> 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.
If so, I feel worth pointing out the quote was allegedly acquired some 20 years prior to publishing, 17 years past the quoted's death.
As far as I can tell, all roads lead back to that one Harper's article. I haven't bothered to try and find the book the author said he was working on. The quote is poorly-sourced enough for me to just not use it, and golly-gee-willickers is it a convenient one now that the quoted is long dead and buried. (EDIT: I will point out that I want to believe the quote is real, or close to it. It certainly doesn't strain credulity to imagine Erlichman saying that. Which is all the more reason to be skeptical. <g>)
>...Baum claims Ehrlichman said that to him in 1994 while he was researching for a book he published in 1996 about the drug war. He didn't include the quote in that book, but instead published it in 2012 and again in 2016, after Ehrlichman had died (in 1999).
This is an amazing and explosive quote - if Baum had included it in his book in 1996 I am sure it would have garnered a great deal of attention for the book. Instead Baum did not include it in his book, but instead would wait for decades later when Ehrlichman was no longer around to dispute it.
At any rate, if the quote was actually said by Ehrlichman, it doesn't actually describe the drug polices of the Nixon administration. While Nixon is remembered for "war on drugs", the actual substance of his policies seem to be different than what people think it was:
>...I have been fortunate over the years to discuss the distorted memory of Nixon's drug policies with almost all of his key advisors as well as with historians. Their consensus is that because he was dramatically expanding the U.S. treatment system (by 350% in just 18 months!) and cutting criminal penalties, he had to reassure his right wing that he hadn’t gone soft. So he laid on some of the toughest anti-drug rhetoric in history, including making a White House speech declaring a “war on drugs” and calling drugs “public enemy number one”. It worked so well as cover that many people remember that “tough” press event and forget that what Nixon did at it was introduce not a general or a cop or a preacher to be his drug policy chief but…a medical doctor (Jerry Jaffe, a sweet, bookish man who had longish hair and sideburns and often wore the Mickey Mouse tie his kids had given him).
http://www.samefacts.com/2011/06/drug-policy/who-started-the...
>..."Enforcement must be coupled with a rational approach to the reclamation of the drug user himself," Nixon told Congress in 1971. "We must rehabilitate the drug user if we are to eliminate drug abuse and all the antisocial activities that flow from drug abuse."
>The numbers back this up. According to the federal government's budget numbers for anti-drug programs, the "demand" side of the war on drugs (treatment, education, and prevention) consistently got more funding during Nixon's time in office (1969 to 1974) than the "supply" side (law enforcement and interdiction).
>Historically, this is a commitment for treating drugs as a public health issue that the federal government has not replicated since the 1970s. (Although President Barack Obama's budget proposal would, for the first time in decades, put a majority of anti-drug spending on the demand side once again.) ...
Excellent listening for anyone who doubts that the war on drugs was anything but racism in action: https://www.wbez.org/shows/on-the-media/this-american-war-on...
People on the Internet are extremely pro-drug. People like to believe things that confirm their priors, and since nearly no one on the Internet is against marijuana legalization, the quote does normally go unchallenged.
I think that's a reductive reading - the war on drugs and in particular as it relates to marijuana has been under a lot of scrutiny. And public acceptance of marijuana is steadily growing.
This more suggests to me that a critical analysis of the criminalization of marijuana has tended toward a verdict of "folly" (in the best case scenario) or "targeted mode of oppression" (in the worst).
Reading that as implicitly pro-drug is simplistic in my view.
All that aside, now that I'm not really "on social media", I feel quite disconnected with the world sometimes. Unless I speak to them directly, it's hard to keep track of what any of my friends or acquaintances are doing in life: who's having kids? who's in a new relationship? who got married? who moved to the city? who had a major career change?
Granted, not everyone posts these kinds of details, in fact most of my feed in a network of ~850 persons was dominated by a handful of heavy posters/social media addicts. Even so, occasionally seeing something from someone I otherwise would not talk to was a small window into their lives and kept me slightly aware of things. Sometimes it's people commenting on news I wouldn't otherwise see, sometimes it's pictures of kids..
