Category Archives: War On Drugs

By Udi Ofer

On November 23, 2021, following seven months of deliberation, the Princeton Cannabis Task Force issued a report unanimously recommending that the Princeton Council allow for cannabis dispensaries in town. Princetonians overwhelmingly support the legalization of cannabis, with 75 percent of Princeton voters saying yes to legalization on the 2021 ballot, a higher proportion than the 67 percent statewide who passed the referendum.

However, shortly after the release of the Task Force report, a vocal group of Princetonians have come out against cannabis sales within city limits. Its now time for the council to follow the recommendations of the task force and allow well-regulated dispensaries in town and to do so in a manner that will begin to repair the harm created by decades of a failed and discriminatory war on marijuana.

The 22-member Task Force, which Im a part of, had been appointed by the Princeton Council and included members nominated by the Princeton Police Department, Princeton Board of Health, Princeton Public Schools, and Princeton Civil Rights Commission, among other municipal stakeholders. From day one, it has operated with the utmost transparency, with all its meetings open to the public. Four meetings in-person and virtual were held specifically to solicit input from the public, welcoming all voices and opinions.

The task force based its unanimous recommendations on three primary considerations, guided by the knowledge that Princeton is a place where residents are passionate about confronting racial inequities and that Princeton needs to play its part not just in principle, but in ways that have the power to change things.

First, the task force sought to remove the stigma around a product that is now legal in New Jersey, but its prohibition was used to unfairly target and criminalize Black and Brown communities. Historically, New Jersey has had among the nations highest cannabis arrest rates, and with extreme racial disparities. Black people in New Jersey have been 3.5 times more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession than white people, despite Black and white people consuming marijuana at similar rates. These racial disparities in arrests were not because of differences in consumption rates. Rather, they were driven by discriminatory criminal justice policies and practices.

While Princeton itself never had a large volume of arrests for marijuana possession, the trends in arrests did largely track the broader state patterns. Like the state, Princeton had persistent and even extreme racial disparities in cannabis arrests. From 1995 to 2019, there were racial disparities in arrests every year except for one, and from 2000-2013, Princeton had the second highest racial disparity in Mercer County. In several years, more than 50 percent of all marijuana possession arrests in town were of Black people. Princeton is about six percent Black.

Second, the task force concluded that allowing dispensaries would help to reduce underage access to cannabis by working to eliminate Princetons existing marijuana market, and by controlling who has access to it through a highly regulated market. Task Force members felt strongly about preventing youth usage of marijuana and ensuring safety. The task force believed that a regulated market would minimize the presence in the community of dangerous products as a result of the states strong product safety standards, making cannabis consumption safer for adult use as well and reducing the support for an unregulated market.

Finally, the task force sought to have Princeton proactively work to address the historical injustices created by the War on Drugs and its disproportionate impact on communities of color.

Research conducted by the ACLU has found that legalization on its own does not address racial disparities in enforcement. For this reason, the task force recommended that specific policies be implemented to prevent racial disparities in enforcement and to ensure equity in the cannabis industry. Moreover, it is vital that the revenue from cannabis dispensaries be devoted to Black and Brown communities historically targeted by the war on marijuana.

People arrested for cannabis in Princeton faced severe collateral consequences, including up to six months in jail, loss of employment and drivers licenses, and loss of immigration status, financial aid and public housing, among other consequences, which has devastated lives and hurt communities. For this reason, the task force recommended directing cannabis tax revenue and impact fees toward reparative community programs that benefit people who faced the brunt of the war on marijuana. The task force also stressed the importance of issuing policies that would lead to equity in future enforcement of the law and equity in the cannabis industry itself. The people who were harmed by a discriminatory war on marijuana should now be able to benefit from a legalized market both by benefiting from the revenue and being able to enter the industry itself.

For the sake of racial justice, public health, and common-sense good policy, the time has come for Princeton to allow cannabis dispensaries and to do it the right way, with equity at its core. Doing so would allow Princeton to emerge as an active participant, and even potentially a leader, in an important national issue that has deep ramifications for racial and social justice. Eighteen states and Washington, D.C., have legalized cannabis. Forty-three percent of U.S. adults live in a jurisdiction that has legalized the recreational use of marijuana. Ninety-one percent of Americans believe that marijuana should be legal for medicalor recreational use. There are thousands of dispensaries currently open across the nation and they have not seen the doomsday scenarios the detractors have painted.

This is the moment for Princeton to shine as an example of smart government that is motivated by the values of equity and justice. The council should follow the recommendations provided by its task force and allow for well-regulated dispensaries to open in Princeton and use the revenue to begin to repair the harm created by decades of a failed and discriminatory war on marijuana in our state and in our town.

Mr. Ofer is a member of the Princeton Cannabis Task Force and is the deputy national policy director at the ACLU.

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Op-ed: Princeton voters said yes to cannabis overwhelmingly now let's begin to repair the harm caused by the failed war on drugs Princeton, NJ local...

Dlaminiwas speaking to his supporters after he was granted bail of R1500 in theRoodepoort Magistrates Court.

"Weare all cowards here, he said.

Why?Because I'm a coward, there are some places that I know sell drugs but we are notbigger cowards than our leaders even those in blue. Because when we take actionagainst those who take or sell drugs, they are the ones who arrest us."

Hefaces charges of housebreaking with the intent to steal on the 20th of March afterOperation Dudula members allegedly ransacked the Dobsonville home of localresident, Victor Ramerafe who community members accused of selling drugs.

READ:Court grants bail to Operation Dudula leader

Ramerafeopened a criminal case against Dlamini after the incident.

Weare going to find a way to liberate the police force. Let me now speak the wayyou want me to speak and I've been denying to speak this way, Dlamini said.

Whenwe take this country because that time is coming, we are going to move thepolice service back to being a police force.

