Submitted By: Mike Spindell, Guest Blogger
President Obama has admitted that while in school he was a frequent marijuana smoker. George W. Bush also alluded to smoking marijuana and possibly to using cocaine. Bill Clinton claimed to have smoked it but not inhaled it, which is the type of ridiculous statement Clinton is capable of asserting for political gain. Thus the last three Presidents of the United States have admitted that one time or another they have broken the law and used a banned substance. While each of those Presidents presided over the continued witch hunt and prosecution of the “War On Drugs” I believe that Barack Obama has been the most hypocritical.
Had either G.W. Bush, or Bill Clinton been arrested for smoking marijuana there is no doubt in my mind that they would have neither served jail time, nor would they have had their careers stained by a criminal record. Bush, as the scion of a great political family would have had his record expunged, or possibly have had the police back off when they discovered who he was. Bill Clinton was a student at a prestigious University and while not rich, came from a politically connected family in Arkansas. What they also had in common was that they were White men. Barack Obama on the other hand would have likely been arrested, despite his status as a Harvard student and while he probably would have escaped jail time he would have been forced to take a plea which would remain on his record. If such a thing had occurred it is highly probable that Barack Obama would never have been elected Senator, much less President. There is a likelihood that he might never even have been allowed to enter the Bar as an attorney, since that entrance requires extensive background checks. Whatever you might think of him Barack Obama is a very intelligent man. Surely he must realize how fortunate he was to not get caught smoking grass and yet as President he has stepped up the War On Drugs and has allowed egregious prosecutions in States that have passed medical marijuana laws. To my mind this is blatant hypocrisy, but beyond that political position lies a destructiveness that can only rationally be seen as the continuance of the oppression of Americans of color, particularly Blacks, by our Federal Government. I will deal with our President’s hypocrisy and use it as the basis of my condemnation of the War On Drugs.
Recent years have seen ballot initiatives in many States such as California’s approval of Medical Marijuana and Colorado’s decriminalization of marijuana use. At the same time Attorney General Holder has reiterated that despite these States’ initiatives, the Federal Government will continue to arrest and prosecute for the sale and possession of marijuana. President Obama has backed the position of his Attorney General and we have seen raids and arrests in Medical Marijuana facilities and shutting them down. This is only a small portion of why our President is a hypocrite on this subject. The figures I am about to use and the arguments I will make can be backed up by evidence, which will be provided as links at the end of this piece. My hubris, if you will, is this is an issue that I know so well that I don’t have to make my case by quoting others. Indeed as can be read in many of my comments here through the years and in some of my guest blogs, I think this is a critical issue for our country.
To me hypocrites are people who assert positions and carries out actions that they know are false and ineffective, possibly in this case quite harmful. President Obama is a hypocrite because he must know that marijuana is a relatively benign substance, which studies have shown is much less destructive than alcohol, since he has smoked weed and no doubt drunk alcohol. His friends all got high and few if any of them suffered bad consequences or were unable to become productive members of society. The evidence is overwhelming, yet the Drug Enforcement Complex (DEC) continues to carry on a crusade against those who use marijuana and continue to imprison people and destroy their lives through prosecution. When I speak of the DEC, I include the now interlocked web of the DEA, FBI, ATF, the Prison System, and State and local police forces who receive benefit from participating in this phony War On Drugs.
Since as you can tell the tone of my writing this is scathing I must admit to why I have a personal bias. From the age of 17 until the age of 37, I regularly smoked marijuana daily. During that time I worked my way through college, maintained continuous employment where I was promoted regularly, won a full tuition work study scholarship for my Masters at a prestigious school and successfully completed a 5 year training course as a psychotherapist. In graduate school my “cum” was 3.9 and I wrote all of my required papers, which consistently were graded A to A+, while smoking grass. The confession continues with the fact that I was a hyper-active, anxious child, with more than a touch of OCD and that smoking grass allowed me to “chill out” so to speak and focus myself. I had also since a baby suffered from insomnia, since I couldn’t shut my mind off and when I started smoking pot I was able to get to sleep. My driving record showed no moving violations for 50 years and no automobile accidents. When grass was unavailable, I didn’t smoke it, but it was rarely unavailable. I stopped at age 37 since I became a father and didn’t want my children growing up with contact highs. Stopping was easy since one day I smoked and the next day I didn’t. I didn’t replace smoking grass with the Legal Drug alcohol, because I have always been a drinker in strictly social situations and never drink at home. Not out of caution but out of the fact that I don’t particularly care for the alcohol high. My sleeping was affected by giving up grass, but being young I learned to be able to function on about four hours of sleep per night. As for my anxiety, hyper activity and OCD they were brought under control via years of psychotherapy, but until then marijuana was a helpful part of my life and why shouldn’t it be?