All that said, the compulsive scrolling action and concern over my own internet identity became a bit much for me, so I'm still inactive on FB.
I've never actually seen that written down, i have _suspected_ people have been saying it, rather than: "for all intents and purposes"
but was never sure, so i googled and its fairly common: https://grammarist.com/eggcorns/for-all-intensive-purposes/
EDIT: It's about 18 minutes into the documentary, but I'm finding out their source is Harpers.
In addition, the Harrison Narcotic Act of 1914 put many restrictions around them.
The Nixon Controlled Substances Act just put a federal guide posts around what was already a mish-mash of laws.
Most likely we will move beyond its insanity but it’ll take time.
On the other side of the equation, there's also the (much more charitable) point that we tried banning alcohol and it didn't work. It has a substantially larger cultural purchase, so banning it is naturally more expensive -- both in terms of the cost of enforcement and the number of upset people whose habits you've made illegal.
Marijuana might become impossible to ban if its use keeps climbing, but it certainly wasn't in the 20th century.
Depending on your definition of 'ruin'- a lot.
As a counterpoint - alcohol consumption is in most cases self-limiting, for the reasons you describe. Your body tells you in fairly clear terms that you're imbibing poison. Most people learn not to over-indulge, particularly as their tolerance drops off towards the end of their 20s.
Marijuana, however, is more subtle. You won't have a raging headache the next day - but you will be slower, less motivated, and less socially skilled. These negative effects are not painful, and depending on how demanding your daily activities are, possibly imperceptible. If you're an intelligent person stuck in a boring situation, it might even make your experience more tolerable. And, because weed makes you lazy and weed is a lazy solution to boredom, it traps people in a vicious cycle. They're not lying in the gutter, blacking out or vomiting, so they think they're doing fine; but their life devolves into doing a boring job to pay the bills, and smoking weed to make themselves stupid to relieve the boredom. They never hit "rock bottom" in the alcoholic sense, so they circle the drain for the rest of their lives.
It's not "cool" these days to say the marijuana is a dangerous drug that ruins lives - ridiculous over-the-top propaganda saw to that. But it is, and our "cultural antibodies" need to catch up to the new reality of legal weed. I've definitely known a few people for whom alcohol became a visible, functional problem - but I've known at least dozens of people who could have achieved so much more if only they'd managed to tear themselves away from weed's anesthesia.
None of this is to say that banning is the answer to anything. But the right of legal weed comes with the responsibility of owning up to its problems.
Maybe I should try marijuana. I’m lazy, unmotivated, and fatigued - but otherwise generally happy - without any of the fun parts.
Why?
"Vulnerable to blackmail."
Why vulnerable?
"Because they can be fired if the word gets out."
So what are you doing about it?
"Firing anyone we think is vulnerable."
We should be asking ourselves, are people better off after these laws are passed? Clearly not with marijuana.
My parents developed later-life GERD and I believe I was starting to. Started IF for other reasons and the GERD-like symptoms more or less vanished for me. I think part of that is the necessary gap between last-food-intake and becoming horizontal for sleep... which is now a few hours minimum...
That would be racism.
https://www.nyclu.org/en/press-releases/analysis-finds-racia...
This study was an analysis of data from 2012.
Later on, those connotations influenced lawmakers and policy was effected by it. This created racist policy.
Many of these racist lawmakers died. Others became less public about their racism.
Today, those policies still affect blacks and Mexicans more than whites, even though drug usage is similar. Therefore, the policies are still racist.
Thus if one supports the policies, one supports a racist act. Semantic arguments over whether that makes the person who supports them "racist" are moot. They're still supporting something that's racist.
> Today, those policies still affect blacks and Mexicans more than whites, even though drug usage is similar. Therefore, the policies are still racist.
Just because a policy does affect a certain group more doesn't mean that the supporters of the policy are against the group. For example, Blacks are more affected by laws against murder, but that doesn't mean that those who support laws against murder are racist.
This simply is untrue unless you operate in temporal vacuums. The intention has affected and currently affects public perception and legislation even today. What you suggest is similar to people who argue that there was a clean slate after abolition or even the civil Rights acts.