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Dlamini vows to intensify Operation Dudula's 'war on drugs' - East Coast Radio

These days, everyone is throwing a hat into the ring of cannabis reform. Many ideas are floating around; some of them are not so hot. Last weeks federal legislative activity is a good example of this. Two things happened on the same day: the Senate unanimously passed the CMRE Act (Cannabidiol and Marihuana Research Expansion Act), and House leadership scheduled the MORE Act (Marijuana Opportunity and Expungement Act) for a floor vote next week. A lot of lazy reportage followed on this legislative activity, heralding federal cannabis reform.

Not all cannabis reform is a good thing. Some ideas are great; some are terrible; and some fall in between. The MORE Act falls into that final category. The MORE Act would remove marijuana from the federal Controlled Substances Act, along with a host of related activity. It first passed in late 2020; I gave a primer here. In that post, I also explained what the MORE Act does NOT do. It doesnt preempt prohibitionist state laws; it doesnt address the dysfunctional Food Drug & Cosmetic Act issues around cannabis comestible products; it doesnt automatically expunge non-violent marijuana convictions; etc. The perfect can be the enemy of the good, of course, and I still think passage of a cleaned up MORE Act could be better than the status quo. But that bill needs some work.

The CMRE Act, by contrast, is an irredeemable mess. Shane Pennington explains why in the excellent On Drugs Substack he hosts with Matthew Zorn. (If you arent an On Drugs subscriber, youre missing out on some very good stuff.) Shane explains, in a nutshell, that the CMRE Act contains a nonsensical and counterproductive definition of cannabinoids; and that, contrary to its stated purpose, it would actually make marijuana research harder. This is because non-economic barriers to cannabis research have been gutted already. What scientists really need from Congress is funding, not more legislation.

I appreciate that Congress continues to look at cannabis prohibition and related issues, especially given the Executive Branch failure of Biden and Harris to follow through with their campaign promises. It will be interesting to see if the CMRE Act gets any traction in the House, and vice versa for the MORE Act in the Senate. The CMRE Act seems to have better odds, if only because it originated in the upper chamber and addresses narrower subject matter. Also, the Senate has been unwilling or unable to entertain the MORE Act to date similar to the SAFE Banking Act, which has now passed a half dozen times in the House.

Cannabis reform can be confusing once you get past the fundamental truths that: 1) the War on Drugs has failed and 2) the War on Drugs has disproportionately affected minority groups. There are so many options moving forward from thereincluding how to begin. In the big picture, there are those who would approach things piecemeal, with discrete legislation on issues such as banking or cannabis research; and those who would approach things holistically, as through the MORE Act or other omnibus efforts.

I hope to see the MORE Act pass to start. Then, we go from there. Whatever happens will ultimately need some tuning, similar to what is happening now with hemp. But getting at the root of cannabis prohibition is better than hacking at tendrils and shoots. Thats especially true when were talking about bills like the CMRE Act.

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Not All Cannabis Reform is a Good Thing - Lexology

The city of Hazel Park, Michigan made national headlines last week after its city council voted unanimously to decriminalize entheogens, or naturally occurring psychoactive drugs consumed for religious reasons. Substances like psilocybin mushrooms, ayahuasca, and ibogaine remain illegal at the state and federal levels, but cities like Hazel Park are invoking their religiosity as they decriminalize entheogens at the local level.

To understand the term entheogen and its relationship to the broader effort to decriminalize psychedelic drugs, consider that in 1978, Dr. Carl Ruck, Professor of Classical Studies at Boston University, sought to distinguish the religious from the recreational use of psychedelics. Psychedelic drugs became associated with what many perceived as the adolescent rebellion of the 1960s and early 70s counterculture. The federal government criminalized the use, possession, sale, and cultivation of these drugs, though many continued to use them both recreationally and sacramentally. To honor the latter, Ruck created the word entheogen by combining the Greek word entheos, often translated as god within, with gen from the word hallucinogen.

The term has grown in recent decades motivated by several factors. Chief among them is what activists and proponents often refer to as the Psychedelic Renaissance. As journalist and author Michael Pollan wrote in his 2018 New York Times bestselling book How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence, a growing interest in psychedelics is sweeping the nation as researchers and therapists consider the medicinal and therapeutic benefits of these ancient plants. Based on their initial findings, venture capital and corporations are increasingly interested as well, resulting in millions of dollars of investments in psychedelic research.

Concurrently, Americans across the nation consumed psychedelic drugs for various reasons, including, but not limited to, the pursuit of religious, spiritual, or mystical experiences, as well as for their purported psychopharmacological benefits. Their effects were emboldened by a 2006 decision, in which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously that members of Unio do Vegetal (or Union of the Plants), a small religious group from South America, can legally consume a psychedelic tea called hoasca (or ayahuasca), an otherwise illegal psychoactive drug, during twice-monthly rituals.

Based largely on the Supreme Courts decision, three years later a lower court ruled that members of a similar religion in Oregon have a religious right to consume what they call Daime, a variation of the base ingredients used to create ayahuasca. In these decisions, justices did not invoke the word entheogen, but reinforced the broader idea that under certain circumstances, Americans had a legal right to consume otherwise forbidden psychoactive drugs.

While the entheogenic use of psychoactive substances predates the Psychedelic Renaissance, the two have combined in the form of the Decriminalize Nature movement, which encourages local governments to essentially decriminalize the use of entheogens by making the enforcement of prohibition among the polices lowest priorities.

This movement received its first victory in May 2019, when voters in Denver, Colorado narrowly approved Ordinance 301, a ballot initiative designed to decriminalize the use and possession of mushrooms that contain psilocybin, a hallucinogenic compound. For the first time since the federal war on drugs, a city effectively decriminalized the use of a psychedelic drug. Motivated by this victory, the movement to decriminalize psychedelics subsequently spread, as over a dozen cities and counties followed Denvers lead.

Despite their similarities, subsequent decriminalization bills have notable differences. Chief among them is that almost all these initiatives explicitly invoke the category of entheogens, resulting in a broader range of decriminalized substances.

Hazel Park, for example, decriminalized all entheogenic plants, which the city defined as:

the full spectrum of plants, fungi, and natural materials and/or their extracted compounds, limited to those containing the following types of compounds: indole amines, tryptamines, and phenethylamines; that can benefit psychological and physical wellness, support and enhance religious and spiritual practices, and can reestablish humans inalienable and direct relationship to nature.

