the DON JONES INDEX…

 

 

GAINS POSTED in GREEN

LOSSES POSTED in RED

 

    2/26/24...     15,030.11

    2/19/24...     15,011.95

     6/27/13…    15,000.00

 

(THE DOW JONES INDEX: 2/26/24... 39,131.53; 2/19/24... 38,627.99; 6/27/13… 15,000.00)

 

LESSON for FEBRUARY TWENTY SIXTH, 2024:

 

FOR OUR FINAL TWO WEEKS OF “CRIMERICA” ENTRIES, WE INCLUDE (IN PURPLE) EDITORIAL COMMENTARY by CNC BOARD MEMBER, FORMER CONGRESSMAN and INDEPENDENT CANDIDATE FOR the PRESIDENCY: JACK PARNELL; THIS WEEK DELINEATING...

 

“CRIMERICA #4: – “ONE CATEGORY OF CRIMINALITY THAT HAD OUGHTA BE DELETED; and…!”

 

America, it is said, has the highest rate of incarceration in the world, but this has had apparently little effect upon its crime in the streets, let alone in the suites.  As the Presidential primary season is over, almost before it ever began, Don Jones faces the administrations of January, 2017 to 2021 versus that of January 2021 to the present (and by inference, the Obama years of 2009 through 2016th.

 

Crime in America...

FBI Releases 2022 Crime in the Nation Statistics

The FBI released detailed data on over 11 million criminal offenses reported to the Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program, largely through the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) and the Summary Reporting System (SRS).

In December 2015, the CJIS Advisory Policy Board (APB) endorsed the NIBRS transition and the FBI Director approved in February 2016. The FBI announced to law enforcement agencies it would transition to the more comprehensive NIBRS collection. Last year, the data was exclusively collected via NIBRS. Both the NIBRS, 2021 and Crime in the United States (CIUS), 2021 releases were based solely on NIBRS submissions. While in the transition period to NIBRS, the UCR Program published a limited release of the traditional CIUS, 2021, along with a trend study comparing 2020 and 2021 crime data using a selection of the new NIBRS estimation data.

For the 2022 data year, to provide nationally representative data, the FBI accepted NIBRS data and SRS data submissions from agencies. NIBRS data was submitted by 13,293 law enforcement agencies whose jurisdictions covered more than 256 million United States inhabitants. SRS data was accepted from 2,431 non-transitioned agencies representing 55,441,278 inhabitants. These agencies added an additional 16.6% population coverage, bringing the total national population coverage for Crime in the Nation, 2022 to 93.5%.

The data of Crime in the Nation, 2022 were released via several reports: Crime in the United States (CIUS), 2022; NIBRS, 2022; NIBRS Estimates, 2022; Hate Crime Statistics, 2022; Law Enforcement Officers Killed and Assaulted (LEOKA), 2022: Officers Assaulted; and the UCR Summary of Crime in the Nation, 2022. Of the 18,884 state, county, city, university and college, and tribal agencies eligible to participate in the UCR Program, 15,724 agencies submitted data in 2022.

The FBI’s crime statistics estimates for 2022 show that national violent crime decreased an estimated 1.7% in 2022 compared to 2021 estimates:

§ Murder and non-negligent manslaughter recorded a 2022 estimated nationwide decrease of 6.1% compared to the previous year.

§ In 2022, the estimated number of offenses in the revised rape category saw an estimated 5.4% decrease.

§ Aggravated assault in 2022 decreased an estimated 1.1% in 2022.

§ Robbery showed an estimated increase of 1.3% nationally.

Hate Crime Statistics, 2022 provides information about the offenses, victims, offenders, and locations of hate crimes. In 2022, law enforcement agency participation significantly increased, resulting in 14,631 law enforcement agencies, with a population coverage of 91.7% submitting incident reports. These reports involved 11,634 criminal incidents and 13,337 related offenses as being motivated by bias toward race, ethnicity, ancestry, religion, sexual orientation, disability, gender, and gender identity. There were over 11,000 single-bias hate crime incidents involving 13,278 victims and 346 multiple-bias hate crime incidents that involved 433 victims. In 2022, the top three bias categories in single-bias incidents were race/ethnicity/ancestry, religion, and sexual-orientation. The top bias types within those bias categories by volume of reported hate crime incidents is Anti-Black or African American for race/ethnicity/ancestry bias, Anti-Jewish for religious bias, and Anti-Gay (male) for sexual-orientation bias.

The complete analysis is located on the UCR’s Crime Data Explorer.

Incarcerations in America...

(See Attachment One “A”, graphics One through Six)

Criminals apprehended and pleading out or found guilty at trial can, at the uppermost end, be put to death in twenty seven states, as noted in last week’s DJI.  At the other end, fines, probabions and/or community service sentences may be imposed with other penalties applicable to select crimes (like motor vehicle offenses).  In the vast swamp between, offenders (excepting juveniles or those deemed mentally ill) are sentenced to terms of incarceration ranging from a few days to a life behind bars with no chance for parole.

Wiki’s most recent statistics on incarcerations confirm that both the quantity and percentage of imprisoned American skyrocketed in the last three decades of the twentieth century (roughly approximating the heyday of the War on Drugs).  Since then, it began to level off and has actually fallen over the last few years as many states have decriminalized (dismissing or reducing to misdemeanors) punishments for using or selling small amounts of drugs.

 

Now, here is candidate Parnell’s take on Church Police, through the War on Drugs, the War on Sex (Prostitution) and the War on Gamblng and, following, a few words on the role of God in the American criminal justice system.

 

“Good evening,” as the late, great entertainer Alfred Hitchcock used to say while introducing his old, often black and white televised episodes – often written by himself and/or luminaries in the field of criminal and police literature... giants like Robert Bloch, Ray Bradbury, Roald Dahl, Robert Altman etc.

In Congress, I often had to work late hours, not getting to dinner until well past midnight, when the Hitch (currently on ME-TV at 1:00 AM) was the only unwindingment programming other than informercials before which to add an adult beverage and late meal.  Part of the pleasure was seeing so mnny young actors and actresses work out before they became celebrities (rather like the likes of Star Trek’s Leonard Nimoy or DeForest Kelly in old Western movies in the 50’s.)

(Until those wolf hours with Hitch, I didn’t know that ham-chewers like Dick York or Jeremy Slate could act!)

Which brings me round to the recent Lessons here and the topic of crime in America which, Don Joneses may agree, has been sorely mismanaged over the last three... or seven, or – hell! – sixty years.  I might blame the Beatles coming to America or the rise of the grievance culture, as told Americans that they could justify rape, robberies or murder as payback for the lousy lives they led, owing to lousy choices made.

But I’m not going to pick that low-hanging fruit.  Leave the grievance culture to Donald Trump.  To President Joe, leave... who the heck knows?

Instread, I’m going to propose two corrective measures which I will enact, if elected.  One regarding a class of criminality that should have been wholly, not partially, erased long ago.  The other regarding conduct that, while ostensibly regulated, should be immediately criminalized... with the malefactors hunted down, brought to justice and locked up.

(That also implies major corrections to our corrections system where, in better days, the term “hard labor” was not considered obscene or offensive... well maybe some might have objected to scantily clad females on the chain gang cutting brush or spearing trash with sharp sticks, but that was a matter best left to the marital experts like former President Carter who, whatever his Presidential faults, did sustain a long-lasting and presumably amicable relationship with Roslyn for a good many decades... but is, sadly, going out of fashion except in fantasy TV dramas like “Fire Country”.  Locally, we used to recruit prisoners as garbagemen until somebody invented machines that can pick up and dump cans, sometimes leaving a mess, sometimes not...  and consigning healthy young felons to returning to their cells to instruct each other on the latest criminal intelligence.  But this is another matter, for another debate... if the one presumptive nominee even dares to open his mouth before America while the other, the incumbent, tries to put two words together as make sense and not mistake the President of Italy for the Mayor of Woonsockit.)

 

The class of criminal criminalizations I propose to eliminate (with measures to ensure the safety of the public if not Trolldom) can be loosely called the Church Police... felonie and misdemeanors as might also be considered, except to the theocrats (real and fake) among us: “sins”.  Three immediately come to mind... “substance” abuse (meaning the cessation of prohibitions against hard and soft recreational or medical drugs and subsequent regulation – rather in the way that Federal prohibition of alcohol was repealed, and some states are now... uh... the politically correct word is “decriminalizing” marihuana and, here and there, a few other vices) sex crimes, (meaning certain forms of prostitution as have not yet been upgrade to the trendy “sex trafficking” as well government intrusion into relationships between consenting adults) and gambling (now more or less legitimate... and profitable... in many localities here and there in these United States).

And that of legal, if not legitimate conduct, against which I will pass laws against (and, if Congress resists, declare Executive Orders against) are those particularly noxious tendrils of degenerate capitalism... those having to do with marketing techniques such as robocalls and even the teeth-grindingly (and dangerous) telemarketing done by more or less enslaved humans – some of whom are Americans, some not.

 

And I will preface these prohibitions and de-prohibitions with a few pilfered media reports upon the one or the other – attesting to the illegitimacy (and sometimes, danger) of the legitimate and to the “harm enhancement” of gumment proscriptions against the other.

 

Got it?  Like it or don’t, here’s just a small taste of what Americans might expect under the thumb of  Catfish administration!

 

First off the island, the Church Police.  The First Amendment to the Constitution... which some MAGA-commissioned polls show that a hefty minority of Americans... still a minority, but hefty and growing... would prefer to repeal.

 

I get the sentiments.  So many people live lives of quiet desperation laboring at so many jobs they hate... some useful, others not... in order to pay the rent or mortgage and feed their families that their souls have turned brittle and bitter; rather than rising up and promoting measures that will make their own lives better, they settle for Federal, State and local gumments (all three branches) that contrive to worsen the lives of THEM... other Americans who they envy and/or despise.  With Trump and Crump as their gurus and innumerable media mice as their altar toys, they have been accomplishing the pivot of the give and take as fuddy old Commies call the “class war” to a “race war”; they receive and believe propaganda as support both Democratic and Republican officeholders in lowering the taxes on billionaires while stiffing the working Americans – roughly in an inversely proportional nihilist pyramid scheme as can only be criminalized when the perp does things that threaten the well-being of the dominating class.

     Yes, that means Mister Trump’s persecutions are political.  Even if he’s also a crook.

