complex. A system of housing and societal banishment that is so lucrative that private companies have created prisons to solicit money from the federal government. These companies then turn public so that their company is worth the value of each individual inmate. The value of these inmates of course are then publicly traded on the chief monument of corruption itself: the New York Stock Exchange. But I thought we lived in post antebellum America. I thought all that oppressive garbage was a thing of the past, seeking to be buried along with Abraham Lincoln and the Mason Dixon?
I want you to understand something. Private prisons are not built because the state and federal governments cannot keep up with crime rates. Private prisons are created to house new prisoners that did not previously exist. You have people getting caught with an ounce of marijuana doing a twenty five years. You have people getting busted with petty amounts of cocaine getting life sentences. For what? For what purpose. For the sake of industry. For the sake of business. For the sake of profit.
The fear was that these people, these turn of the century society rejects who should still be in the cotton fields were about to get rich off the rest of us. This fear usurped the truth and created its own reality. So that now through the War on Drugs the prison industrial complex is alive and thriving well. Over eighty percent of prisons in America are populated by Afro Americans. this is not by accident. Black folks were flipping the post antebellum era on its head and getting rich of white elites. The War on Drugs was created to put things back in there rightful place so that society can progress toward the true order of things. This is the truth. Laws are just laws. Find out who made the laws and what those good ol' boys who made the laws actually want. Then you'll understand the nature of things.
And yet... you don't know someone until... but what do these people want? Why is marijuana illegal? Why are so called narcotics still illegal today? It has nothing to do with the non productivity of American citizens hooked on narcotics. Negros running rampant in the streets so brutally that they need to be shot with assault rifles because revolvers are not strong enough. In fact it was the illegality of drugs that made drugs cheap to obtain.
Once they became cheap to obtain, no longer did they belong to the society elite. They belonged to the people we were afraid would become wealthy. Once narcotics became illegal we could then house it in housing projects, control them in ghettos and banish them to prisons for a life sentence.
If you doubt the truth in this, look at the tobacco industry right now. Observe its regulation and its ever growing tax reform. Now imagine it suddenly becoming illegal. Big Tobacco would be locked away and their families behind bars. Meanwhile it would become less expensive to smoke, more expensive to distribute and more lucrative to grow tobacco plants.
The actual habit of smoking tobacco, which- mind you- is credited as being the problem however, wouldn't go anywhere. But the way the industry's wealth is distributed would be flipped upside down. The War on Drugs was never designed to be won. You cannot win such a thing. It's like creating a war on sex. People will always want it, need it, crave it.
And now that we know and understand how cocaine and heroin went from being an indulging of society's elite to the object of its scorn, what do you suppose has risen in place of this potential game changer in the history of our society's economic hierarchy? I must now gaze upon the health care industry. Prescription pills, synthetically created more lethal and destructive than the illegal narcotics we banished from the market. Do you know what the difference is between oxycodone and heroin? It is simple. Oxycodone is more dangerous. The pharmaceutical cartel has risen, supported by the health care industry. An industry that requires you to pay for services you may never use and drugs you may not actually need until you take them. Penalizes you for not paying your monthly contribution to society. For if you don't need these drugs, you must pay for someone else who does.
The very same reasons given for banishing from our society the likes of heroin, cocaine and marijuana have been given to create a new industry, one regulated and manipulated by the same people who banished it. The government. Only this time we don't have to worry about this industry being outlawed do we? Of course not, because these narcotics are synthetically made. You have to go to college, earn a degree and get hired by a government regulated laboratory to make these. Sure there are prescribed users selling the stuff in the streets but manufacturing can be controlled and regulated. There will be no paradigm shifts in the economic wealth of society with the pharmaceutical cartel running the show. Because the best way to make something evil appreciated and accepted is to make a law legalizing it.
But guess who the users are? The turn of the century regulations designed to squeeze the market created an elite status of users and outlawed big profit distributors. But look at the pharmaceutical clientele. Do you know who they are?
In fact, the CDC report found the death rate among non-Hispanic whites and American Indians/Alaska Natives was three times higher than among Blacks and Hispanic whites.
It's not the crazy blood thirsty negroes. It appears that these users suffering from their pharmaceutical addiction are not locked away in the penal institution. They are simply given more drugs by their physician. It's pure madness.
Understand the product is no different. In fact it may be worse. It is worse.
Fact: More people die from prescription drugs in the United States than deaths attributed to the use of heroin and cocaine combined. This incredible report came from the Center for Disease Control taken in October 2011. We are talking real deaths here. Yet you turn around and tell me that illegal narcotics are not safe and we need to create prisons on an epic scale to house the people using them. Spend millions of dollars of tax payer money to wage war of biblical proportions to kill people who grow the stuff in the back yard on their sovereign nations while stuff four times more toxic and deadly is not being grown but created right here in the USA in laboratories by scientists we have sponsored.
People don't want the truth. The truth is too dangerous. So we accept lies, give medals, awards, scholarships and confidence toward them because the alternative is too confusing. “Prescription overdoses are epidemic in the U.S.”, says Dr. Thomas Frieden, director of the CDC. Most people who die from prescription drug overdose are taking someone else’s medicines, he says. “Medicines that were left in the medicine cabinet. Medicines that were given to a friend or a relative. Maybe innocently, maybe maliciously.”
“It’s astonishing”, says Frieden. He adds that many addictions begin innocently, when patients are given narcotics for a minor injury that could be treated with less addictive medication. “When I went to medical school, we were incorrectly assured – don’t worry – if patients have short-term pain, they won’t get hooked. That was completely wrong, and a generation of doctors, patients and families have learned that’s a tragic mistake.”
Yet what was created was a system to control manufacturing, regulate its distribution while enforcing its usage. Therefore while it is priced with a tag indicative of society's elites, it is society that must pay for its manufacturing and distribution whether these individual elements of society called people actually use them or not. It is pure genius. But that doesn't make it right. Just because it is legal doesn't make it truth.
This is how far the institutions of power will go to protect themselves: As part of the War on Drugs, the U.S. gives hundreds of millions of dollars per year of military aid to Colombia, used to combat guerrilla groups such as FARC, involved in narco-trafficking.[1][2
They are not spending this money to keep you safe. They are doing it to protect their wealth. People elect leaders. Lobbyists purchase policy.
The natural coca plants and opium fields are just too democratic. The marijuana leaves are far too green.
The caveat here is marijuana. Just as the prohibition era saw Native Americans banished onto reservations supported by their vilification of alcohol abuse, we now find a similar construct with marijuana. But we have firmly established a culture of ghettos and prison for these people. Now that we have done so, by all means. Let's legalize both the medicinal and recreational use of this once putrid and obscene substance. And let's look in the faces of the citizens of this nation, the voter who create our coveted constituents and tell them that America is constantly progressing towards the common good... of the majority.
*Wikepedia
*about.com
*Civil Liberties
*FOX News
*Center for Disease Control (CDC)
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