This classification is significant as it simultaneously sacralizes and broadens the category of decriminalized substances.

Cities like Hazel Park are but one component of the larger Psychedelic Renaissance, where activists, clinicians, and practitioners are working tirelessly to legitimize the use of psychedelic drugs. The category of entheogenwhich has connected it to our nations long standing commitment to religious freedomis proving a powerful tool in implementing that movement at the local level.

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The Road to Decriminalization of Psychoactive Drugs Runs Through Religion - Religion Dispatches

When Encanto was announced the winner of the Oscar for best animated film on Sunday night, Martn Anzellini the Colombian architect who helped develop the films representation of his home country had little idea. Instead, he was watching Encanto at home with his twin toddler daughters, who had yet to see it.

Once we finished watching the film, I checked my phone and saw my WhatsApp was going wow! Anzellini said. It was so exciting, I almost cried. And I hugged my daughters, as my work on the film was for them.

Though Anzellini may have been slow on the uptake, much of his country was united in celebration of the films success for breaking Colombias usual association with drugs and violence.

For Colombians its important to see ourselves represented in a positive light, given that were so used to being about cocaine and war, said Anzellini, who teaches at Javeriana University in Bogot. The most important thing with a film like this is that we can see ourselves differently.

Though the whimsical blockbuster was made by American directors and producers, the story it tells of the magical Madrigal family is steeped in Colombian folklore.

The film-makers worked with a number of Colombian consultants on the film across various disciplines, from architects and anthropologists to animators.

The film also alludes to the countrys history of violence and forced displacement, and while themes of intergenerational trauma may not seem like a recipe for box-office success, they reverberated intensely in Colombia, which has been racked by decades of civil war between the state, leftist rebel armies, rightwing paramilitaries, and drug traffickers.

More than 260,000 people were killed in the conflict that formally ended with a fragile 2016 peace deal, while millions were forced to abandon their homes. Children were often at risk of recruitment into violent groups or growing up as orphans.

Unfortunately, conflict is a recurring theme in Colombia, but if we dont acknowledge those wounds, then well keep on repeating them, said Alejandra Espinoza, a writer and researcher who consulted with the filmmakers on the films representation of Colombias history. The film takes place in a small town because violence in Colombia was historically in small towns, before people were displaced to the big cities.

The film also leans heavily on the imagery of Nobel Prize-winning Colombian author Gabriel Garca Mrquez, popularly known as Gabo.

Gabo once told me that all of my work comes from the popular culture of Colombias Caribbean coast, said Jaime Abello Banfi, who heads the Gabo Foundation in Cartagena. And while Encanto isnt an adaptation, its clear that [songwriter] Lin-Manuel Miranda and his team were very keen to base it on Colombian magical realism.

Magical realism has become a whole theme that marks our country, he said.

Colombian singer Sebastin Yatra performed a song from the film during Sundays ceremony, in a suit embroidered with a flutter of yellow butterflies, much like those that follow one of the characters in Mrquezs masterpiece One Hundred Years of Solitude.

As a Colombian in a globalized world, watching the Oscars, it was always something far away, said Hernando Bahamon, a Colombian animator who consulted on the film. It was something to see everyone mentioning Colombia on Sunday night.

In a country where the often faltering national football team is usually the only institution that unites the divided population, the films win brought praise from across society and the political spectrum.

Encanto, inspired by the cultural richness of our country, fills us with pride, tweeted rightwing president Ivn Duque on Sunday night, while Gustavo Petro, the leftwing frontrunner in upcoming elections, was similarly effusive.

I love that Encanto won an Oscar, Petro, a former guerrilla fighter turned firebrand politician, tweeted. Now the magic begins.

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Not just cocaine and war: Colombian pride at Oscar-winning Encantos positive portrayal - The Guardian

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At some point between the 80s and now, leaving children unattended in public became unthinkable. To let children as old as, say, 10 walk by themselves became grounds to investigate parents for neglect. As a child of the late 90s and early 2000s, I knew latchkey kids existed, but nearly exclusively from the aging 1980s childrens paperbacks in my elementary schools library. My friends whose parents worked too late to pick them up from school stayed in the building for a child care program or took a bus to the nearby Boys & Girls Club.

Statistics confirm the decline of the latchkey kid that I witnessed and that continues today. A primary reason for the change was the fear that children were constantly on the cusp of being kidnapped, abused, or taken advantage of, and thus could never be left alone.

Paul Renfro, an assistant professor of history at Florida State University, chronicled in his 2020 book Stranger Danger: Family Values, Childhood, and the American Carceral State, how such a notion became widespread in the 80s and 90s. Pictures of missing and abducted children were plastered onmilk cartons, as media ramped up coverage of random, isolated incidents of children being abducted in ways that it hadnt beforeeven as the number of children who were abducted did not substantially increase.

Critics of this moment often blame the media, who did play a part in elevating these concernsbut theres more to the story. Their coverage played right into the hands of, and was exacerbated by, a reactionary right-wing movement that was eager to notch culture war wins by conflating the so-called stranger danger threat to children with pornography, underage drinking, drugs, teen pregnancy, and the like. Ancillary battles on similar moral fronts hastened a harsher war on drugs, and the corresponding mass incarceration policies that disproportionately hurt Black America.

Today, the leveraging of unfounded fears that children are in unprecedented danger toward political ends isanimated by QAnon and Pizzagate conspiracy theories. While these are generally too absurd for elected politicians to directly endorsethe few that have, like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) have walked backSen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and most recently Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) have tried to tap into the same fear and energy QAnon has harnessed. They want to use it to push a reactionary political projectbut without having to say QAnon out loud.

DuringJudge Ketanji Brown Jacksons Supreme Court nominationhearings, Hawley repeatedly claimed that she had been soft on child pornography offenders, despite being accused, earlier in his own career, of displaying untoward leniency towards sexual abusers as a prosecutor and attorney general. He largely focused on Jacksons deviations from federal sentencing guidelines in child porn cases, even though judges appointed by Trumphave also deviated from the guidelines, which have been broadly and bipartisanly criticized.