That was my anecdotal experience, but what of those around me and of my generation. What has been covered up through the years is the realities that if you are above the age of forty you likely have smoked pot. I would guess that figure would be about 80% of the people of America over age 40 were at one time or another “pot smokers”. During the late 60’s and through the 1970’s in New York the smell of grass was ubiquitous in movie theaters, sports arenas, concert halls and on the streets. This was also true all across the country. Almost everybody “got high” and almost all suffered no ill consequences. I use 40 as a cutoff point based on the assumption that the leaders of government and business generally are over 40. What pushed smoking grass underground was the ascension of Ronald Reagan to the Presidency. His rise was assisted by the support of Right Wing Christian moralists and by the still racially divided South and Southwest. He was also supported those with placid childhood memories of the “golden era” 50’s, where the entire underside of America was swept under the rug so to speak. Some of these people were blatantly hypocritical given their private lives, but their attitude was that the masses needed control by their privileged insight. So Nancy Reagan said “just say no” and the DEA, which was formed under Nixon, received a massive influx of money and publicity. The “War On Drugs” escalated beyond control.
What was behind this sudden interest in the putative “drug problem” was not only the catering to a Right Wing base, but also in a sinister sense the “War On Drugs” was code for a war on people of color as it had always been since Harry J. Anslinger, with help from William R. Hearst for both economic and racial reasons had marijuana outlawed.
“Harry Jacob Anslinger (May 20, 1892 – November 14, 1975) held office as the Assistant Prohibition Commissioner in the Bureau of Prohibition, before being appointed as the first Commissioner of the U.S. Treasury Department‘s Federal Bureau of Narcotics (FBN) on August 12, 1930.
Anslinger held office an unprecedented 32 years in his role as Commissioner until 1962. He then held office two years as US Representative to the United Nations Narcotics Commission. The responsibilities once held by Anslinger are now largely under the jurisdiction of the U.S.” Office of National Drug Control Policy.
From 1930 to 1937 Anslinger, with extensive backing from Hearst in his newspapers campaigned to have marijuana made illegal. That Anslinger had been at the forefront of enforcing the laws of Prohibition, which proved abject failures and now was finding another fruitless crusade to keep himself gainfully employed as the handwriting was on the wall that Prohibition would soon end, was rarely questioned. Part of Anslinger’s success in having marijuana outlawed was that the outlawing had a decidedly racial component.
“Anslinger has been accused to be responsible for racial themes in articles against marijuana in the 1930s.
“By the tons it is coming into this country — the deadly, dreadful poison that racks and tears not only the body, but the very heart and soul of every human being who once becomes a slave to it in any of its cruel and devastating forms…. Marihuana is a short cut to the insane asylum. Smoke marihuana cigarettes for a month and what was once your brain will be nothing but a storehouse of horrid specters. Hasheesh makes a murderer who kills for the love of killing out of the mildest mannered man who ever laughed at the idea that any habit could ever get him….”[16]
“Colored students at the Univ. of Minn. partying with (white) female students, smoking [marijuana] and getting their sympathy with stories of racial persecution. Result: pregnancy”[17][18]
“Two Negros took a girl fourteen years old and kept her for two days under the influence of hemp. Upon recovery she was found to be suffering from syphilis.”[18][19]
“The first Federal law-enforcement administrator to recognize the signs of a national criminal syndication and sound the alarm was Harry J. Anslinger, Commissioner of the Bureau of Narcotics in the Treasury” (Ronald Reagan 1986)[20]
When Anslinger was interviewed in 1954 about drug abuse (see below), he did not mention anything about race or sex. In his book The Protectors (1964) Anslinger has a chapter called “Jazz and Junk Don’t Mix” about the black jazz musicians Billie Holiday and Charlie Parker, who both died after years of heroin and alcohol abuse:
“Jazz entertainers are neither fish nor fowl. They do not get the million-dollar protection Hollywood and Broadway can afford for their stars who have become addicted – and there are many more than will ever be revealed. Perhaps this is because jazz, once considered a decadent kind of music, has only token respectability. Jazz grew up next door to crime, so to speak. Clubs of dubious reputation were, for a long time, the only places where it could be heard. But the times bring changes, and as Billy Holiday was a victim of time and change, so too was Charlie Parker, a man whose music, like Billie’s, is still widely imitated. Most musicians credit Parker among others as spearheading what is called modern jazz.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_J._Anslinger