> Me: Whether or not they are racist is moot
You're completely missing the point I was making. So much so that I would ask you re-read what I said. I don't care if today's folks aren't "technically" racist. It's clear the laws' impact and original intention were, and that should be enough to question their efficacy. Furthermore your analogy is completely ludicrous. No one thinks someone should go unpunished for murder.
Your phrasing makes it seem like you're more concerned with something being called racist, than you are addressing historical acts of racism. And that is pretty odd to me.
Maybe, but one could certainly infer it from all of your posts in this topic, including the effort you undertook in another post to defend the success of alcohol prohibition.
Why don't you use your normal account for that kind of argumentation?
> Last year, the NYPD stopped and interrogated people 532,911 times, a 448-percent increase in street stops since 2002 – when police recorded 97,296 stops during Mayor Bloomberg’s first year in office. Nine out of 10 of people stopped were innocent, meaning they were neither arrested nor ticketed. About 87 percent were black or Latino. White people accounted for only about 10 percent of stops.
https://www.nyclu.org/en/press-releases/analysis-finds-racia...
But alcohol is a huge industry. There just isn't any money in other poisons.
Here's a link to a discussion about a paper you might be very interested in - basically a supplement with 100% OTC ingredients had 100% efficacy in eliminating GERD
https://www.reddit.com/r/GERD/comments/adt6vh/regression_of_...
"I enjoy beer and it's never done me any harm" "I don't have a problem with beer, I only use it socially" "I'm not like those... druggies"
I agree. Hangovers suck terribly. give me a nice slow, sleepy morning of last night's weed fading out any time.
Have you seen your physician about this and/or do you have it under control?
If not - try this. I am not a doctor, so this is just friendly advice, but it worked for me. Where it came from is my wife had a friend who had basically the same issue, and she was a hypochodriac to boot - her doctor basically recommended the same thing, though. So - when my GERD became bad, my wife had me try this - and so far, it has worked great. No more waking up in the middle of the night choking and thinking you're having a heart attack, or at worst unable to breath because you aspirated acid into your throat and/or lungs...
When you wake up - before you eat, take one each of:
20mg Esomeprazole (1 tablet) - acid controller 20mg Famotidine (1 tablet) - acid controller 150mg Ranitidine (1 tablet) - ulcer preventative
Do the same in the evening, before you eat dinner. Also, eat dinner earlier (5-6pm - I was in the habit of eating closer to bedtime, which made things worse).
You're also supposed to avoid drinking alcohol with these - I've never had a problem having an occasional beer or alcoholic beverage long after I took them, but ymmv (and I know you said you don't drink anymore - but I'm relating this in case others want to try it out). If in doubt, don't drink anything alcoholic.
These amounts may seem large, but they are (supposedly) no where near the limits of what a doctor can prescribe (it's like ibuprofen - OTC is 200mg tablets, but prescription levels are upwards of 2400mg max per day, depending on your weight - and you also have to have blood work done at that level, too). I currently take two of each pill, mainly because I prefer my diet as-is (I'm a stubborn fella).
If that still seems like too much - then just do the same regimen of the first two pills, twice a day. That's what I did for a few years, then my symptoms started to return. My wife suggested adding the third, I did - and things got better.
But you might find yourself needing a higher dose after a few years, which is why I take two of each. As I note below, I started with the first two, then doubled up, then added the third. That's been working for me.
Note that this won't make things perfect. You can change your diet to help, of course, the frequency you eat, your portions, etc - all of that helps too. Also, drink a lot of water vs other liquids - that's a big help overall. But I can tell you that it should help you to sleep better at night, and make you feel better overall.
Finally - if you notice anything weird while on this regimen, then see your doctor. Really, all you need to do is check the whites of your eyes - if things start tinging yellow, then your liver and kidneys are being stressed hard, and you'll want to back off and drink a ton of water of course (and maybe see your doctor too). If you're in decent health otherwise with no major issues, your body can take a lot before you keel over (I mean, seriously - look at how much drug abusers put their bodies thru - the body is actually insanely resilient).