In an email interview, Renfro explained the rights long tradition of hyping up concerns about the nuclear family and children, howHawleys attacks on Jackson are just the latest version, and what might make Americans less susceptible to repeated moral panics.

Your book talks about how panics over children have been weaponized to political ends. Can you give an overview of the argument and explain the modern genesis of this?

Moral panics concerning children have a long history in the United States, but my book concentrates on the stranger danger scare that erupted in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Fears about the sanctity and stability of the idealized American familyand the child at its heartwere intensifying during this period. As the power and influence of the Religious Right grew in the 1970s, its leaders railed against feminists, sought to curtail reproductive freedom, and smeared gay men as child predators who must recruit.

In this context, several high-profile child kidnapping or murder cases stoked fears of a widespread and worsening epidemic. The 1979 Etan Patz abduction in New York City, the 197981 Atlanta youth kidnappings and murders, and the 1981 Adam Walsh kidnapping and slaying in South Florida, among others, received tremendous national news coverage, much of which exaggerated the scope and the nature of the child kidnapping threat. On nightly news broadcasts and in print media, bereaved parents, concerned politicians, law enforcement officials, moral entrepreneurs, and others claimed that as many as 50,000 children fell victim to stranger kidnapping annually in the US.

Even though the actual number of stranger kidnappings was and remains somewhere around 100and children are far more likely to be abducted, abused, or killed by a family member or acquaintancemany everyday Americans were convinced that their families and children were facing a grave and growing threat. The nation was in the throes of a moral panic, the consequences of which would be multifaceted. Parents grew increasingly protective of their children, restricting their movements and demanding stronger and more punitive state responses to the perils of child kidnapping and exploitation. They found an ally in President Ronald Reagan, who targeted, inflated, and often conflated various presumed threats confronting the American familyfrom stranger danger to underage drinking, from adult pornography to child pornography, from drugs to teen pregnancy, from heavy metal to satanic ritual abuse.

Developments in the Reagan eraincluding the Missing Children and Missing Children Assistance Acts of 1982 and 1984, respectively, as well as the Child Protection Act of 1984, the Child Sexual Abuse and Pornography Act of 1986, and other measuresset the stage for the surfeit of child protection laws enacted on the federal level during the Clinton and Bush II years. Its important to note, then, that child protection and family values were (and remain) bipartisan issues. (As Greg Grandin wryly notes, Clinton was Reagans greatest achievement.) Under Clinton and George W. Bush, the federal government mandated the adoption by states of sex offense registries and community notification protocols. Accordingly, the number of individuals charged with and incarcerated for various sex offenses (some but not all of which involve actual sexual harm)and the number of people forced to register as sex offendersskyrocketed. Today, nearly one million individuals are listed as sex offenders in the US.

And so now Hawley is playing on this tradition in the Senate confirmation hearings. How savvy do you think Hawley is being? Is he just making the calculation that people dont like children being harmed, or do you think hes aware of just who he is tapping into and going after?

Hawley probably knows what hes doing. The moral panic I write about in Stranger Danger never really dissipated, and in moments of national chaos and uncertainty (such as the late 1970s or the 2020s), many Americans look to shore up the nuclear family and preserve childhood innocenceboth of which have particular racial, class, and spatial connotations. Not unlike Glenn Youngkin (whose successful gubernatorial bid in Virginia last year centered around the slogan, Parents Matter), Hawley recognizes that he can mobilize (white) suburban parents by tapping into their fears about child safety and innocence. He and others can reach these audiences by discussing a range of different issuesincluding critical race theory, gender-affirming care for trans kids, or Ketanji Brown Jacksons presumed softness on sex offenders.

How do QAnon and Pizzagate factor into this? Do you think that Hawley is trying to stoke the energy of that community?

These topics enable Hawley and others to gesture toward the QAnon conspiracy theory without explicitly mentioning it. But hes coming pretty damn close by arguing that Jackson, a Black woman nominated by a Democratic president, is endanger[ing] our children. Whose children, exactly? Plus, a quick glance at Hawleys online storewhich features koozies, mugs, and T-shirts emblazoned with the image of Hawleys infamous fist salute on January 6, 2021reveals that hes more than willing to associate himself with QAnon supporters and other extremist elements. And hes been nodding to Q for quite a long time now; for example, while serving as Missouri attorney general in 2018, Hawley lamented the human trafficking crisis and blamed it on the sexual liberationism of the 1960s and 1970s. The sexual revolution has led to exploitation of women on a scale that we would never have imagined, he asserted.

Is there a close historical antecedent to what Hawley is doing? Based on what youve witnessed in past trends does this represent another step on the bridge of bringing QAnon-styled conspiracies into the conventional political realm?

In many ways, Hawley, Ron DeSantis, Greg Abbott, and others are building on the culture wars of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Todays handwringing about critical race theory and illiberalism on college campuses recalls the debate over political correctness and the canon in the 1990s. Further, their antigay and anti-trans politicking is reminiscent of the efforts undertaken in the 1970s and 1980s by Religious Right figureswho depicted gay men as depraved predators who groomed or recruited childrenas well as the campaign against marriage equality, waged by Republicans and Democrats alike in the early to mid-2000s.

But Hawley and others also seem to be laundering certain ideas associated with QAnon. This is a strategy that the organizers of the summer 2020 #SaveTheChildren and #SaveOurChildren rallies undertook, consciously obscuring connections to QAnon through abstract (and virtually unassailable) language concerning child protection and trafficking.

Ted Cruz tried his own version of this in 2020 over a Netflix film. Are politicians just going to take these kinds of shots when they see them?

Until voters or elected officials within the GOP thoroughly rebuke Hawley (and other Q sympathizers like Marjorie Taylor Greene), theres little reason for him and others to distance themselves from such elements.