The effectiveness of the “War On Drugs” in negatively affecting the lives of American people of color, especially Blacks is incontrovertible by the statistics:
“Race: Black males continue to be incarcerated at an extraordinary rate. Black males make up 35.4 percent of the jail and prison population — even though they make up less than 10 percent of the overall U.S population. Four percent of U.S. black males were in jail or prison last year, compared to 1.7 percent of Hispanic males and .7 percent of white males. In other words, black males were locked up at almost six times the rate of their white counterparts.” http://www.nccd-crc.org/nccd/pubs/2006nov_factsheet_incarceration.pdf
And again from my guest blog on the subject: https://jonathanturley.org/2011/11/26/the-incarceration-of-black-men-in-america/#comments
“Race: Black males continue to be incarcerated at an extraordinary rate. Black males make up 35.4 percent of the jail and prison population — even though they make up less than 10 percent of the overall U.S population. Four percent of U.S. black males were in jail or prison last year, compared to 1.7 percent of Hispanic males and .7 percent of white males. In other words, black males were locked up at almost six times the rate of their white counterparts.” http://www.laprogressive.com/law-and-the-justice-system/boiling-hot-mad/.html
There is even more that shows the “War On Drugs” is a war on Black Americans:
“Nationwide, black males convicted of drug felonies in state courts are sentenced to prison 52 percent of the time, while white males are sentenced to prison only 34 percent of the time. The ratio for women is similar – 41 percent of black female felony drug offenders are sentenced to prison, as compared to 24 percent of white females. With respect to violent offenses, 74 percent of black male convicted felons serve prison time, as opposed to only 60 percent of white male convicted felons. With respect to all felonies, 58 percent of black male convicted felons, as opposed to 45 percent of white men, serve prison sentences”. http://www.civilrights.org/publications/justiceontrialsentencing.html
There are estimated to be over a million people incarcerated in American on drug related offenses, the majority of which are Black. In most States convicted felons lose their voting rights and their jail records ensure that their chances for employment are limited. The “War On Drugs” is a war on people of color, particularly Black people. This is President Obama’s hypocrisy and this is President Obama’s shame. Is it too much to assume that our first Black President would not make life worse for his fellow Black Americans and would at least not be responsible for continuing a futile “War On Drugs”. It is estimated that since 1971 the United States has spent $1 Trillion pursuing this insane “War”. Last year alone the cost was $41 Billion alone, not counting court and incarceration costs. http://www.cnn.com/2012/12/06/opinion/branson-end-war-on-drugs
The futility and hypocrisy of this war is becoming recognized by people on both the Right and Left sides of the political equation. The people are passing referendums decriminalizing marijuana use and the support for it grows from our politicians. It is time for our President to stop this hypocrisy and this sham. It is also time to turn the money spent on drug enforcement, into money spent on drug rehabilitation for those who need it.
Submitted By: Mike Spindell, Guest Blogger
https://jonathanturley.org/2013/06/21/post-racial-america/
https://jonathanturley.org/2013/03/30/the-myth-of-black-freedom-in-the-u-s/
https://jonathanturley.org/2012/07/21/collateral-damage-of-the-police/
Excellent job Mike…
Reblogged this on dreams on the hill and commented:
I’m not a big fan of the so called “war on drugs” and I’m not endorsing the positions of any article I Reblog but providing for your review.
Thanks for covering this subject, a war on drugs doing more harm than good. Thanks also for your ‘confession’. I think you are more an exception than a rule; myself in the 70s, & most people I’ve known who smoked marijuana, got dumber.
Thank you Nick S as alwayds i learned something new on this blog as i had never heard of merck cocaine before. i will say im gonna take your advice and read keith richards book. i usually dont bother to read anything about anyone in the entertainment industry. since i found out. the rules of the game for them and how as along as you’re making them money you get what you want. and they will do anything to keep you making them money but once you stop following their rules. then its destruction times in all forms. i learned that lesson early and like many others gave up that particular dream….