The Holy Bible of MAGA-believing and MAGA-suspicious Christian Nationalist Americans (derived, as it is, from Jewish sources and also incorporating some of the more devious and deviant strains of Islam) are largely chock-a-block with inspirational and informative stories (some probably true, historically, others rather more akin to legend) as also, unfortunately, conceal a few nuggets and pebbles of hatred and perversion as are expostulated to criminal justice by strategically situated commandments that weasel-word or outrightly contradict the otherwise well-known Ten as will as the admonitions, (“Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish ought from it, that ye may keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you.” (Deut. 4:2.) Later in this same book of the law, Moses repeated the admonition in similar words.) that not one word or even inference of Scripture can be altered without the adulterer falling into mortal sin.  (Didn’t stop the Councils of Nicaea and elsewhere between the third and sixth centuries, but let’s leave that to theologists.  The point of the matter is that God, according to the theocrats, is an angry old man in the sky who enjoys seeing his human creations suffer and counsels them to make declare apostasies, make war and rob, rape or kill THEM – by which the Kingdom of Heaven may be achieved after they are dead.

Which is why I find it hard to argue with the castigators who call me a Satanist.  Unlike certain celebrity devil worshipers, however, I’m no longer much for drinking blood, wearing long robes that trip you up, or rituals with nude, sometime dead women and hours of tedious chanting – I’ll leave all that to Ozzie and his ilk and his family.  William Black (1757 – 1827) is renowned for his collections of poetic “songs”, many of which are suitable for children.  Less so is his theocratic opus, “The Marriage of Heaven and Hell” wherein he is visited by a “mighty” Devil “folded in black clouds” who takes him on a tour of the Underworld, and leaves him with proverbs for progeny… some of which go…

The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.

Prudence is a rich ugly old maid courted by Incapacity.

He who desires, but acts not, breeds pestilence.

The cut worm forgives the plough.

Dip him in the river who loves water.

A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees.

He whose face gives no light shall never become a star.

 

Sounds an ideology the Rolling Stones could embrace, doesn’t it?

It goes without saying that most so-called Satanists enjoy a drink, a smoke, a toot or shot now and again -whether or not they play Taylor’s tortured poet album backwards, mope around in black and sacrifice virgins (or chickens) or not.  It has been said that Mr. Blake himself was constantly, due to his engraving practices, under the influence of fumes of mercury, which psychedelic – more associated with designers of headware in the 18th and 19th centuries as often caused Heavenly and Hellish hallucinations and engendered the term “mad as a hatter” – appears to have been at least contributory to his eccentric beliefs and visions.

Now, having become one of those grumpy old men fusting and fulminating against those rotten kids (see last week’s Lesson) I am wary of indulgences and can quite understand why (given the responsibilities and contingencies of command, the likes of The Donald and Vladimir Putin were, for the most part, sober (if not morally clean)

On the whole, I have gradually compressed my intoxications to the occasional Jim, Jack or Johnny Walker... which indulgences I would probably have to further restrict as President, barring the occasion state dinner in honor of somebody not so self-denialing.  Let it be known that consumption of any evil substance (including mercury, tobacco, pastrami, pecan pie also, as deleterious to health and aspirational immortality as opposed to a strict diet of kale, tofu and perhaps, as over in India, a glass of one’s own urine) is bad, even in moderation and, especially, in excess.

Alcoholics (as the virtuous describe, defame and define any human who has ever imbibed alcohol) will, as many have found out, create nausea, inconvenient vomiting, delusions of grandeur as make Joe Sixpack try to pick a fight with Jackie Chan or crudely proposition Taylor at a Chiefs rally in front of Travis, his brother, Mahomes and several large offensive and defensive linemen.  Remember: the Soviet Union elected a drunk as its next to last Premier, and then ceased to exist.  The stimulants... meth and cocaine and, to some, too much coffee or Red Bull...will make the abuser jittery and also delusional and will send the brain, the heart and other internal organs into overdrive to the extent that long-term overconsumption or a short-term spree will make them explode and give you your wings to Heaven (or Hell)... i.e. kill you.  Similarly the depressives... heroin and prescription opioids will make you sleepy and overdoses (especially, of late, on Chinese fentanyl) will slow these organs down to the point that they stop functioning and... again... you die.

Legalizizators to the contrary, cannabis will disrupt your constitution (physical, not political) if you smoke it in paper or a pipe, vaping will only make you look like a hipster wannabe from Brooklyn in a fedora, pretending to talk Jamaican.  Pot smokers will become more gullible and delusional about the world that they inhabit... many will even consider my speeches and bloggings to be the epitome of wisdom and the psychedelics... mushroom or assorted South American potions or LSD (and whatever happened to “acid”) will make the user listen to a speech by Donald Trump and think – that guy knows where its at!

Withal, mobilizing the force and violence of the government and the tragic mushrooming of our incarceration nation to control the mental status of Americans doing no harm to anyone but themselves should not be a priority of the criminal justice system (with an important exception, below).  It’s time to close the book on our hundred year game of hide and seek... allow the stupid to peacefully transit to another world and, in the case of children, let the parents assume the blame.

We’ll let the Lessonators proceed with their whys, wherefores and stolen sentiments upon the life (and, one hopes, coming death) of the game of regulating consciousness, then return to my take on sex and gambling before a final roster of suggestions.

 

We’ll return to Rep. Parnell and his take on whoring and Powerball anon but now: onto the theocratic-turned administrative criminalization or tolerances of practices from an assortment of sources that may induce small or great measures of hedonism into the lives of believers  (sincere or hypocritical) and non-believers alike, as referenced above) – all under the watchful eyes, guns, clubs and handcuffs of the Church Police/.

Let’s start with the stoners, the addicts and alkies – responsible or not – as exemplary of what the Church Police dictate and how that transpires into the material world.

 

CRIMERICA #4A – Greed for weed!

 

J. Q. Wilson, author of books on crime and proponent of the “broken windows” theory as advocates harsh punishments for trivial misdemeanors defended the imposition of draconian prison sentences on pot smokers... admittedly a few years back (OJP, 1990, Attachment One), arguing that: “Illegal drugs increase crime, partly because some users turn to crime to pay for their habits and partly because some users are stimulated by certain drugs to act more violently.”

OJP’s Steven Thompson eight years later (OJP, Attachment Two) concurred – noting that the Federal Government spent $16 billion in 1998 on drug control, up from $2.7 billion in 1985, and the law enforcement allocation is approximately double the funds provided to efforts to efforts such as drug treatment and education programs to reduce the demand for drugs. “Advocates of current (1998) antidrug policies believe they are effective, particularly when success is measured by the decline in drug use and the increased number of drug offenders in Federal and State prisons.”

Recent (again, 1998) surveys, however, indicated that “opponents of drug legalization have public opinion on their side.”

(Except, of course, when it’s their college freshman doing twenty for a “J” at Attica.”)

 

Time wounds all heels.  Five years after he was lavished with praise by Donald Trump for “stopping drugs at a level that has never happened” – and two years after he was extradited in shackles to the US – “the former Honduras president Juan Orlando Hernández is to stand trial in New York on Monday, accused of overseeing a “narco-state” and accepting millions in bribes from drug traffickers, including the former leader of the Sinaloa cartel, Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán.

Not to mention domestic political, economic and public safety policies that have sent half a million Hondurans... including not a few traffickers in dope, women (not so much song) looking for more well-heeled stoners... fleeing north into Mexico, then across our border to filch American jobs.  A Department of Homeland Security report in 2021 estimated that the top six countries of origin for undocumented immigrants were Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala, India, Honduras and China – one can only assume that the number has kept growing and may now be pushing an uncool million.

Hernández, we are reminded by the Guardian U.K. (Feb. 20th, Attachment Three) is the first former head of state to face drug-trafficking charges in the United States since another former US ally, the Panamanian strongman Gen Manuel Noriega, over 30 years ago. 

When Hernández won election to the Presidency in 2013, the Obama administration saw him as “a flawed but eager partner on immigration and security policy.”

“It was pretty well known that Juan Orlando was a corrupt actor,” said Ricardo Zúñiga, a former senior state department official. “But we didn’t see him as an organized crime figure.”

But hardly a week after Hernández’s inauguration, one of the country’s most notorious traffickers secretly recorded a meeting with the president’s brother, the legislator Juan Antonio “Tony” Hernández.

A few weeks after he was arrested, Hernández, wearing a blue suit and a crisp white shirt that evoked the colors of the Honduran flag, sat in a Tegucigalpa courthouse and pleaded with the judge who would decide whether or not to approve his extradition.

While the cartels, street dealers, even Presidents... and Hernández is, by no means, the top-tier narco-Presidente at large today, continue to soak up cash, there is another population seeking to score some easy money from gullible old Uncle Sam...

Convicted druggies!

The War on Drugs has harmed millions of lives “and is a major part of the reason the gains of the Civil Rights movement were largely reversed,” according to Rich Wallace of Non Profit News (2/21/24, Attachment Four), at least in the economic sphere, in the decades that followed.

Sneaking through an open boxcar door on the Reparations Train, Wallace writes that, even if the War on Drugs fully ended tomorrow and mass incarceration became a thing of the past, “the damage done over the past 50-plus years will not be easily remedied. Reparations are required.”

Chaining themselves to the blacktiviss demanding free money for personal and ancestral racism going back to the 1600’s, the stoner blacktivists... fighting what Michelle Alexander aptly labeled The New Jim Crow... allege that the War on Drugs also inspired state and federal legislation to increase mandatory minimum jail sentences to decades, which were disproportionately received by Black men and helped destroy their potential to have a successful future. Drug enforcement policies have disproportionately targeted Black communities, leading to stark racial disparities in arrests, convictions, and sentences.

Even after a person is released from incarceration, for drug offenses of four, even five decades ago, punishment has hardly ended.

These circumstances are especially pronounced for those operating in the informal economy—selling marijuana or other drugs on the street. Without entry points into the economy either through a job or as a business owner, many find themselves steered right back into informality and precarity—leading back to what landed them in jail in the first place, with resulting high recidivism rates.

The 2020 Never Fully Free report by the Social IMPACT Research Center shows that involvement with the criminal justice system can subject individuals to 1,189 “permanent punishment” laws and regulations in Illinois. Notably, 982 of these prevent or hinder access to employment, including background checks and restrictions on the activities of survivors of the War on Drugs during their probation or parole.

“These restrictions force many people and especially Black people into the informal economy to survive.