There is a conspiratorial tradition of reaction that I think goes beyond stranger danger: the myth of the black males threat to white women; Red Scare fears of communists infiltrating every level of government; gay men being threats to their communities, etc. Do you think that child sex panics of that kind of genre, or do they run parallel?

As Ive argued elsewhere, notions of white innocence and victimhoodwhich oftentimes but not always concentrate on the idealized child and familyare incredibly potent and, indeed, loom over all of the phenomena to which your question refers. Those ideas helped propel the (bipartisan) war on drugs and mass incarceration, the Second Red Scare, the opposition to busing and school desegregation, the global war on terror, and beyond. Moral/sex panics concerning children flow from these powerful ideas and help shape rhetoric and policy on a whole range of issues in US political culture.

A lot of people just hear that kids are being threatened andeven if you show them theres not a spike and that the biggest threat is inside the home, not out of itthey just dont care. Is there a way to break the pattern and neutralize the power of these moral panics and conspiracies influencing politics and policy?

This is a tough one. Moral panics thrive off of instability and insecurity, and because the US is so unstable and unequal, Americans are particularly susceptible. But it stands to reason that moral panics might lose their luster if American society became more egalitarian, less hierarchical, less atomized, and less anxious. For instance, ending the (bipartisan) fixation on family values might bolster alternative forms of kinship and supportsuch as a more robust social safety net and communal systems of childrearing and educationwhich could potentially curb the abuse and exploitation that takes place in the household. Further, we should think very seriously about why the political and media classes continually promulgate wild, baseless ideas to garner votes and generate attentionespecially as Americans quality of life fails to improve in the twenty-first century. Doing so might force politicians and the chattering classes to change their ways.

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Stranger Dangers: The Right's History of Turning Child Abuse Into a Political Weapon Mother Jones - Mother Jones

We must not return to the failed, punitive policies that do not improve public safety or save lives.

By Taylor Pendergrass

The fentanyl crisis continues to cause unfathomable loss across the country. Amid so much pain, we have a responsibility to embrace bold, proven, and life-saving public safety solutions. Now is the moment when we must also put to bed, forever, decades of failed, punitive policies that led to this unprecedented crisis. It is far past time for lawmakers to take aggressive action to protect families by investing in evidence-based solutions that save lives.

For over 50 years, the United States had only one answer to the question of how to save lives and reduce harm from drug use: punishment and prison. The result of this horrifying experiment is a mountain of evidence showing the overall effect of imprisonment is null. Prison sentences do not improve safety. They do not save lives. They do not help people recover from substance use disorder. They do not keep us safe from or reduce the supply of dangerous drugs, or save lives in the event of an overdose.

Here is the cold, hard truth: We could increase prison sentences 10-fold, cut them by half, triple them, then eliminate them, and all those changes would do absolutely nothing to protect our families and loved ones from future fentanyl tragedies.

Examining the research is hardly necessary for most American families. They know all too well from their experience with a family member, friend, or even their own lived experience that locking someone up with a substance use disorder will not provide them with the resources and treatment they need. Locking people up only wreaks tremendous intergenerational costs and a never-ending cycle of harm for families and children.

Unfortunately, some lawmakers appear to have no solutions at all, offering only stale and warmed-over war on drugs leftovers. At best, increasing prison sentences for drug-related offenses will have no impact whatsoever on this crisis. At worst, and far more likely, it will stigmatize people who need treatment, exacerbate racial injustice, and squander valuable resources. It is imperative that money be spent on addressing the root causes of the overdose epidemic.

We are thinking far too small for this enormous crisis when we debate about tinkering at the edges of our ancient and ineffective mass incarceration architecture. It is also a colossal waste of time when lawmakers should be laser-focused on rapidly scaling up evidence-based solutions that have proven effective at saving lives: overdose prevention centers, fentanyl test strips, safe supply, drug decriminalization, public education campaigns, and low-barrier access to naloxone and other rehabilitative and life-saving therapies.

Voters of all stripes agree the war on drugs has failed, Democrats (83 percent), Independents (85 percent), and Republicans (82 percent). Voters also know that there is nothing more soft on crime than politicians who are too scared to act decisively and aggressively to prevent death and harm from happening in the first place.

Lawmakers claiming the same failed approaches that havent worked for the last 50 years are now suddenly going to succeed are displaying a very dangerous mix of willful ignorance, magical thinking, and political expediency. If they have no real solutions to offer, they should step aside and let lawmakers with a real vision and commitment to keeping families safe lead the way. We can and must meet this moment.

Taylor Pendergrass is the Director of Advocacy and Strategic Alliances for the ACLU of Colorado.

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Guest Commentary: The War on Drugs Failed Lawmakers Must Meet the Fentanyl Crisis With New Solutions - The Peoples Vanguard of Davis

The CIA sold drugs in the 1980s. That is a bold statement and not entirely true, but it is what was picked up by most of the population when journalist Gary Webb reported on it. This, added with the fact that in 1971, President Richard Nixon declared drug abuse the publics biggest enemy, and later President Ronald Reagans expansion on these policies, created an endless war on drugs.

Throughout this war, many things have happened and been tried, such as an opioid epidemic and the legalization of weed on the state government level. Despite the current legalization of weed, drugs should not be legalized. Instead, the United States should aim to decriminalize drugs so that there can be an end to this war.

The start of this war goes back to 1979, in the jungles of Central America, when the Nicaraguan dictatorship was overthrown by socialist revolutionaries called the Sandinistas. In response to this, a right-wing group called the Contras began a brutal paramilitary campaign and received money and weapons from the CIA, adds Vice Reporter Jamie Clifton. However, in 1982, Democrats in Congress passed laws to cut off support for these Nicaraguan rebels.

Subsequently, the Contras and the CIA had to find a new way to fund their struggles. They turned to cocaine. In the early 80s, smokable cocaine and crack exploded across American cities. This created a goldmine for multiple groups, especially the CIA. In essence, the CIA had knowledge of this drug trafficking, allowed it to happen, funded it and even made money off it. Now, these drugs are found everywhere in our society, spurring rampant corruption and gang violence.

