A Nixon adviser has confirmed something that many of us already knew—the War on Drugs was a sham. The revelation came up as author Dan Baum was writing a book about drug prohibition and how that was influenced by politics, Jezebelreports.
A 1994 quote from former Nixon policy advisor John Ehrlichman explains just what the intention was behind the alleged efforts to keep America’s streets clean.
"The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did."
However, this wouldn’t be the only campaign used to disrupt black communities. During Regan’s era, CIA agents actually leaked heroine into African-American neighborhoods which led to the ‘80’s crack epidemic and a mass incarceration of African-American men. The effects of those policies are seen today where a disproportionate number of black men are jailed for minor drug offenses in comparison to others.
History, man.