“The informal economy is a diversified set of economic activities that are unprotected and unregulated by the state. A report released by EAT and the University of Illinois Chicago’s Center for Urban Economic Development found that 48 percent of Black informal workers reported jobs paying a regular paycheck were not available to them. Black workers who have been pushed into the informal economy are further penalized by the perception of illegality that envelops these activities. Far too often, they face fines and arrest simply for engaging in informal work.”

Especially if that “work” constitutes crime setting into motion another revolving prison door.

“Reparations have been implemented in various contexts to address historical injustices and promote reconciliation. The Civil Liberties Act of 1988 gave surviving Japanese Americans $20,000 each in reparations and a formal apology by President Ronald Reagan for their incarceration during World War II. More recently, In May 2015, the Chicago City Council passed a Reparations Ordinance to support reparations for survivors of Chicago Police Commander Jon Burge and their family members. (Burge tortured more than 120 people, predominantly Black men, from 1972 to 1991.) From 1945 to 2018, the German government paid approximately $86.8 billion in restitution and compensation to Holocaust survivors and their heirs.”

(What the repentant did not give Jews was land... saving the State of Israel to be established by the British colonial mandate – displacing the Palestinians and leading to three quarters of a century of war.  But that is another story, and for another time.)

An article in the Annals of Medicine last year cited by the Non Profit newsies concluded that the drug war is “negatively impacting key social determinants of health, including housing, education, income, and employment.” An apology won’t fix that, but a public commitment to drug war reparations can begin the process of addressing the impact and the root causes.”

The toad in the hole, of course, is that the “impact” was an outgoing ripple of what was, at the time, criminal activity and the “root causes” were, to the users, a desire to get high – to the providers, a desire to make money.

The demands of the Non Profit druggies are numerous – the demand for law abiding taxpayers to compensate them are obstreperous.

At best, suggests Jack Parnell, “give ‘em a discount at the local weed shop.”

 

The hoity-toity Brookings Institute, for its part, also cites the racial bias applicable to the War on Drugs and, in particular, the ongoing cannabis prohibition and fingers President Joe for his racist distancing “from full-scale, federal cannabis reform—an issue many voters see as inherently connected to race and justice,” (July 7, 2021, Attachment Five) given that a 2020 report from the ACLU found that Black Americans are 3.64 times more likely to be arrested for a cannabis-related offense than white Americans.  Between 2018 and 2019, for example, the FBI reported that there were more than 1.2 million cannabis arrests.

“The entire foundation of the War on Drugs was built on racial resentment and outgroup targeting by the government.”  Brookings author John Hudak cites his own 2020 book “Marijuana: A Short History,” tracing the history of federal and state efforts to “outlaw cannabis as a means of dividing white Americans from racial and political minorities and to remove people of color from society via incarceration,” while also referring to Michelle Alexander’s “The New Jim Crow,” describing how the use of mass incarceration that disproportionately impacts people of color in the United States “has been used to dilute voting rights, economic achievement, wealth building, and educational attainment.”

 

Hudak contends that more than 2 out of every 3 Americans now support cannabis legalization.  But approximately 40,000 remain incarcerated for having puffed the magic dragon.

 

“Overcriminalization and mass incarceration becomes a scourge to communities that spreads throughout its fabric and has enduring intergenerational impacts,” Hudak concludes... promoting a “Superfund” for drug war reparations (as amounts to commissions, investigative outlays and programs galore... management of (and compensation for) going to “community activists”as deem themselves too important (or lazy) to get real jobs like growing the wicked weed while adding that Joe Biden was “the only top-tier 2020 Democratic presidential candidate to eschew full scale legalization.”  Even the Republican far-right, former President Donald “The Pardoner” Trump  and his MAGAnoids let their libertarian leanings loose in advocating an end to the War on Drugs.

 

CRIMERICA #4B – Need for speed!

 

In times of need, speed... usually meth-related... has been doled out by national governments, including that of the United States from the World Wars to Korea and Vietnam with the provision that getting high thereupon is not indulgence, just part of the job.

Without cocaine, as opposed to meth, jobs in the islands of quiddity such as Wall Street or Hollywood, job performance would be impacted... meth being more likely to facilitate the grueling twelve to sixteen hour shifts demanded of low-paid retail and industrial laborers.  But the gumment, choosing to ignore its own complicity, sunk its teeth into the crack epidemic as they would, a few years later, when fentanyl (below) began arriving from China.

“The current crack problem is far worse than the heroin problem,” Wilson (supra and Attachment One) asserted back in the Twentieth Century.  “Those addicted to crack and its effects virtually exclude almost all other considerations such as job, sleep, food, family and children.

“Crack abuse is not a victimless crime; users regularly victimize their children by neglect and their employers and coworkers by lethargy and carelessness. The percentage of occasional cocaine users who become binge users does not indicate the percentage who will become dependent if the drug is legal, but this percentage is most likely to increase... (l)egalization, however, will not affect addiction and its effects on the propensity to violence.”

 

A counterproposal that things do go better with coke from, of all media, the right-wing New York Post backs up Hudak’s contention of bipartisan consensus  (December 20th, 2023, Attachment Six) with many defending the coke legalization that the Swiss are attempting and that the Post higher-ups condemn.

“The capital of Switzerland is considering launching a pilot program to test the legal sale of cocaine for recreational use in a never-before-done attempt to make the country’s rampant use of the drug safer.”

The hyper-bankers of Bern argue that legalization allows for greater control over the market and safer usage if people use the drugs illegally anyway.

“The war on drugs has failed, and we have to look at new ideas,” said Eva Chen, a Bern council member from the Alternative Left Party who co-sponsored the proposal.

“Several European countries like Spain, Italy and Portugal no longer issue prison sentences for drug possession charges, including possession of cocaine.

“But the proposal in Bern would be the first to make the white powder legal for recreational use, a radical step in drug policy if it goes through.

“Wealthy Swiss cities have some of the greatest amounts of cocaine usage among European cities, according to wastewater studies analyzing the presence of illicit drugs. Zurich, Basel and Geneva are all among the top 10 cities for cocaine use in Europe.”

Unlike in America, de-illegalization (if not outright tolerance) has reduced the prices of the white stuff... as well as the profits going to the narco-cartels.

“We have a lot of cocaine in Switzerland right now, at the cheapest prices and the highest quality we have ever seen,” said Frank Zobel, deputy director at Addiction Switzerland.

“You can get a dose of cocaine for about 10 francs these days, not much more than the price for a beer.”

Still, the Post contends, “many are weary (sic) of legalizing the drug which can be highly addictive and even deadly.

“Cocaine can be life-threatening for both first-time and long-term users. The consequences of an overdose, but also individual intolerance to even the smallest amounts, can lead to death,” the Bern government said.

“Cocaine isn’t healthy – but the reality is that people use it,” replied Thilo Beck, from the Arud Zentrum for Addiction Medicine. “We can’t change that, so we should try to ensure people use it in the safest, least damaging way.”

 

CRIMERICA #4C – Chasing the Dragon!

So if not one white powder, why not another?

Opiates, opioids and... face it... opium itself have been prevalent for decades and doctors are prescribing more happy pills than ever.  Pain relief is the judtification but... as the maintenance and reparations activists lobby for relief from the post-traumatic (or simply traumatic) stress of war or blackness, relief becomes only a little white pill... even needle... away.

Also back in 1990, if drugs such as heroin were to be legalized, “their price will be reduced significantly, hypodermic needles will be readily available at the neighborhood drug store, and drugs can be purchased anywhere. There would no longer be any financial or medical reason to avoid drug use,” warned Wilson (supra and Attachment One) adding that Great Britain's experiment with legalizing heroin did not work, “primarily because of increased addiction.”

And while conservatives at the Gotham Post were quoting heretics as suggested that legalizing hard drugs might lessen the overall prevalence and crime associated with uppers and downers, the liberal GUK has taken a contrary position... reporting that Oregon’s efforts at decriminalization have failed; that the only remedy has to be a return to the handcuffs and prison bars for the recalcitrant, or a sentence to “rehab jails” for those with the moral and financial resources to veer away from the fast and slow lanes and remain in the middle of the road.  (2/21/24, Attachment Seven)

“When voters approved Measure 110 in 2020, they made Oregon the scene of a novel social experiment in the US by decriminalizing the possession of small amounts of hard drugs and funneling hundreds of millions of dollars into substance abuse treatment.

“The vote was celebrated as a groundbreaking step toward a compassionate approach to substance use disorders, one that prioritized treatment over punishment,” wrote GUKster Katia Riddle. “But nearly three years after its passage, the law has become the subject of fierce debate as Oregon, like many US states, grapples with a spiraling opioid crisis.”

Residents, business owners and law enforcement agents in Oregon have all pointed to spiraling drug use – in downtowns, where people openly smoke fentanyl while others lie unconscious in doorways; in small towns, where mayors unaccustomed to homelessness are suddenly grappling with encampments; in terrifying newspaper stories about middle-class families grieving teenagers who lost their lives due to, in the teachings of the television sobriety preachers, “one bad pill.”

“Lawmakers are now considering a number of bills that would reinstate criminal penalties such as fines and jail time for drug possession,” a trend that the Riddler portends, “a decision that could come any day. A coalition led by prominent business owners have threatened to mobilize an effort to hobble the law even more by putting it back to the public in a ballot measure in the fall. Recent polling has shown more than half of voters support a total repeal.”

When Oregon voters passed Measure 110 with nearly 60% support, the vision that advocates laid out was grand: People would no longer face criminal penalties for possession of small amounts of substances like fentanyl and methamphetamine; long-calcified pathways through the criminal justice system that reinforced societal inequalities would be abandoned; treatment options for those struggling with addiction – funded with hundreds of millions of dollars from the state’s legal marijuana tax – would be widely available.

“But Measure 110 passed on the eve of a tsunami of twin public health crises in Oregon:” Riddle reports, “...an epidemic of cheap, widely available and extremely dangerous fentanyl, and a sharp escalation in the shortage of affordable housing.”

A fortnite ago, lawmakers held a public hearing on the debate over Measure 110. Speaking to a crowded room in Oregon’s capitol building, a 55-year-old police officer from a Portland suburb recounted watching a child die from an opioid overdose as legislators considered whether the 15 year old would have been better off in prison.

“I don’t think I can embrace another mother to tell her her son is gone. I need you to do the right thing.”

What constituted the right thing was not a matter of consensus in that room, or across the state.

“Please address drug addiction and homelessness,” Sandy Chung, executive director of the state’s ACLU chapter, asked legislators. “But do so with real solutions, not political theater.” Fentanyl, she pointed out, is also available in prisons. Punishing people with jail time, she argued, will not force them into recovery.

