US House Vote 228-164 Approve Legislation Decriminalize Marijuana Federal Level

Re:US House Vote 228-164 Approve Legislation Decriminalize M... by iaHN on Friday December 04, 2020 @02:34PM (#25306641)

"You want to know what this was really all about?
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."

- John Ehrlichman, Richard Nixon's aide on domestic affairs:

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Re:US House Vote 228-164 Approve Legislation Decriminalize M... by mikestew on Friday December 04, 2020 @02:53PM (#25306906)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20878445

Whereby I say in response to someone questioning the source of that quote: "That's the best you're going to find, some journalist's reminiscence twenty-some years after the fact. So I would caution anyone to be wary of whipping that quote out to make a point."

Until I hear of a better source (and I won't), I am putting this quote in the "urban legend" bucket. All that's missing is an attribution to Mark Twain.

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Re:US House Vote 228-164 Approve Legislation Decriminalize M... by wmeredith on Friday December 04, 2020 @05:21PM (#25309034)

This quote was questioned and outright called a fabrication or misinterpretation by three other Nixon aides who worked alongside John Ehrlichman.

Source: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/richard-nixon-drug-war-john-e...

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Re:US House Vote 228-164 Approve Legislation Decriminalize M... by gurleen_s on Friday December 04, 2020 @11:40PM (#25311799)

I don’t know that I trust this quote, but I also wouldn’t trust people complicit in these actions to disprove it either...

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Re:US House Vote 228-164 Approve Legislation Decriminalize M... by iaHN on Friday December 04, 2020 @03:09PM (#25307099)

Is this journalist untrustworthy?

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Re:US House Vote 228-164 Approve Legislation Decriminalize M... by mikestew on Friday December 04, 2020 @03:53PM (#25307785)

Is your memory of something someone said twenty-some years ago trustworthy? That quote might have come from a journalist, but it isn't journalism.

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Re:US House Vote 228-164 Approve Legislation Decriminalize M... by exolymph on Friday December 04, 2020 @04:07PM (#25308009)

Anyone's recollection after decades is untrustworthy. Memory is simply not very reliable.

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Re:US House Vote 228-164 Approve Legislation Decriminalize M... by tanseydavid on Friday December 04, 2020 @04:34PM (#25308391)

Having the ability to observe the effect of one's lie on a nation-wide basis over the years, might result in having that memory sharpened and refined rather than dulled.

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Re:US House Vote 228-164 Approve Legislation Decriminalize M... by mikestew on Friday December 04, 2020 @05:20PM (#25309018)

The one who needs to demonstrate a sharp memory (journalist) and the one who lied (Erlichmann) are not the same people.

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Re:US House Vote 228-164 Approve Legislation Decriminalize M... by gnusty_gnurc on Friday December 04, 2020 @05:00PM (#25308737)

Let's not forget the Progressive history with Prohibition.

We know practically everyone outside small-l libertarians is gung-ho about prohibitions and the regulating and criminalization of everyday life.

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