A kinder, gentler war on drugs.

Good for President Obama to declare war on drug addiction. It's a war that we must fight, and one that we cannot afford to lose.

America is in the middle of a serious drug epidemic, and it is taking the lives of countless American children in places that we never expected to see drug addiction and dependency becoming a problem.

The sate of Vermont, for instance, has a serious heroin epidemic on its hands, and not even Bernie can stop it. It has gotten so bad in that state that the poor governor dedicated his entire State of the State address to the problem. And of course we all know that Vermont is not alone.

Contrast how president Obama is dealing with America's latest drug problem to how our government dealt with a similar problem having to do with drugs over 25 years ago. In fact, some would argue, the government actually created the problem for certain communities.

Back then it was incarceration and punishment. Now it's treatment and counseling. President Obama's war on drugs is gentler than previous ones, and I suspect that I know why.

Today's drug crises is being driven by heroin, and guess which demographic uses more heroin than everyone else? If you said young white kids, move to the head of the class. 

The following is from the New York Times:

"When the nation’s long-running war against drugs was defined by the crack epidemic and based in poor, predominantly black urban areas, the public response was defined by zero tolerance and stiff prison sentences. But today’s heroin crisis is different. While heroin use has climbed among all demographic groups, it has skyrocketed among whites; nearly 90 percent of those who tried heroin for the first time in the last decade were white.

And the growing army of families of those lost to heroin — many of them in the suburbs and small towns — are now using their influence, anger and grief to cushion the country’s approach to drugs, from altering the language around addiction to prodding government to treat it not as a crime, but as a disease." [Source] 

Of course it's not a "crime". Crime would mean that something wrong is being done. Remember, as is damn near everything else in America, not all drug addictions are created equal.  

So now we are collectively shocked that we have such a problem with drugs in our country. Now that drugs are in our children's bedrooms, and hidden in the back of the family mini vans, we are finally realizing that we have a problem. And we realize that it is a problem that can have a negative long lasting effect on society. You know, kind of like crack cocaine did with certain segments of the black population back in the day. 

Of course their families will never recover, because their family members are serving long jail times for possessing small amounts of drugs, and there was no treatment offered to those who got hooked and couldn't get off until they were dead. The remedy for the drug epidemic facing black America  then , was draconian punishment brought on by strict sentencing guidelines, and "tougher" law enforcement. 

Quite a few politicians bolstered their careers by telling white America that they would keep them safe from the drugs those blacks were using and the type of people peddling them. (I see you Bill and Hillary) Now, I suspect. politicians will use the opposite tact to gain brownie points with voters as well. (I see you President Obama)

"At Courtney’s funeral, they decided to acknowledge the reality that redefined their lives: Their bright, beautiful daughter, just 20, who played the French horn in high school and dreamed of living in Hawaii, had been kicked out of the Marines for drugs. Eventually, she overdosed at her boyfriend’s grandmother’s house, where she died alone."

There are a lot of sad and tragic stories like Courtney's out there. Hopefully we will be smarter with the new war on drugs than we were the old one.

*Pic from youtube.com

    

No love for the Gipper.

I have never liked Ronald Reagan. I always thought-until the frat boy came along of course, that he was probably the worst President in the history of the Republic. I never bought into his phony ass cowboy persona, or his so called quick wit and great communications skills. To me, he was created by America's media, and his greatness was a figment of our imaginations, caused in part by a need to feel good about ourselves after the gloomy seventies.

"Mr Gorbachov tear down that wall" my ass, that wall was coming down with or without the "great communicator". And the hostages were coming home as well.Timing is everything in politics, and no one was luckier when it came to timing than the Gipper. But all that's not why I despise the Gipper and everything he stood for. No, driving through South West Philly today-an area that is about as safe as a Baghdad market these days-I realized why I really despise the faux cowboy from California.

Now I am not one who believes in conspiracies. I really think that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone, the World Trade Center was blown up by a bunch of crazed terrorist who call themselves Al Qaeda, and man really did land on the moon. But I do believe that the Reagan administration was indirectly responsible for the flow of crack cocaine that hit our urban areas in the eighties. See I believe that story by Gary Webb from the San Jose Mercury News, about the Reagan administration funding the Contra's and allowing them to flood the West Coast urban markets with crack cocaine. I do believe that they did it in order to fund the Contras as they-the Contras- attempted to over throw the Sandinista Government in Nicaragua. Why you say? Well it seems that the Sandinistas were Socialist in their thinking, and we just couldn't have another left leaning government in our back yard now could we. I mean who knows, before you know it we could have had another Cuba on our hands.

So what did we do, we (Reagan and the CIA) allowed our cities to be flooded with a potent cheap form of high known as crack cocaine. This insidious drug, would eventually destroy the fabric of many of our urban areas, and our families for years to come. As a result of crack, we have lost an entire generation of African Americans. (Maybe two) If you don't believe me, take a trip to any inner city in America, and see how many grand parents are raising their grand children. Or, see how many homes have been abandoned and foreclosed on after grandma and grandpa died. Check out the rising prison populations and then check out the race, poverty level, and the background of most of the inmates there.

Every time I see that ex convict, Ollie North, on the FAKE NEWS NETWORK, I want to puke. I mean the nerve of him to even show his face in America after all the shit he did to destroy this country. Now the guy has his own show, does speaking tours, and is the darling of the conservative right. And they wonder why black folks will never come into their so called "big tent". It's because we are scared you will fold the tent up with us in it, and burn the mother fu***r, that's why we won't come in it. We don't trust you, and why should we? Because of your cowboy hero, our families and our communities are in crisis, and who knows when we will recover.

I am driving past boarded up home after home. I still see the crack addicts doing their dawn of the dead walk, and the dealers with their nice whips, and their entourage. There isn't much open space or green, and when you do see them, they are filled with trash, bottles, and who knows what else. Yep, this neighborhood like so many others in Philly is fu***d up. It's like it's not even a part of America. Trust me, I have been through the ghettos in West Kingston, and this isn't much better.

But this is what happens when a government that is supposed to be looking out for its citizens abandon them. This is what happens when we get too cute and intellectual for our own good. (See Iraq) We worry about the spread of socialism in our back yard and the effects it will have on our country, while destroying a part of the very country that we are supposed to be looking out for in the first place.

So now as America crumbles from within, we are stuck with yet another President that Americans tried to make great. Only this time we can't. We cant ignore the terrible job that he has done, and what a terrible cost we are paying for his phony ass war. Reagan was smart, he waged his little dirty war in a clandestine manner, and he made sure that the only people that would be hurt were poor African Americans in America's inner cities.

Not so with this President; his f**k up is front and center for all to see, and most Americans ain't liking the picture. If this had been the Gipper, he would have sold it better. At least he can communicate, and he is a good actor. Just look at all the people that still love him and think he is great.

Jessie said he would rather have "Roosevelt in a wheel chair that Reagan on a horse". I don't know Jessie, I would have preferred if we never had Reagan at all.