For others there testifying, especially business owners, the priority was putting an end to public drug use. Rob Stuart, the CEO of OnPoint Community Credit Union, said crime and public consumption of drugs has forced the company to spend more on security. His staff feel unsafe. “In the past year we’ve had 25 branch robberies,” he testified. 

Recriminalization, Stuart argued, would be the only way to give law enforcement the tools to curtail public drug use.

‘People just don’t want to see it any more’.

In Eugene the state capital and home to the state university... long known as “a hippie town, a mecca for stoners and nature lovers,” the Riddler reproaches, district attorney Christopher Parosa summed up the recent prevailing mood. “What has developed in the last three years is not the utopian Shangri-La that we have been promised with ballot Measure 110,” said Parosa, “but rather a dystopian nightmare that is akin to a grim Hollywood movie.”

Oregonians are, understandably, growing weary of homelessness and the fentanyl crisis says Haven Wheelock, a harm-reduction advocate whose works for an organization in Portland that has received funding from Measure 110 to hand out clean needles, Narcan and advice.  “I know there are a lot of people that really hope they just, like, lock everyone up and throw away the key,” she says. “I think people who just want it to be different and just don’t want to see it any more.”

‘You have to build trust’

Which is in short supply, and not only in Oregon, and especially not on the issue of crime.

 

CRIMERICA #4D – SEXPOL... evils of Eve!

Sex trafficking (a condemnation upgrade from the traditional “prostitution” and its many euphamisms is legal, in the United States, only in the state of Nevada... and in Nevada, only in a few remote counties.  It is, in fact, illegal in Las Vegas where police and prosecutors hire (mostly) female undercover agents to entrap the johns, jail them and take whatever money they can out of their pockets before they lose it at the casinos.

It is also, of course,  ubiquitous.  You can find whores a-whoring everywhere... even in Utah and Mississippi.  Of late, there has been an emotional outcry over underaged hookers (age being dependent upon the state of the offense) – a few famous jailbaiters like Jeffrey Epstein and Jerry Lee Lewis have been worth their weight in gold to tabloid culture.

Human beings are mammals, says Jack Parnell, “and the male of the species has an intrinsic desire to seek out and fornicate with (hopefully) willing females, often at a price that can range from cash on the dresser drawyer to marriage to alimony.  Men of means can afford a wife, a girlfriend or six on the side and whatever turns up at the local watering hole.  Lesser loaded losers have to prowl street corners, looking for a cheap, quick fix in a by-the-hour motel or the back of Robert DeNiro’s taxi.

In days gone by, if one believes the Western movies on GRIT-TV, our great-great-great grandfathers legislated and enjoyed the fruits of a thriving commercial enterprise.  Bordellos of the Old West were invariably (in retrospect) luxurious mansions full of red velvet, precious metals and a well-stocked bar.  Maybe even a Piano Man.

Such domiciles were inevitably overseen by a woman of girth... usually a retired pro, herself, with a name like Babs or Frenchy or Lucy.  Nominally retired, she would still occasionally bestow the wisdom of experience on the local Mayor, Police Chief and perhaps a few geriatric accomplishers in the cattle, oil or other “bidnesses”, she employed, in addition of her stable... most of whom were themselves looking to retire upon the offer of a ring from a smitten John... a large bouncer, perhaps a former boxer or football star with a trick knee, who chased off the parasitic pimps and drunken teenagers with a swat across the brow.  Tublican always kept a shotgun under the bar, but used it far less frequently than the TV shows or movies would insinuate.

Sin was fun, in those days, before the Church Police turned it squalid and mean and practitioners discovered that if a married customer balked at the ring, blackmail would be a viable option.

Exhibit for the Prosecution:  Djonald and Stormy.

“The idea that legalizing or decriminalizing commercial sex would reduce its harms is a persistent myth. Many claim if the sex trade were legal, regulated, and treated like any other profession, it would be safer. But research suggests otherwise,” according to the Church Police at DemandAbolition.com. (Attachment Eight)  “Countries that have legalized or decriminalized commercial sex often experience a surge in human trafficking, pimping, and other related crimes.”

Further...

·         One study of prostituted women in San Francisco massage parlors found that 62% had been beaten by customers. (HIV Risk among Asian Women Working at Massage Parlors in San Francisco: pp. 248)

·         An investigation of the commercial sex industry in eight American cities found that 36% of prostituted people reported that their buyers were abusive or violent. (Estimating the Size and Structure of the Underground Commercial Sex Economy in Eight Major US Cities: pp. 242)

·         The “workplace” homicide rate among prostituted women in Colorado is seven times higher than what it was in the most dangerous occupation for men in the 1980s (taxi driver). (Mortality in a Long-term Open Cohort of Prostitute Women: pp. 783)

Somebody needs to recruit a few more of those retired NFL defense linemen with bad knees, still able to deliver what’s what to those who tamper with the merchandise.

Cherry-picking... oops... incidens from Frisco, New Zealand, Austria and other outposts of Gomorrorheah, we can sympathize with critics who might be asking whether patrons of those Old West bawdyhouses never came down with... uh... social diseases.  Would’ve bummed out a Tom Mix, Audie Murphy or John Wayne movie.  Maybe not Clint Eastwood.

Illegal sex, like drugs and gambling, promotes corruption, as witness the President of Honduras.  The on again, off again, wink-nod, cash envelope ambience... according to DemandAbolition... extends to foreign places where the practice is legal.

·         One study with data from 150 countries found that those with “legalized prostitution experience a larger reported incidence of trafficking inflows.” (Does Legalized Prostitution Increase Human Trafficking?: pp. 76)

·         Another quantitative analysis similarly reported that sex trafficking is “most prevalent in countries where prostitution is legalized.” (The Law and Economics of International Sex Slavery: Prostitution Laws and Trafficking for Sexual Exploitation: pp. 87)

·         Regulated prostitution increases the size of the overall market for commercial sex, which benefits criminal enterprises that profit from sex trafficking. (Does Legalized Prostitution Increase Human Trafficking?: pp. 67 and National Legislation on Prostitution and the Trafficking in Women and Children: pp. 132)

Abolitionists also seize upon instances of corruption... i.e. diversion of prostitution payoffs, like drug payoffs from the society to the police.  A large-scale evaluation of the legalization of prostitution in the Netherlands, coordinated by the Ministry of Justice, found that licensed brothels did not welcome frequent regulatory inspections. This undermines their willingness “to adhere to the rules and complicates the combat against trafficking in human beings,” and citing the so-called “Sneep case” wherein German pimps traveled across the border to the Netherlands and “took over large parts of the Red Light District in Amsterdam, using intimate relationships and brutal violence to coerce women to sell sex and hand over their profits.”

Dutchmen and women unable to resist the invasion of the Deutschlanders?  Shocking!  A business that resents having to comply with regulations?  Shocking!  Just shocking!

Adding that many prostituted persons “still rely on anonymity, secrecy, and cash transfers, demonstrating that a legalized prostitution market operates much like a criminal market,” we are also shocked... shocked!... to learn that biznesspeople do not like to pay taxes.

Sex exists, and always has, on Main Street.  On Wall Street?  Yes.  Even at City Hall or, as we learn, the White House...

A quantum of commercial solace was debated eight years ago on Reddit (Attachment Nine), wherein sinners and the Church Police had their innings against one another.

Sayeth the sinners:

“There is no prostitution ban in the bible.” (ST)  Solomon had 700 wives and concubines, “you had Jacob who married both of his first cousins and had sex with both of thier handmaidens... David and Bastheba? His sin there was murder and coveting another man's wife. However, taking another wife was never mentioned as a sin.”

“There's no slavery ban, either. (SA) The Bible ain't about society, it's about crazy people who want to marry dozens of young women and have sex with them all, but doesn't want poor people to bang if they don't have the money for marriage.”

 

Quoth the Church Police...

If a priest's daughter becomes a prostitute, she disgraces her father; she shall be burned to death.  Leviticus 21:9

15 Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take away the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? May it never be! 16 Or do you not know that the one who joins himself to a prostitute is one body with her? For He says, “THE TWO SHALL BECOME ONE FLESH.” 17 But the one who joins himself to the Lord is one spirit with Him.  1 Corinthians 6:15-17 (NASB)

What are prostitutes like, one may ask...

"A prostitute is loud and brash, and never has enough of lust and shame.?  Proverbs 9:13. Cited in Bibleinfo.com (Attachment Ten) as is...

God forbids involvement with prostitutes. It's in the Bible, Proverbs 5:3-14, TLB. "For the lips of a prostitute are as sweet as honey, and smooth flattery is her stock in trade. But afterwards only a bitter conscience is left to you, sharp as a double-edged sword...

Johns, the site commands, must “stay sexually pure” (rather like the Vatican’s orders to Catholic clergy... which sometimes backfires).

I Thessalonians 4:3, NIV. "It is God's will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality. Exodus 20 14, NIV says, "You shall not commit adultery."

John (the Baptist) associated whores with tax collectors and, when God ordered collective vengeance upon yet another saucerful of sinners (Hebrews 11:31), the penitential prostitute Rahab was spared while the others in her city (sinners and bystanders alike) were killed.

This is one of the roots of the notion of nations being raised or lowered according to the virtue of all its citizens... a key tree in the propagation of the faith, as below...

 

Inasmuch as violence against prostitutes... count double for Sodomites, triple for transgenders... is a part of God’s punishment, the heathens at the ACLU maintain that “the criminalization of sex work makes sex workers more vulnerable to violence on the job and less likely to report violence. It prevents sex workers from accessing health care and other critical services, feeds an out of control mass incarceration system, and further marginalizes some of society’s most vulnerable groups,” such as transgenders, women of color, trans women of color and immigrants.

Unsurprisingly, the libertarian lawyers (on social if not necessarily economic issues) contend that “(s)ex workers deserve the same legal protections as anybody else,” including a special new nomenclature that does away with the shaming of “prostitutes”, “whores”, “ladies of the evening” and the such.  (Attachment Eleven) “They should be able to maintain their livelihood without fear of violence or arrest, access health care and other services without discrimination, and seek justice when they are harmed. Decriminalization (note that even the ACLU shudders at the term “legalization”) would help bring sex workers out of the dangerous margins and into the light where people are protected — not targeted — by the law,” and justtifes the difference on the basis that decrim is more libertarian in that buyers and sellers must “comply with relevant regulations.”  Given that most plain old legalizers probably have skepticism about extreme and/or lethally violent sex, pedophilia and a concern about certain unpleasant diseases (which the decrims apparently don’t sanction).  See Rep. Parnell’s take on this (and on the tax collectors) below.