Well Juliet, take it from Keith; you had the best.
RobinH, Most of the cocaine Keith Richards snorted was Merck produced. He said it was the best..no jitters, hangover, etc. I think they still pack your nose after nose jobs w/ Merck cocaine.
They did when I had sinus surgery/septum repair three years ago. My first cocaine, ever.
MikeS, As I think you know, I always encourage exercise. And since both of our marriages have been successful, that means we both married up! Don’t piss off the better half.
i know our generation doesnt know and neither will the past. but before big pharma took over and back in the so called lawless days..
heroin was used when doctors had to perform operations. they would inject the patient with heroin. to knock them out.
pour cocaine into the wound to numb it.
alcohol was used to clean it. and the surgery was performed of course this was before the advent of all the caines..
ex. novacaine, lidocaine, dixocaine and all the others. the whole purpose of outlawing the drugs was for big pharma to take over using them in their meds which of course now means the people including the doctors had to get the meds from them…. not to mention the corporation formerly known as the government are the biggest dealers we have. how else are they funding the hundreds of 3 letters agencies we are not supposed to know about? or the so called false flag terror attacks. along with the billions spent on specialzed military weaponary? anytime there is a little bust of drugs anyway you can be sure that little bust of importing drugs is a distraction for the bigger drugs being bought over by the dealers in government.. and hey lets make it 2 fold.. let’s dump the drugs in the inner cities so we can make money off of getting them hooked on it. then from there we also get to lock them up and either give them exorbitant sentences or bails. and waaalaaaaa we’re in the money…….
its just as with the tobacco industry. they win both ways they hook the people to their cigarettes. and when the people decide they no longer want to smoke. well then hey you can still give us your money by buying patches, gums, etc its a win -win situation for them…
Another interesting point in Gene’s comment is about Asian heroin and Vancouver. In talking places to visit a week or so ago I mentioned Vancouver and it’s heroin problem. I knew there was a HUGE migration of Hong Kong residents who moved to Vancouver when Communist China took over Hong Kong. You almost feel like you’re in an Asian city. The reason the immigrants chose Vancouver is just so Asian. The geography looks like a good symbol in Chinese culture. I never put the Asian migration and heroin addiction together, this article did, thanks.
Mike, First it must be understood the difference between incarcerations and prison time. I agree fully that black men are busted for simple possession much more frequently than any other demographic group. That is encouraged by many city police depts. w/ your hometown being the worst. They often can’t make bail so they serve days or weeks in lockup. I’m not saying this is nothing and that’s it’s no wrong. But incarcerations is a misleading statistic. It doesn’t differentiate between a kid doing 30 days for pot possession or a black man doing 40 years for selling crack cocaine, thanks to Tip O’Neill. That was one of the biggest injustices of all time. My wife was a Federal PO and virtually all of them had their stomachs turn sour when they would calculate crack sentences. They were all happy when that was overturned, ironically from a case in her office, Western District of Wi.[Booker v US].
Heroin was run by La Cosa Nostra but your favorite former mayor as US Attorney was instrumental in gutting that syndicate. The famous Heroin pizza prosecutions destroyed the nationwide system of heroin distribution. They would use Italian immigrants[Naples and Sicilian], set them up w/ pizza shops throughout the country, and use that as a front for distribution. My bride had one of those guys who had a pizza shop in Milton, Wi. He was prosecuted in NY but she was assigned the presentence. Milton is classic small town Wi. and you can imagine the surprise that they learned their favorite pizza shop owner was Mafia. Being big eaters, they were more saddened than surprised because then they had to go to Pizza Hut. What those prosecutions did, even more than gutting the heroin biz, was destroy the honor of omerta. Made guys started standing in line to rat. Black gangs have filled the void. One of the reasons for the carnage in Chicago is that is the main hub of US distribution of heroin. Latin gangs also are involved as are Asian gangs. Pete pointed out earlier biker gangs have been the main sellers of meth, whether made in the US or Mexico. But there are a lot of hillbilly cookers and sellers. Watch the great flick, Winter’s Bone for a taste of the Southern Mo. meth culture. The Ozarks is where this scourge started and still lives.