One way to try and help the issue is by legalizing drugs something that most progressives endorse. They say it is a great form of harm reduction: A range of public health policies designed to lessen the negative social/physical consequences associated with human behaviors.

Moreover, legalization when it comes to drugs removes all penalties for possession and personal use of a drug. Legalization also includes regulations so that these drugs can be properly managed in terms of production and sale; penalties may apply if sales and production occur outside of this regulation.

However, the issue with legalization is that its biggest enemy is capitalism. This can be seen within the opioid epidemic.

The opioid epidemic began in the late 1990s with the 1996 birth of Purdue Pharmas OxyContin. After this birth, the federal government pressured doctors to prescribe opioids through a campaign known as Pain as the Vital Sign. This campaign was as it sounds: It introduced the concept of pain seen as the fifth vital sign alongside the typical things doctors normally check during routines.

This campaign allowed drug companies to misleadingly market opioids as a treatment for chronic pain. Because of drug company lobbying, the government loosened access to opioids by requiring insurers to cover the drugs. Eventually, in 2014, the Drug Enforcement Administration rescheduled opioid painkillers to put harsher restrictions on them. In 2016, Congress finally passed a law that seriously addressed the epidemic.

The worst part was that this epidemic could have easily been prevented with better regulation. To stop this, for starters, the Food and Drug Administration could have blocked/restricted the use of opioids to better account for the risks and lack of scientific evidence that they are effective. The Drug Enforcement Agency could have limited the opioid supply and set production quotas for some opioids such as hydrocodone and oxycodone.

Instead, the DEA let these quotas rise and focused on illegal facilities that act as regular health clinics but would prescribe painkillers without going through the proper channels; These were called pit mills. This is just one example of bad government regulation and policies.

Another example of bad government regulation and policies can be seen in Switzerlands Needle Park. In the late 1970s, there was an abundance of the use of heroin and cocaine in Zurich, and by 1980, one could see groups of 100-400 people using these drugs openly. The police tried to disperse this to no avail, as the users would just go somewhere else. Realizing the scope and gravity of the situation, the government wanted to help these people.

So, a public park behind Zurichs main train station became a supervised zone for drug users in 1987. Platzspitz Park became a needle hotspot for heroin users as addicts and dealers came from across Europe to partake in this activity without being arrested until 1992, when authorities shut it down due to heavy political pressure. Up until its shutdown, Platzspitz had dealers, addicts and doctors all packed in the park selling, using and treating.

After the shutdown, the government did not give up and instead learned from its mistakes. The use of drugs without arrest does not mean a lack of regulations. Following this incident, in 1994, Switzerland adopted a four pillars policy: prevention, therapy, harm reduction and repression. This has proven quite effective as the number of drug consumption deaths and crime has decreased as well as 1,700 addicts having benefited since the policys implementation. On top of this, Switzerland barely sees new heroin users. This is a great example of how government regulation could make all the difference.

On the other side, there is the option of decriminalization left to explore.

Aditya is a junior in Business.

[emailprotected]

Originally posted here:

Opinion | Let drug decriminalization win the War on Drugs - Daily Illini

Breonna Taylor's father, who remained close to all six children, including Breonna while she was alive, is being held in a Michigan prison. An incarcerated writer makes the case for Everettes freedom.

The assassination of Breonna Taylor two years ago in her Louisville, Kentucky, home by police rocked the nation and united millions to pressure the government for real police reform and a ban on no-knock warrants. This injustice, along with the public lynchings of George Floyd and others, also sheds light on the systemic and institutional racism that has infected all areas of our society. Yet, whats missing from this set of revolutionary demands is comprehensive sentencing reform.

The source of the problem is systemic. When school systems are underfunded in our inner cities, children of color lose out. Then, employers tend to choose White male workers over Black, Latino, or women workers. Because of these failures, many young Black inner-city men find that the best way to get ahead is selling drugs. The problem is further compounded when a young Black man, like Breonnas father, comes in contact with the police. In such encounters, Black men are lucky to walk away alive.

This system also pits Black men against each other. Sooner or later, if the police dont arrest one drug seller, another, who has been betrayed by the same systemic racism, may try to rob him. The outcome is often death for one and prison for the other.

Taylor has molded himself into a strong, resilient man who wants to help his community.

This is essentially Everette Taylors story. He was selling drugs because our society failed him, and he gave up on a legitimate livelihood. When he was 21, another Black man, also failed by society, came to rob him, and Taylor and his friends defended themselves. The other man died, and Taylor, although he wasnt the shooter, faced a first-degree murder charge. The jury sentenced him to second-degree murder, in view of the fact that it was a drug deal gone wrong. The sentence was 2550 years, plus two years for felony firearms possession.

Taylor could have gotten out of prison in 27 yearsan extraordinarily long sentence, but not long enough for the state of Michigan, apparently.Michigans tough-on-drugs laws, with mandatory sentencing rules, removes a judges prerogativeto render appropriate judgment in certain situations. Police later searched Taylors car and found the drugs that the man who came to rob him was after. Because Taylor received bad legal advice, the drug trial took place after the murder trial, and Taylor was then sentenced to another 2040 years for drug possession. The judge was forced to stack this new sentence of 2040 years on top of the 25-to-50-year sentence. Taylor was effectively relegated to life imprisonment.

The judge had no discretion to consider that Taylor was a 21-year-old young man with a brainnot yet fully developed, who society had failed, and who was forced into selling drugs because of underfunded schools, poor education, and being passed over for good jobs because he was Black.

Everette, who remained close to all six of his children, including Breonna while she was alive, is still being held in a Michigan prison after 23 years.

While Breonna may never get justice, there is still a chance to win it for her father.

Michigan has mandatory sentencing rules from an earlier era when old White state legislators in Lansing referred to young Black men assuper-predatorsas they competed with one another to see who could be more tough on crime. Hence, Michigan, like other states, has a mass incarceration epidemic.