ACLU attorneys have listed a list of questions, with brief synopses (in the attachment) and longer discourses (on the website).  These arguments for sensible legalization (if not necessarily the wild deregulation suggested above) include suggestions to...

Reduce police violence

 

Deter violent clients

 

Provide access to health care

 

Advance LGBTQ equality

 

Fight mass incarceration

 

Increase financial independence

 

Science is marching on and the Guardian U.K. essay on whether AI porn can be “ethical”, published only a week ago, now seems already eclipsed by the question of whether AI “sexbots” can or should be ethical, legal, safe or... dare we say so... fun.

Although a technological advance over the grimy old pornbots now being peddled to dirty old men (and, as usual, a handful of women), the sexbots do have an historical antecedent... Austin Powers.  (Those creatures, unfortunately, failed the “safety” text.”

The porn industry is often at the forefront of emerging technologies, GUK maintains, and, unsurprisingly, girlfriends powered by artificial intelligence have become some of the earliest apps to piggyback on ChatGPT mania, especially since OpenAI doesn’t let users talk dirty to its chatbot. “But with the rise of AI-generated romance comes a host of questionable use cases: pornographic deepfakes (realistic fake images of real people), AI-generated images and text depicting child sexual abuse, and even harassment by clingy chatbots. Is it possible to allow users to enjoy AI porn with safeguards?”

Replika, founded by Eugenia Kuyda, may be the best-known AI companion app, or platform that promises users platonic or romantic connections with a chatbot, but its ambivalent stance on AI romance has created a gap in the market for competitors who, like MyPeach.ai, more explicitly focus on sex.

“If I hadn’t been a stripper, I’d probably not assume that men could be as horrifying as they can,” cringes Ashley Neale, a former chatbot model turned webmistress of MyPeach.ai, which uses AI-generated text and imagery to replicate the experience of chatting – and sexting – with someone online.

Neale told GUK (12/18/24, Attachment Twelve) that she implements ethical guardrails on MyPeach.ai to prohibit users from abusing their virtual flames: “The moment you give them something that isn’t human that can fulfill sexual fantasies, bad things are going to happen, and you’ve got to prevent that.”  Other AI pornumbs... usually immodarated by men... often have lax guidelines, according to Neale. Two of the more popular sites, Candy.ai and Anima AI, don’t explicitly forbid users from vomiting on their AI characters or engaging in hardcore bondage, unlike MyPeach.ai.

One key difference between AI porn and traditional porn, however, is that adult content creators are human beings who can consent to what they will and will not participate in. AI isn’t conscious, ergo no consent. “It sets up a dynamic where you’re ordering the sex acts that you want, and they’re being delivered,” Lori Watson, a professor at Washington University who has written about the ethics of pornography and sex work, said of AI sexbots. “That’s not how ethical sex works.”

Neale of MyPeach.ai argued that the question of consent doesn’t necessarily apply to AI. “I really would equate it to a dildo,” she said. “A sex toy is just a bunch of binary code that’s programmed to vibrate in a certain way and wrapped in plastic. An AI girlfriend or boyfriend is the same concept.”

 

CRIMERICA #4E – Know When to Fold ‘Em!

 

One might think that the massive adoption of state lotteries and un-Vegas casinos might have more or less frustrated the Church Police and put the question of legalizing gambling to rest, along with its collateral damage like legbreakers and concrete overshoes... but GUK disagrees, contending that the sporting mob has not yet divorced itself from that other Mob.  (2/23/24, Attachment Thirteen)

About two thirds of all Super Bowl bets... 228m worth, in all, were placed on Super Bowl LVIII on illegal platforms despite a virtually universal legalization, according to a new analysis by

“In its fight to overturn a federal ban on sports betting, legalization’s supporters argued it would “critically weaken” illegal gambling platforms across the United States. And yet almost two in three wagers placed on Super Bowl LVIII were illegal, according to one estimate  d with the Guardian.

“Research by the gambling analysis firm Yield Sec found Americans bet $5.37bn on this year’s championship game, of which just $1.4bn was bet legally. It estimates that 350.5m bets were placed by Americans on this year’s Super Bowl, of which 228.2m were on illegal platforms.”

Whatever its size, legal operators are clear on the black market’s dangers: this is a market that “preys on Americans, undermines problem gambling efforts, and steals tax dollars from states and local governments”, the American Gaming Association, or AGA, said.

The offshore market remains “robust”, the AGA acknowledged in a statement. But “the growth of legal sports betting over the last five years has been driven by the migration of millions of American adults into the protections of the legal, regulated marketplace.”

Comparisons have been made to the legalized cannabis in states where industry gouging, coupled with the ongoing “gentrification” in which elite strains of pot are being marketed much as expensive wines or top-shelf liquors in order to enhance snob appeal.

Critics have accused the legal gambling platforms like FanDuels and DraftKings of being greedy and stodgy while, according to John Holden, an associate professor at Oklahoma State University, who studies sports betting’s legalization, the illegals are catering to thrill-seeking teens, even taking bets on Little League games.

Legal gambling firms can themselves take action to weaken the black market, according to Holden – by building platforms so good, with odds priced so competitively, that bettors do not consider illegal alternatives. “If they don’t,” he said, “there is the risk that bettors are being trained to bet in the regulated market, and then will turn to unregulated.”

 

 

CRIMERICA #4F – The Angry Old Man in the Sky!

“There’s an angry old man in the sky....

Gonna torture your ass when you die...

It’s the word of the herd, don’t ask why...

Feed the angry old man in the sky.”

                        - Green Death

 

The enduring endurance of the Church Police rests up tradition (the Old Testament, venerated and enforced not only by American Christians but the Jews bombing and strafing Gaza and Islamists like Hamas, like the Houthis and Taliban, killing Christians and Jews despite their common Pentateuchal roots (as well as rival Shiite or Sunni Islamic sects, comparable to the Catholics and Protestants of Auld Belfast or the Catholics, Moslems and Orthdox of the former Yugoslavia).

It’s a three ring circus grounded on four Principles, applicable for over 1,500 years since Constantine took over the exhausted Roman Empire and based upon three essential dictates from that Angry Old Man...

    1.       The Word of God... from Adam and Eve to Joel Osteen and Mike Pence is fixed, immutable... (despite a few greasy moments in the third and fourth centuries when the Popes and bishops actually dared to disagree with one another) and, contra the Mosaic dicate prohibiting the change of “not one word of scripture”, whole books of latter-day heretics were consigned to the Apocrypha.

   2.        Perhaps more so than the out and out heretics, there is no class of His creations that he despises more than the lukewarm... rather as certain politicians of modern times contend with contemptable CatINOs, ProdINOs; EpiscINOs (an especially repugnant tribe) and, within the divides, more divides and damnations of the BapINOs. MethINOs – not to mention those strange, outlier MormINOs.  To Hell with them all!

   3.        The charge to Believers in that kernel of Christian, Hebrew and Islamic faith

   4.        While the Word of God, His laws and prohibitions and, to be sure, the many wise, kind and inspirational tales as make up well over 98.6 percent of Scripture, is everlasting... whether, as the Biblical mathematicians account for time, from 4004 BC to the six thousand year later Armageddon (supposed to occur in 1996 but perhaps just a little late) so still valid any day now, any way now... the human, mortal agents of the Divine are mutable; the elect and the despised among nations, tribes and affinity groups all weighed in the balance and all save The One found wanting.

     As the march of time goes, Jesus was born a Jew – David and Moses and even the wicked Eve were Jews, Jews gained an upper hand over their enemies by the will of God (and the clever tactic of writing down their histories, customs and prohibitions).  But when Jesus was sent down to Earth and rejected, delivered up to the  infernal Roman Empire to be mocked and crucified, the Angry Old Man reposed their mojo and bestowed it on a tiny cult of believers that persisted over time, eventually growing into a megachurch Osteen and Falwell and even Billy Graham could perceive only with wonder and a desire for belongingness.  Enshrined and enthroned in the heart of their fallen Roman adversary, empowered by a Holy Roman Empire that battled through the dark days of the Dark Ages, fought the devilisn Mohammedans for dominion in the Holy Land and evolved into the principalities of Europe we now know to be the likes of Gaul (France), Italy and... after their delivery from the Moors... Imperial Spain which, as the flames and the fruits of exploration and colonization grew, assumed the mortal and martial authority over the faithful.

But as often occurs, the Holy Roman Emperors and the kings of component nations grew proud and faithless and... to use a durty word... stupid; making war upon each other, letting the Holy Land fall back to the sheikhs of Araby, colluding with heathens for power and profit.

Those lesser nations of the West as did not speak Latin or Latinated languages and disgraced God and heritage rotted from within and the Angry Old Man withdrew his patronage, allowing them to be defeated and deposed on the battlefield.  Specifically, the ruination of the Spanish Armada in 1688 transferred virtue in the eyes of God and power in the realm of men to the upstart English and their colluders from the disunited German states, the barely civilized former Vikings and the missionary zealots striking at the heart of the Old World.

The British Empire ruled the lands old and new, its Navy ruled the seas and the island flourished – but for less than a century before falling to the same sinful practices as had destroyed the Romans, Holy Romans and the Papacy.  God turned his face away from the royals and the traders of England and bestoyed his grace on the infant America which, with the support of the faithful (and a little bit of the labor of immigrants from the foundering Old World plus enslaved Africans, a few immigrant Orientals and a heapin’ helpin’ of moxie, the Colonials expelled their British overlords, and then set to the conquest of the rest of the continent and reduction of its indigenous, largly Asiatic immigrant tribes and empires and raised the Stars and Strips over the land “from sea to shining sea.”

But what now?

In the view of the Church and its Church Police, the predilection of Americans to live lives of comfort and ease, make their money (often without making anything of use or virtue by their frantic, scurrying labors) and indulge in their sinning... their wine (and drugs) and women (even indulging their sexual appetites with prostitutes, Sodomites, transgenders, the occasional goat or pony and perhaps sooner than we believe, with machines)... their secular, sinful songs and addiction to gambling.  What a revoltin’ crew!

 

The cause for prohibitions of pleasurable pursuits... some perhaps involving risk, others not... has been an obsession for the Church Police for as long as America held favor in the eyes of God (and even before in the fallen nations as dared, then died in their disobedience).