Now - I'm probably going to be chastised for being facile about this advice and such - so again, this is only offered knowing what it's like having extreme GERD and not wanting others to be in the same pain. So again - if you are at all unsure about this advice, talk to your doctor about it if you aren't already under the care of a physician.
But the truth is, they're going to tell you the same thing:
1. Eat less, exercise more
2. Stay away from spicy and fatty foods
3. Stop smoking
4. No caffeine
5. Lose weight
6. Take one or more pills I've already mentioned
That's the absolute truth - other than #6, it's like their mantra or something. I'm not saying it's bad advice - I'm just saying it should be "common sense" advice. It's also, imho, advice that takes some of the fun out of livin' - so take it all in moderation, too. None of us are getting out of this alive. Might as well have some fun before the end.
The Famotidine and Ranitidine are in the same class of drugs (H2 blockers) and you are probably not getting much benefits over just taking a single one.
You should definitely discuss this with your doctor.
Thanks for the tips, I definitely need to start double-dosing PPIs (again). I only recently started taking famotidine. I’m not sure if Ranitidine is effective for me. Tagamet right? I have not noticed any changes from Tagamet or famotidine, actually, but I guess everything together has synergistic effects.
I’m asking out of curiosity and as a near-chronic sufferer of reflux. It seems that anything other than room temperature water gives me indigestion.
There is evidence of negative effects but I guess it’s a choice between heartburn symptoms or risk of those..
Or maybe it has been tried before, and people saw what an utter disaster it was (the prohibition era). To which you might say that the war on drugs has been a similar disaster, and I will fully agree with you on this.
> Second, alcohol consumption declined dramatically during Prohibition. Cirrhosis death rates for men were 29.5 per 100,000 in 1911 and 10.7 in 1929. Admissions to state mental hospitals for alcoholic psychosis declined from 10.1 per 100,000 in 1919 to 4.7 in 1928.
> Arrests for public drunkennness and disorderly conduct declined 50 percent between 1916 and 1922. For the population as a whole, the best estimates are that consumption of alcohol declined by 30 percent to 50 percent.
> Third, violent crime did not increase dramatically during Prohibition. Homicide rates rose dramatically from 1900 to 1910 but remained roughly constant during Prohibition's 14 year rule. Organized crime may have become more visible and lurid during Prohibition, but it existed before and after.
> Fourth, following the repeal of Prohibition, alcohol consumption increased. Today, alcohol is estimated to be the cause of more than 23,000 motor vehicle deaths and is implicated in more than half of the nation's 20,000 homicides. In contrast, drugs have not yet been persuasively linked to highway fatalities and are believed to account for 10 percent to 20 percent of homicides.
https://www.nytimes.com/1989/10/16/opinion/actually-prohibit...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Prohibition-era_gangs...
Additionally, for opioid, I think it should be possible to create tamper-proof cartridges that only release when get correct key signature from master device that tracks your usage (and identity via smartphone). Many opioid users claim drug is safe minus overdoses and purity issues that care caused by it's illegal status.
The problem of all of this - it's trivial to grow marijuana or produce alcohol (or order fentanyl from China via darknet). It's already cheaper to get stoned in NZ than drink (or smoke cigarettes). Not sure we should be put up a fight here after all. If we can't decrease use via economics, then at least there should be accountability for your abuse (not an issue for countries like US with no socialised health care).
As someone who binge drank a lot from ~16yo to 22yo, I can't imagine what kind of lunacy causes someone to think alcohol is safer or more acceptable than marijuana use. Maybe the people behind propaganda didn't like how marijuana can make people less social and more eccentric, but since drinking alcohol is seen as a way of socializing and camaraderie, it's acceptable?
The older I get the less I like alcohol. Hangovers suck. I was (un)lucky enough to have a bad lifetime case of acid reflux/GERD which is exacerbated by alcohol, so between that and not liking the hangovers, I generally can't imagine being an alcoholic. But alcohol ruins a lot of lives. I don't know how many lives marijuana ruins, except maybe out of laziness or lack of motivation.