Gene’s comment mentioned black tar heroin. Keith Richards mentioned in his book that it’s shit and he would only use it if he was really jonesing. Mike, Keith’s wealth is certainly a prime factor but if you read his book, you’ll see why he never overdosed like so many others. He was meticulous in his dosage. But, more importantly he saw the Hendrix and others always using more and more trying to get higher. Keith saw you didn’t get higher, just more addicted. Here’s an anecdote you can take or leave. I was never a big Stones fan. I have read Beatles and Hendrix bio’s. However, I have a friend who works @ Fairfield University, near Westport, where Keith has lived since the 90’s. There are many celebrities there so folks pretty much don’t even look twice. Keith often goes to a local convenience store for coffee and fags. Just in the many times he’s seen Keith and had small talk w/ him he is just a down to earth guy. Never lost his blue collar persona. Funny, easy going, and gracious, particularly to kids. He was an only child and that was a great sadness in his youth. Howard Hughes I’ve read about and seen Scorcese’s flick. When you have a billionaire w/ severe OCD and a drug habit you get well..a guy living alone on a floor of the Sand’s casino eating only Baskin Robbins ice cream. The latter being a fantasy for some.
Nick,
Those were two good and interesting comments you made, which I’d like to comment on in turn. The truth is I am blogged out and written out today and your comments deserve in depth replies. I’ve been averaging over 100 “E” mails a day from the blog alone, which I compulsively read and I also had to write this piece. Your comments deserve response and if I get a chance and this thread is still alive, I’ll try to respond tomorrow because you said much worth talking about. My wife is getting pissed off and rightly so, that we are here in the country and on on my laptop, rather than enjoying the outdoors. Nature and exercise are calling.
Enjoy your day, Mike.
SWM, Mexico is fast becoming what Colombia was back in the 70’s-90’s. It took brave pols, reporters and attorneys to take back their country. The pols weren’t liberal and the measures were extreme, some of which virtually no one here would approve[read on Los Pepe’s]. The violence associated w/ narcotics trafficking is mostly related to the distribution of the product. Mexico produces pot and meth, but the cocaine is grown and processed in South America as it always has been, Mexico is not quite where Colombia was. The drug lords literally ran the country in a reign of terror, including taking over the Supreme Court, killing judges, and burning files, in downtown Bogota. But, there of thousands of other stories. I keep up w/ the Mexican problems via my Fed sources and just reading. When I drive through El Paso you could put a gun to my head and I wouldn’t drive into Juarez! If drastic measures are not taken[and they’ll have to be ugly, just like the FBI and the KKK in the 60’s] Mexico will be Escobar’s Colombia. The one advantage Mexicans have over what Colombia had to deal w/ are guerrilla armies like FARC in Colombia. The FARC were political for decades but became enforcers for Escobar. There are some revolutionary armed groups in Mexico, but no where nearly as powerful and well armed as FARC. From what my DEA sources tell me the disadvantage is the historic corruption of Mexican police. In Colombia, there was certainly corruption, but not the long history as Mexico. When Escobar came to power he corrupted the police w/ the simple phrase, “silver or lead.” You take the money or the bullet. My sources tell me the Mexican police have ALWAYS had their hands out on a massive scale. The DEA and CIA found honorable, brave local police, prosecutors, and judges to work w/ in Colombia. For the most part, those don’t exist in Mexico
Mexican drug lords control the heroin trade in Texas as they due most others drugs here.
Amen, there are so many reasons to abandon this “war” (like most wars). We are moving slowly with two states approving marijuana for recreational use. I hope it is only a matter of time before we realize the insanity of what we have been doing for 80 years.
Sorry, I was carried away with this piecewise activity…
it should be “Peace”
An alternative, more inclusive title is “Obama and the War on XXXX: Hypocrisy in Action” just replace the XXXX with “Poverty,” “Piece,” “Pollution,” etc. etc.
From the source cite above . . .
From the Almanac of Policy Issues – Drug Trafficking in the United States, a statement from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency in 2004 . . .
Legalizing marijuana and taxing will be successful if the taxation and regulations still allow it to be relatively cheap. If it is overly expensive the black market is not going to go away, especially if simple possession is legal and the illegal market infrastructure is still in place.
and nick
meth manufacture and distribution has traditionally been a favorite money making enterprise of motorcycle clubs.
so feel free to run on down to you local outlaws or mongols chapter and tell them about your gay and poor white theory. i’m sure they’d love the chance to hone their debating skills.