It finds expression upon many platforms, one of the more popular being James Dobson’s “Focus on the Family” which he started in 1977 and has been called an “evangelical parachurch organization.”  An author of many books and podcasts, he stepped away from the management of the group last year, but continues to promote his parenting views: that children need “loving boundaries and firm discipline.” (which the sinners might equate with incarceration)

Unsurprisingly, he is a dedicated enemy of illegal drugs and legal alcohol and draws upon many examples of shattered teen victims of the Devil’s weed and brew... (See Attachment Fourteen) like the pot smoker who thought playing Russian roulette would be fun (it wasn’t); or the Ecstasy addicts who frequent raves and literally ‘dance the night away’ and contract fevers, brain damage and, eventually, death.

Worse, users grind their teeth and wind up facing the dentist’s drill... and bill.

But even older and more demonic than pot or ecstacy... the most dangerous of all is alcohol.  “Because it’s not immediately mind-altering like marijuana, Ecstasy, meth, cocaine or heroin, it can be used responsibly when taken in small doses. That’s why it’s legal.”  Like tobacco (whether smoked, chewed or... in science beyond the ken of Dobson, vaped).

 

Drugs were virtually nonexistent during biblical times. Thus, substances such as LSD, marijuana, heroin, Ecstasy, cocaine, methamphetamine and any number of others aren’t mentioned in Scripture. However, God makes it clear that He prohibits drunkenness (see Proverbs 23:20-21, 29-35; 1 Corinthians 5:11; 1 Peter 4:3).

The application to drugs is obvious: Substances that compromise our minds and bodies are out of bounds.

“In the end it bites like a snake and poisons like a viper. Your eyes will see strange sights and your mind imagine confusing things” (Proverbs 23:32-33

“Contrary to popular opinion, you are not a cosmic accident or mass of protoplasm wandering aimlessly on the planet. Rather, you were specially made by a loving Creator who intends for your life to be dynamic and purposeful. He made you in His image. You are an eternal, spiritual being with a miraculous mind and body that bears His reflection. And He wants every part of you to be pure.”

This is only possible when your spirit lines up with God’s Spirit. When you sin, you disrupt your companionship with God and begin to slide away from Him.

Willful, repeated sinful behavior can cement such fundamentally flawed logic — what the Bible calls a hardening of our hearts or being given over to “a depraved mind” (Romans 1:28).

God wants our thought life under His control. Did you know that God cares what you think about?

You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body” (1 Corinthians 6:19-20). We do not own ourselves. Ultimately, we belong to God. 

 

So, to satisfy the angry mack daddy master pimp up in the sky, take “constructive action” (i.e. theocracy bolstered by the force and violence of the government or private vigilantes). Proselytize, meddle in other people’s lives... put yourself in a friend’s shoes: “If you were smoking, shooting and popping away your life, missing out on real joy and genuine relationships with people and God, would you want someone to confront you?” 

As for enemies... like the coloreds and the gays, just kill them.  Don’t get caught, but call the cops (they’ll thank you for ratting them out).  Drag them into rehab... Dobson lists several places where you can send your “friends” or even, God forbid, your relatives.

“If you’re having a hard time finding someone to talk to or just want some more information on what it means to find release from your pain, call Focus on the Family at 1-800-A-FAMILY (232-6459).”

Have your credit card ready.

 

 

A few more questions and answers about  drugs, including alcohol, sex, other sins and God are elucidated in yet another Reddit Peanut Gallery (Attachment Fifteen), as includes nutty, sober and measured Q&A’s on your place in the Angry Old Man’s mega/magaverse.

A sinner who used to eat mushrooms and still... the horror!... Reddit’s blogger admits to “occasionally” drinking alcohol attributes his salvation, such as it may be, to Galatians 5:19-21 ESV...

"Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality,idolatry, sorcery (the greek word here, pharmakeia, indicates drug use), enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God."

Also admitting that he is “bothered to no end” by potentially falling off the stairway to Heaven, and an eternity of lolling about on clouds, glorifying his betters and having nothing to eat but ambrosia... that meringue, fruit and Jell-O concoction favoured by convocations of old ladies.  Forever.

No BLTs, no more hot dogs.  Forever!

The penitent then promises to take no more psychedelics “because after all, the only true way to the father is Jesus” – more or less as the only troe way to Djonald UnCorrupted is through Eric (or his wife, now elevaited to Chair of the Republican National Committee).  He will cut down, but not cut out, the weed – having clearly failed to learn Dr. Dobson’s lessons.

(Then again Jimbo passed away with a modest five million dollar lockbox from donations, as well a few of his business associates having rather Faniful relationships with eam Trump.)

A curious anomaly appears in the last paragraphs of this lesson where the censorious Jimmy D. finds common ground with a Eurolibertine Sage on the topic of sex, money and politics.

Dobson points out that an evaluation of New Zealand’s decriminalization revealed that  “73% of prostituted individuals needed money to pay for household expenses, and about half of those who were street-based or transgender had no other sources of income,” (The Impact of the Prostitution Reform Act on the Health and Safety practices of Sex Workers: pp. 9) and then adds that: “In sharp contrast, sex buyers are more likely to be employed full-time, more likely to have graduated from college, and have higher-than-average incomes...” (Ordinary or Peculiar Men? Comparing the Customers of Prostitutes With a Nationally Representative Sample of Men: pp. 812.)

And, as noted in the citation, the buyers are overwhelmingly men... complementing the Drug Wars, the Race Wars and the Class Wars with a fourth leg of the Groaning Board laid out by the Church Police... Gender Wars.

Comes now, amok among the Devil’s Heard thundering through the sky with ghosts and thunderstorms at their heels and Armaeddon in the air, we introduce to Mister Jones these selfsame Sage Journals (Attachment Sixteen) wherein many of the beliefs and practices most painful to the Angry Old Man are noted, duly investigated and often discarded with implications that an other-than-holy motivation for criminalization of the timeworn human vices stands firmly on “apparently exaggerated assessments of drug harms on which the regime of drug control is founded,” according to Petter Grahl Johnstad (aka The Sage).

Chasing the trails and tails of theocracy’s dragon back through history, Mister Sage marshals numerous notes and studies by academics, doctors, drug fighters and defenders, heretics and believers, libertines and “refrainers from embracing” to finger the Devil’s disciples, the masters of the underworld.  (Gambling gets a pass.)

The culprit was, and remains, the Gnostic Heresies, dating back to an unspecified “late antiquity, when early Christian authorities clamped down on the continuation of what they regarded as “pagan drug use practices” and thereby established the official Church view on the use of drugs other than alcohol.

The War on Drugs gained a doctrine and a Devil in the sixteenth century the introduction of coffee and tobacco. The spread of the black brew from the Muslim world caused considerable resistance from some Catholic authorities, who labeled it the “Devil's drink” and the “bitter invention of Satan” (see Attachment for references).  Tobacco was similarly demonized, and its introduction from the New World also caused “ecclesiastical controversy: Rodrigo de Jerez, who sailed with Columbus and was the first person to bring tobacco back to Europe, was reportedly imprisoned for years by the Inquisition for his smoking habit.”

Those indigenous peoples of the Americas were a lively bunch... The Sage noting that, “in Mexico, the Aztecs and other peoples used ololiuhqui (Ipomoea tricolor syn, Turbina corymbosa, a psychoactive species of Morning Glory), peyote (Lophophora williansii), teonanácatl (Psilocybe mushrooms), as well as the newly introduced cannabis (apparently sometimes under the name pipiltzintzintlis) and a range of other psychedelic substances in religious contexts, while the peoples of Peru and the Amazon region used the San Pedro cactus (Echinopsis pachanoi syn. Trichocereus pachanoi), ayahuasca (a psychedelic drink usually mixing Banisteriopsis caapi and Psychotria viridis), yopo (a psychedelic snuff made from Anadenanthera peregrine), and other substances.”  Quite a populous pharmacia!

“In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the Catholic Church regarded such practices as a form of devil worship and responded with a ferocious prohibition campaign that has been well documented by historians,” to name a few dozen, as does The Sage... resulting in a formal ecclesiastical prohibition in, of all yeas, 1620.

At one such Inquisition in 1699, a Spanish friar cited the police records of a constable, tasked with confiscating pipiltzintzintlis (marihuana) from the people of Xochimilco, in testifying...

“We come to take this herb from these natives. It is not permitted, nor is it good that they drink this herb because with it they see many vile and evil things and visions and when they take it they speak with demons and other vile monsters. This herb is prohibited and forbidden by the Inquisition.”

Eventually, as it did not give rise to evil visions, conversations with demons or “feigned miracles, revelations, or raptures” the Church Police eased off on tobacco and, in fact, much of what is now considered an era of literary, political and philosophical uplifting took place in Parisian coffeehouses, where the likes of Voltaire, Rosseau, Ben Franklin, and other luminaries of the arts and science congregated, extending their debates and discourses on this and that by up to twenty cups of the Islamic poison over the course of a night.

“During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the literal demonization characterizing the Inquisitorial campaigns of earlier eras gradually transformed into a different form of demonization...” based on a perception that the worst of the worst seemed to be favoured by the (reluctantly) liberated African slaves.

Sex now introduced herself into the picture.  Testimony in the passage of the 1937 Federal Tax Act warned that “marijuana causes White women to seek sexual relations with Negroes” as well as “satanic” jazz music,while a doctor averred that attacks on white women “are the direct result of a cocaine-crazed negro brain”.  

According to The Sage: “Racial prejudice thus fused with misogyny and the anxiety over non-Christian religiosity into a demonization trifecta.”

Prohibition migrated with the European colonial empires to the rest of Latin America, Asia and Africa where doctors accused cannabis, not the bite of the tsetse fly of causing sleeping sickness and impacting the productivity of their enslaved workforce as also, Christian missionaries in Asia “campaign(ed) for the suppression of opium use.”

In America, the gradual lessening of Jim Crow laws hatched a new crusade against the inferior races... even Nixon's advisors Ehrlichman and Haldeman openly admitted that the Nixon administration's declaration of a war on drugs in the early 1970s was based on racial motives.

 

Today, the Sage points out that “xenophobia that formed the basis for the gross exaggerations of the early twentieth century appears to live on in more muted forms of exaggerations in contemporary drug harms research.”

Furthermore, we should also remember that in the first half of the twentieth century “it was common knowledge in Europe and North America that women were inferior to men, homosexuals were sexual perverts, and non-white people were inferior to white people. Common knowledge, in other words, is commonly wrong,”

Violent criminality, therefore, festers in socioeconomic and racial pariah groups.  “Miserable people tend to engage in escapist substance use, and for some of them a psychiatric condition is the underlying reason for their misery while others are at risk for such conditions because of their misery.”