Today, Taylor has molded himself into a strong, resilient man who wants to help his community. My organization,The Adolescent Redemption Project,is a new nonprofit taking up Taylors cause (and that of others like him) to ask the governor to commute his sentence and give him a second chance at life.This could mean he might be eligible for release in three years.

TARP advocates for justice for the men and women sentenced to die in prison for crimes committed when their brains were not fully developed. We fight to give judges discretion so they may consider the mitigating factors, such as childhood trauma and economic distress, for the offenders they are sentencing.

The truth is, mandatory sentencing laws were created by using racist fears to make citizens think our elected judges were incapable of rendering judgment. This was a trick. The drafters of such laws knew they would primarily affect urban youth and Black and Brown children who now fill our jails unnecessarily.

While Breonna may never get justice, there is still a chance to win it for her father.

Read more:

Why Is Breonna Taylors Father Still in Prison After Decades?In Conversation with Everette Taylor, Breonna Taylors Father

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Opinion | Why Everette Taylor Is a Victim of Our War on Drugs - YES! Magazine

When I tell Adam Granducielthe mastermind behind Philadelphia-based indie-rock band The War on Drugsthat well be talking about his favorite guitars, pedals, and home recording gear, he immediately lights up. Whoa! Oh man, I should put on nicer clothes! he says, laughing. Awesome.

For the past decade, Granduciel has been building his profile as one of Americas great modern rockers, and has released a series of marvelous records that showcase an ever-increasing mastery of mood, texture, and sheer guitar-and-synth ecstasy. Granduciels wide-eyed study of figures including Bob Dylan, Jeff Tweedy, Bruce Springsteen, and Talk Talk has helped him forge his own musical identity, and through a decades-long obsession with dominating the tools of musical production, hes given that identity an instantly identifiable sound, most recently on The War on Drugs' newest record, 2021s superb I Dont Live Here Anymore.

In 2008s Wagonwheel Blues and 2011s Slave Ambient, Granduciel experimented with drones and loops, and distinguished himself among a sea of indie rockers by figuring out how to make his rollicking, guitar-steeped tunes sound humongous. Three years later, on the band's 2014 breakout LP Lost in the Dream, he went full-on heartland darkness, creating one of the best-sounding guitar records in recent memory. The album is 10 tracks full of epic grooves and shimmering reverb, so precise and focused that they almost seemed like they were constructed in a laboratory. In a way, they wereGranduciel used those early albums to figure out how to bring his musical fantasies to life.

With I Dont Live Here Anymore, Granduciel has reached even greater levels of restraint and technical precision, and has explored new paradigms of recording and collaboration. The title track, filled to the brim with sparkling keyboard riffs and crisp guitar layers, is a master class in how great studio work can corral a humble set of melodic ideas into a massive-sounding, arena-ready banger. In the hushed acoustic guitars of songs such as Living Proof and Rings Around My Fathers Eyes, Granduciels tender touch is rendered with incredible clarity; among the neon-shaded synths, motoric beats, and colossal lyricism of tracks including I Dont Wanna Wait and the hypnotic Victim, the band plays with a renewed intensity and aggression.

A known gear-head and obsessive technician, Adam Granduciel is one of the most respected rock musicians on the scene today, and one of the most knowledgeable when it comes to DIY recording, since he essentially started from scratch and worked his way up to arena rock. While crafting his earlier records, Granduciel relied on home recording and mixing tools including the Boss BR-8 Digital Recording Studio and later, a Tascam tape machine to capture his sound. When I signed with Secretly Canadian, I think I got $3,000 for my first record, he explained. I bought the Tascam 16-track one-inch tape machine, and that kind of opened my eyes to a whole new way of recording. I started to get more into sound experiments, like recording experiments and drones, tape speeds, sampling with digital samples and then recording it back onto tape.

Eventually, he began to explore the digital side of production, embracing the industry-standard music software Pro Tools, explaining that many of his songs start with a simple loop over a Pro Tools drum machine. Maybe its just something that's just a couple chords, and maybe Ill make a loop with the keyboard, loop it across the grid so I have a vibe going. That's what I did for I Dont Live Here Anymore. For other songs its differentsometimes the voice memo is all you need before going into the studio. When The War on Drugs released the robust A Deeper Understanding in 2017, the album cover showed Granduciel looking up from a small, lamplit piano in an otherwise dark studio; a guitar and a tape machine can barely be made out in the background. The albums music was full of moody echoes and cascading pianos, blissed-out landscapes and expansive layers of synth, pristine vocals, and meteoric guitars; if anything, it felt like the perfect expression of everything hed learned to date. For their work on A Deeper Understanding, The War on Drugs won the 2018 Grammy Award for Best Rock Album.

When I spoke to Granduciel on a chilly January morning, he was preparing for The War on Drugs first real tour in years; that evening, theyd play Austin City Limits Live, followed by over 50 dates around the world, including a headlining show at New York Citys Madison Square Garden. (They had a good warmup in their endearing NPR Tiny Desk Concert.) We have two more rehearsals, and then tonights the first show, he said. Were so excited, nervous, all of the things. Prepared and not prepared. Its an exciting and weird time. But despite the pressure of following up a Grammy-winning record, recording, and touring during a pandemicand trying to raise a young son, Granduciel is ready to blast his way forward.

I'd come to pick his brain about the home recording equipment that built his career, the gear that he relies on to keep producing fantastic songs, and how he executes his musical visions. Below, he takes VICE through his early days of self-recording, his favorite guitars, his most important pedals, the amp that was integral to his new record, where that crazy Victim solo came from, and more.

Hi, Adam. Can you tell me about what it was like to record I Dont Live Here Anymore? The members of the band now live in different places, right?

I live in Los Angeles now. Dave [Hartley] lives in Asheville, North Carolina, Anthony [LaMarca] is in Youngstown. Jon [Natchez] is in Los Angeles. Robbie [Bennett] and Charlie [Hall] are still in Philly, basically. The record started with basically myself, Dave, and Anthony doing some remote recording. Then, in early 2018 in upstate New York, I had some ideas and we got together and worked them out as a three-piece. This isnt the kind of thing where the six of us get together for a month at some studio and hope to have a record done. We got together a handful of times in L.A. and New York. In between those times I'd be working on it myself with [producer] Shawn [Everett] in L.A. at his house.