As the struggle for religious purity “melded with the broader struggle for white privilege... and Christian orthodoxy...” after accusations of devil worship started to lose their relevance.  In conclusion, The Sage calls out doctors and governments raising “exaggerated concerns over health risks” to perpetuate continued demonization of drugs, provide an excuse for their criminalization and keep the prison pipeline free and flowing.

 

 

And finally, a suggestion from the Catfish... noting reasonable objections to the legitimacy of vices like sex, drug and gambling (we’ll set aside rock n’ roll for the present with only this take on why the music of the 60s and 70s was so attractive (to some), or so dangerous (to others)…

“… for a brief period (the late sixties and early seventies), performers had a level of power and control that had never existed before. The recording industry was literally throwing money at EVERYBODY and letting them do whatever they wanted, because they had no idea what would or wouldn’t succeed.  So you had an explosion of unfettered creativity. Helped that there was probably the greatest collection of talent that had ever existed in popular music just doing whatever the hell they wanted.”  (Sean Morrison in Quora)

“But the first generation got rich, got lazy, got egotistical, and gradually started either running out of ideas or actually dying.”

He’ll get more specific next week on the topic of addressing the concerns of skeptics, but already acknowledges that Dr. Dobson has an interesting take on the economics of prostition – considering (if not actually endorsing) “Avolitons”... the Nordic Model (criminalizing the act of buying sex, but legalizing the act of selling sex) as having lowered the prevalence of street prostitution.

An evaluation of the impact in Sweden found that street prostitution had been cut in half. (Förbud mot köp av sexuell tjänst: En utvärdering 1999–2008: pp. 34-35)

 

A WORD from CATFISH JACK...

Abolition of abolitions against private health decisions by Americans over the age of eighteen (given the temper of the times that I also support a return to the military draft, whereupon the adage “if you’re old enough to fight, you’re old enough to drink” comes into play).  When last the draft was ended and the drinking age of 21 restored, the government locked up George W. Bush’s two twenty year old daughters.  What the hell did that accomplish?

 

In law and the government, as in life under God, crimes are taken away, and are given.  As regards the Church Police, a few important exceptions to the re-legalization of sex, drugs and gambling are proposed and... to keep the cops, the courts and jailers busy (if perhaps not to the extent of the heyday of the War on Drugs)... next week’s final Lesson upon crime will shine the spotlight upon a practice that isn’t illegal (despite the propaganda) but had ought a be...

 

 

 

Our Lesson: February Nineteenth through Twenty Fifth, 2024

 

Monday, February 19, 2024

Dow: Closed for Presidents’ Day

It’s (the made-up) President’s Day and, in America, Sunday was gun day.  Two policemen and a paramedic were murdered in Memphis by a lunatic who took seven children hostage (but, fortunately, killed himself and not his captives as The Law closed in.  Divorced daddy fingered in Texas child disappearance case.  The Colorado Springs university dorm shooter remains at large.

   Globally, the wars in Gaza and Ukraine carry on... mystery bearded Hamas spokescrazies say what everyone knows they believe, Jews must be exterminated.  Israeli PM Netanyahu calls them “delusional” and promises to occupy and punish all Palestinians until the pigs come home because “children are losing their innocence”.  (Also arms, legs, lives etc.)

   As the worst month in many years grinds towards a close, Mad Vlad refuses to release freedom fighter Navalny’s body to his family, sayint measures have to be taken (the cognoscenti say its to let the poison leach out of his remains and/or let the corpse rot like Qadaffi’s to preclude an inspirational funeral). Djonald UnAshamed compares Himself to Navalny (while careful not to offend his bro’ Putin) while an increasingly isolated Nikki Haley accuses him of using the RNC as his personal piggy bank.  Biden promises to strike at Russia with... more sanctions?  They’re trembling! and prove it by arresting another American hostage for espionage after she gives $50 to Ukrainian relif.

   And, promising a little fun amidst the carnage... the Fani meltdown means his Federal (non-pardonable) Georgia State election tampering trial will be postponed or dropped and that means: on deck, Stormy!

 

Tuesday, February 13, 2024

Dow:  38,563.80

Speaking of which, the Atmospheric Pinapple Bomb Cyclone River Firehose drenching California continues: billion dollar homes sliding downhill, travel terminated, Eastward migration meaning snow in the Rockies then Great Lakes while the East warms up.

   As gunfire subsides, into the courts Don Jones goes.  Stormy won’t storm until mid-March but online Mommy Dear Ruby Franke and her female co-star get 30 years each after legal experts predice a six or seven year rap for child abuse.  Suckas!  Off to trial goes “Rust” armorer who made the mistake of telling people she was high on weed, wine and coke while loading bullets (they’re saving Baldwin for summer fun) and both Sweet Nikki and the Alabama legislature say frozen embryos are people and destroying them is capital murder.  (And they are also eligible for President Joe’s child tax credits!)  SCOTUS starts hearings on abortion pills and, after that, contraception on the firing line.

   Also headed for trial is lyin’ Biden lyin’ Republican Russian spy Smirnov – trying to frame President Joe for a kiss from MTV and a bottle of vodka,  Still, the impeacher-ers stumble on...

   And TV-con-mystics predict that details of the immense Capital One/Discover credit card merger will take a year to work out... bankers say borrowers will benefit, making Don Jones smile amidst the impending pain.

 

Wednesday, February 14, 2024

Dow:  38,612.24

Stiffed by the American Congress and running out of men, as well as arms, Ukraine is sending women out into the field as snipers.  War watchers say Russia is planning its spring offensive and expects to take over in Kyev by summer and them weigh options... Poland? the Baltics?  Germany?

  A day for peace, quiet, tributes and trivia among a tumultuous week.  Time magazine selects Barbie director Greta Gerwig as its Person of the Year.  (F.U. Oppenheimer!)  Sony hires celeb director Sam Mendes to produce four Beatles docudrams, one for each of the lads.  Down home racism strikes as Allison Russel’s tribute revoked by Tennessee legislators, saying: “There’s an issue.”  Beyonce snags the #1 and #2 hits on Billboard’s C&W charts, but radio stations refuse to play it until pressured by the force of the Beehive.

   Strange man finds world’s largest snake (26’ long, 450 lbs.) in the Amazon and dives in in a suit and tie to check it out.  Henry Winkler recognized as a Funny Comedian by the Oakie Awards, a fan at a Taylor Swift concert in Australia gives birth and an escaped horse gallops down I-95 in Pennsylvania.

 

Thursday, February 15, 2024

Dow:  39,069.11

In addition to Washington’s (real) birthday, it’s National Thinking Day.  (Some may be forgiven for thinking that this was the week that Democracy died.

   Thinking he’s been scammed after Republicans draft a border control bill, then sit up, bark and beg when former President Trump tells them that a win for the border would hurt his (once-removed) re-election chances, the House members follow the lead of Speaker Johnson in killing it, President Joe goes into overdrive and flings out a migration Executive Order (ostensibly) even tougher and... while he’s at it... retaliates for the presumed murder of Russian dissident Navalny, rocks the Russians with over five hundred sanctions.  Bad Vlad sneers, then goes back to bombing Ukrain and capturing towns as the Ukes, running out of arms and ammunition owing to Congressional partisan subterfuge.

   The rest of the wars rock on, too.  Three terrorists from peace n’love Bethlehem shoot up cars passing on a busy highway until angry Israeli civilians storm them and rip them to piecesl while the U.S. Navy leads a flotilla of ships and a diaspora of drones in counterterror against Houthi rebel/pirates attacking commercial shipping in the Red Sea.

   Domestically, infertile women trying to have children are fleeing Alabama after its government criminalizes the murder of surplus frozen embryos.  And AT&T denies that a nationwide cellphone outage was caused by domestic or foreign cyberhackers... saying it was only a software glitch.

 

Friday, February 16, 2024

Dow:  39,131.53

The private/public partnership sending rocket Odysseus (the punsters call it “Odi”) to the moon succeed – sort of.  Heroic computer nerds save its navigation system from failing during touchdown, but the lunar lander trips over a rock on the dark side of the moon and falls over on its side, so all the picures it transmits are sideways.

   The “oops” doesn’t prevent the stock market from rocketing upwards and through the Dow’s 39,000 ceiling, on its way to the big Four Oh.  E-con-mystics credit delirium over new AI apps, heedless that the deep fakes that they generate will twist and torture any and all data of the future... including the Dow.

   Not to be outdone in “wanton cruelty” by neighboring Alabama, Georgia brings back the Hair Wars of more than a half a century ago, and sends Judge Dreads and the Fashion Police around to schools to lop off moldy locks, make war on distressing hairdressing and, say blacktivists, promote racism.  (They can snatch and burn a few bad library books, too, while they’re at it.)

   Weatherpeople say the West Coast downpours haven’t eased the 20-year “megadrought” out there, but they have turned Death Valley into a lake, onto which the kayackers flock.  But not talkshow hostess Wendy Williams – she’s been diagnosed with Aggressive Aphasia, otherwise known as the Bruce Willis disease.

 

Saturday, February 24, 2024

Dow:  Closed

Anniversaries are showering America and the world... two years for the Ukraine War and one year since a big, fat Chinese spy blimp drifted across the country.  This time it’s a smaller version, sighted over Utah and not shot down – yet.

   Russia weighs the pros and cons of bodysnatching and then returns the corpse of dissident Navalny to his family, almost certainly ensuring a ginormous funeral with riots and massacres and, Don Jones hopes, the beginning of the end of Mad Vlad’s regime.  (President Joe’s sanctions certainly won’t do it.)  But rootin’ tootin’ Putin doubles down on his endorsement of Biden’s re-election, an endorsement likely to be featured in campaign advertising over the next six months (tho’ not from Team Re-elect That President).

   And more good luck for Djonald UnRenominated (yet)... the killer of a Georgia co-ed on a jogging trail is identified as a Venezuelan (commie) illegal immigrant whose brother gave or sold him a fake green card.  Sex crime, illegal alien, Maduroman... a perfect Trumpian trifecta Don Jones will be hearing about ad nauseum from now to November,

   Oh... and as if the national Trust Busting onslaught hasn’t overturned enough American Icons yet, the FTC is investigating tax preparer H. B. Block for defrauding taxpayers.  “To the moon, Alice, to the moon!”