When the pandemic hit, we were sitting there with a record that was 60-percent done. Everything was written for the most part, but we spent the next year-plus rearranging songs. You kind of have a handful of songs that you want to pursuein this case it was 13, maybe 14 songs, and as you get closer to the finish line, it becomes 12 and then 11, and then the 10 that you love.

The War On Drugs

Which guitars and instruments were central to I Dont Live Here Anymore?

The electric guitar I use most in the studio is this Gibson SG, I think a 67 or 69. I don't really use it liveI'm now using it live because its on Living Proof, because that's the guitar on that solo. It sounds completely different than my other guitars. In a live environment, the rig is designed for my Jazzmaster and Strats, I use that SG all the time on the record, along with my 62 Jazzmaster. My acoustic is a Gibson J-50. I gave my friend a 65 Jazzmaster and he gave me a J-50. I think I initiated the tradehe wanted me to see this J-50, and I was like, I kind of want that J-50.

Gibson

Gibson

Fender

I wrote I Dont Wanna Wait '' on the Tom ThumbI have this tiny piano at my house, this Tom Thumb piano, 66 keys. If I write on guitar, I just start ripping licks. On the piano, if I play a pretty basic chord inversion, to me its exciting. Its like, Dude, did you see what chord I just played?! With guitar, that stuff doesnt impress me. Its a good way of tricking yourself into thinking youre really musical.

Lester

What about guitar pedals? What were the most important ones in your arsenal for making this record?

When I record, I dont really use my big pedal board in the studio. I tend to plug my SGif I need an echointo this old, blue Memory Man that sounds really awesome. But I wouldnt use it live. I use this pedal called the Hot Cake, by Crowther Audio, this New Zealand guy. I basically just turn all the dials up to 10, and thats the sound of any sort of distortion. Its pummeling the front of whatever amp is there. I usually use that pedal with my 62 Jazzmaster on the bridge pickupthats the secret. And I have this tiny little 68 Vibro Champ amp that I think normally would have an eight-inch speaker, but somebody put a 10-inch in, so its like a mod. But I just use that all the timeI bring it wherever I go.

Electro-Harmonix

Fender

Crowther

The guitar solo in Victim is really wild. Can you explain how you arrived at that sound?

Thats the SG, actually. I was at Shawns and we were working on that song, and I was doing vocals, but when I do vocals I like to have a guitar and amp going. We always take a [direct input] of guitar, just to have it; whatever my hands are doing, its recording, without any pedals or amps or anything. I wasnt expecting to do a solo in that sectionI didnt even have an idea of what a guitar would do in this song. but then that section came and I just played that solo. I had it cranked, my Vibro Champ, the whole thing was going. It was an SG ripping through an amp, that solo.

I took it home and for the next few weeks I was just in my basement studio, playing with all my gear. I just processed things all day, like, Let me run this fuckin piano through this. I just had that [direct input], the straight guitar, and I was like let me run the clean, straight signal through the Prunes and Custard pedal, made by Crowther. It's probably made most famous by Jeff Tweedys solo on A Ghost is Born. That sound is him, but its that pedal. So I had one of those and I never really had a use for it, so I just ran that solo through that pedal into a Moog Cluster Flux stereo. And I was like, Oh thats really cool! But you never really know. And then more people heard it in the band and were like, That's great! And I was like, Oh cool. I dont know, I thought it sounded cool, but maybe it was too insane-sounding. But it works.

Crowther

Moog

Youre a big fan of the Roland Jazz Chorus. Can you talk about why that amp is so important to you?

Theres just something about it. I like playing guitar through it, because it reminds me of [The Smiths'] Johnny Marr or something. We used it on the album for re-amping, so you can run a stereo stem out of Pro Tools into the amp. For the song I Dont Live Here Anymore, we basically reamped every single sound on that song through the Roland Jazz Chorus. For each sound, Id change it to chorus, extreme chorus. I would switch it over to a subtle vibrato. Everything has that solid state Roland sheen on it, you know what I mean? And you can meticulously tuck it in behind the source track. I do like those amps a lot. It's super clean, but theyre not for everything.

We were working on that song, and it had a pretty identifiable spirit to it, and then I looked across the room and saw that Roland JC-120 sitting there and I was like, Oh. Duh. Lets just run everything through that amp. Four hours later, we were running everything through it.

Roland

What piece of gear, whether recording equipment or instrument, do you wish you knew about 10 years ago?

Interesting question. I feel happy that certain things I didnt know about, because then everything comes at the right time. So you dont overuse things. Everything I had 10 years ago led to what I have now. I could say Pro Tools, but I like that I didnt have Pro Tools for so long. Even making Lost in the Dream, I really didnt have a functioning Pro Tools rigI was working in the studio with the producer, and when I wasn't in the studio, I was at home making sound experiments in my tape machines or demoing. I couldn't really take tracks home and obsess over them, collecting crazy gear. I feel like everything I had 10 years ago informs stuff now. Even the Jazzmaster. I didnt get into the Jazzmaster until 2014 when Fender gave me one for free. I didn't even like it the first time I played it, but then I had a breakthrough moment with it in Minneapolis. Up until then, I'd just play whatever. Id borrow guitars from friends.

I had a Firebird at one point, and this garbage Strat that I loved. It felt like I had the best guitar at the time. I love that weird knockoff Strat that I had that didnt stay in tune.

Epiphone

Fender

There's a million pieces of gear I love, that I use a lot, but nothing that I feel like if id known about it sooner, that Id have approached things differently. It was about making the most of whatever was around or whatever we could get our hands on, and that just being the sound.

Catch The War on Drugs on tour this year and pick up I Don't Live Here Anymore on vinyl at Rough Trade, Amazon, or your local record store.

Read more here:

The War on Drugs' Adam Granduciel Shares His Fave Home Recording Gear - VICE