 

Sunday, February 25, 2024

Dow: Closed

Djonald Unstoppable wins the South Carolina primary by twenty points.  Sweet Nicki might take consolation in beating the spread (Trump was favored by thirty) but, essentially and in the lyrics of Roy Orbison: “It’s Over!”  Her zombie train, however, will chug on to Michigan and another defeat, while President Joe tackles an electorate of many angry Arabs, whose sympathy for Hamas might resonate to Biden’s distress in a swing state in November as Trump “courts” black conservatives by saying that his indictments and mugshot give him “street cred” among the rappers and gangstas of America.

   A dying Odi encounters no moon creatures but, in China, a 16 foot long dragon fossil is dug up to celebrate its year.  Around America, the immigration issue turns ugly as a Venezuelan illegal is arrested for murdering a co-ed on the UGA campus... gifting MAGA with an emotional election issue.  There’s another campus murder in Kentucky and a high school shooting in Oklahoma.

   On Sunday talkshows, former RNC chair Reince Priebus agrees – saying that while Djonald DisObedient got only 8% of the black vote last time out, the Kool Fool is now polling 22%.  An exasperated former DNC chair Donna Brazile advises Nikki to keep fighting on “if you have the money”, be ready as a backup if Trump’s trials or health implodes.

  Pundit John Kirby says Speaker Johnson can “bend the course of history” by renouncing his master, Trump and supporting the bipartisan immigration bill and aid to Israel and Ukraine, where the problem “is not a shortage of will, it’s a shortage of bullets.”  But Mad Mike is nothing if not loyal, he’s now refusing to negotiate on the next Shutdown, coming in March

 

Incredibly, the National Debt actually declines for a few days before restoration to its sinister glory as President Joe, Janet Yellen and assorted Feds actually bit the bullet and cut gumment spending, causing the Dow to overheat and crack the 39K ceiling.  But will far-right Congressthings pressing for a shutdown to help Trump?  Not likely!

 

 

THE DON JONES INDEX

 

CHART of CATEGORIES w/VALUE ADDED to EQUAL BASELINE of 15,000

(REFLECTING… approximately… DOW JONES INDEX of June 27, 2013)

 

Negative/harmful indices in RED.  See a further explanation of categories here…

 

ECONOMIC INDICES (60%)

 

CATEGORY

VALUE

BASE

RESULTS

SCORE

OUR SOURCES and COMMENTS

INCOME

(24%)

6/17/13 & 1/1/22

LAST

CHANGE

NEXT

LAST WEEK

THIS WEEK

Wages (hrly. Per cap)

9%

1350 points

2/19/24

 +0.82%

3/24

1,495.34

1,495.34

https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/wages   29.66 nc

Median Inc. (yearly)

4%

600

2/19/24

 +0.025%

3/4/24

667.89

668.06

http://www.usdebtclock.org/   39,383 393

Unempl. (BLS – in mi)

4%

600

2/19/24

  -5.41%

2/24

616.55

616.55

http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS14000000/    3.7 NC

Official (DC – in mi)

2%

300

2/19/24

  -0.16%

3/4/24

249.56

249.21

http://www.usdebtclock.org/      6,396 405

Unofficl. (DC – in mi)

2%

300

2/19/24

 +0.017%

3/4/24

283.26

283.31

http://www.usdebtclock.org/      11,686 684

Workforce Particip.

   Number

   Percent

2%

300

2/19/24

 

+0.025%

+0.005%

3/4/24

303.72

303.73

In 162,764 796 Out 100,754 766 Total: 262,518 562

http://www.usdebtclock.org/   62.00

WP %  (ycharts)*

1%

150

2/19/24

 -0.48%

2/24

150.95

150.95

https://ycharts.com/indicators/labor_force_participation_rate  62.50 NC

OUTGO

15%

 

 

 

Total Inflation

7%

1050

1/24

+0.3%

2/24

970.22

970.22

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.nr0.htm     +0.3 nc

Food

2%

300

1/24

+0.4%

2/24

274.07

274.07

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.nr0.htm     +0.4

Gasoline

2%

300

1/24

 -3.3%

2/24

246.55

246.55

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.nr0.htm      -3.3

Medical Costs

2%

300

1/24

+0.7%

2/24

291.95

291.95

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.nr0.htm     +0.7

Shelter

2%

300

1/24

+0.6%

2/24

267.85

267.85

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.nr0.htm     +0.6

 

WEALTH

6%

 

 

Dow Jones Index

2%

300

2/19/24

 +1.30%

3/4/24

319.16

323.32

https://www.wsj.com/market-data/quotes/index/   38,627.99

Home (Sales)

(Valuation)

1%

1%

150

150

2/19/24

 +5.82%

  -0.96%

2/24

122.66

276.10

129.80

273.38

https://www.nar.realtor/research-and-statistics  nc

Sales (M):  3.78 4.00 Valuations (K):  382.6 379.1

Debt (Personal)

2%

300

2/19/24

 +0.05%

3/4/24

268.17

268.05

http://www.usdebtclock.org/    75,515 549

NATIONAL

(10%)

 

Revenue (trilns.)

2%

300

2/19/24

 +0.21%

3/4/24

396.95

397.80

debtclock.org/       4,669 679

Expenditures (tr.)

2%

300

2/19/24

  -3.46%

3/4/24

308.10

318.76

debtclock.org/       6,671 448

National Debt tr.)

3%

450

2/19/24

 +0.27%

3/4/24

391.05

392.12

http://www.usdebtclock.org/    34,437 343

Aggregate Debt (tr.)

3%

450

2/19/24

 +0.06%

3/4/24

407.00

406.76

http://www.usdebtclock.org/    97,695 733

 

 

 

 

GLOBAL

(5%)

 

Foreign Debt (tr.)

2%

300

2/19/24

  +0.10%

3/4/24

310.54

310.34

http://www.usdebtclock.org/   7,933 941

Exports (in billions)

1%

150

2/19/24

  +1.77%

3/24

160.36

160.36

https://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/current/index.html  258.2

Imports (bl.)

1%

150

2/19/24

   -1.09%

3/24

170.97

170.97

https://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/current/index.html  320.4

 

Trade Deficit (bl.)

1%

150

2/12/24

  +1.61% 

3/24

337.91

337.91

https://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/current/index.html    62.2

 

SOCIAL INDICES  (40%)

ACTS of MAN

12%

 

 

2040

World Affairs

3%

450

2/19/24

  +0.2%

3/4/24

450.29

451.19

G-7 leaders meet in Kyev, agree to extend sanctions to anybody who supplies weapons to Russia (meaning China, Iran and NoKo.  Under pressure, the Russians give dissident Navalny;s body back to his mother.  But...

War and terrorism

2%

300

2/19/24

  -0.1%

3/4/24

293.05

292.76

...with American aid on hold, Ukraine losing towns to Russia as gleefully murders their civilians. The US does make advances in the war to reopen the shipping lanes in Yemen.   Israel offers a cease fire deal, 400 jailed terrorists and six weeks’ respite for 40 hostages.  Hamas calls Bibi delusional. 2109

Politics

3%

450

2/19/24

  -0.2%

3/4/24

478.59

477.63

South Carolina primary closely as mostly expected after unfavourite daughter Nikki approves prosecution of fertility criminals for murder, then tries to weasel back.  With their Biden probe Smirnoffed, House impeacher-ers pivot to President Joe’s apparently corrupt brother James.

Economics

3%

450

2/19/24

  -0.2%

3/4/24

446.83

445.94

Guys in the skies crash: Boeing  fired Ed Clark, the head of its 737 Max aircraft program Wednesday, and a midair bomb threat scrawled on the restroom window grounds plane... in Newark.  Capitol One and Discover are merging... cardholders beware!

Crime

1%

150

2/19/24

  -0.3%

3/4/24

240.64

239.92

Murder of a co-ed on the University of Georgia campus by a Venezuelan illegal immigrant heightens political and moral outrage over border policy.  Another in Kentucky blamed on a dispute among college wrestlers.

ACTS of GOD

(6%)

 

 

Environment/Weather

3%

450

2/19/24

  +0.4%

3/4/24

387.19

388.74

“Torrential” rains finally easing up in California after Death Valley becomes Death Lake.  Roller coaster temperatures bounce East and Midwest up and down again, warm to freezing.

Disasters

3%

450

2/19/24

  -0.1%

3/4/24

420.00

419.58

Wet icy roads cause numerous multi-vehicle crashes,  Flaco, the escaped Central Park owl, flies into a NYC highrise and dies at 13.

LIFESTYLE/JUSTICE INDEX

(15%)

 

Science, Tech, Educ.

4%

600

2/19/24

  -0.2%

3/4/24

632.12

630.86

Odysseus lunar probe (“Odi Wan Fallovii’) lands on the Dark Side... then falls over on its side so that its solar panels cannot recharge.  National shortage of substitute teachers blamed on COVID (how long can they keep THAT up?).  AT&T outage blamed on failed software upgrade, not terror.

Equality (econ/social)

4%

600

2/19/24

 +0.2%

3/4/24

643.20

644.29

TIME names Barbie director Greta Gerwig. Person of the Year. Running out of arms and men, Ukraine starts training female snipers.  The NAR (realtors) say black homeownership is cratering due to credit bias.  Potential first female umpire now working spring training and may be called to MLB.

Health

4%

600

2/19/24

  -0.2%

3/4/24

469.15

468.21

TV docs say Keto cures not only diabetes, but mental illness.  Others say that Vitamin B-3 (niacin) will KILL YOU!  Measles is back from the dead and the vaxxing, anti-vaxxing controversy also rises up again. After Wendy Williams gets aggressive aphasia (Bruce Willis disease) comedian Amy Schumer diagnosed with Cushing’s Syndrome.

Freedom and Justice

3%

450

2/19/24

  -0.3%

3/4/24

468.68

467.27

The NRA (rifles) collapses into a swamp of corruption, President Wayne LaPierre convicted of most everything.  What happened to Ollie North?  No sooner arrested as a Russian spy and called a flight risk, Yaakov… wait, Al… Smirnov is bailed out and sent back into the streets.  (Maybe he can be traded for the female tourist jailed by an unforgiving Putin for giving $51 to a Ukrainian charity.)  Domestic disorder in the courts find Alabama’s legislators divided over how hotly to pursue criminal wanna be mothers for murdering their frozen embryos (children) while SCOTUS moves on to criminalize abortion pills, then birth control.  Abusive mommy Ruby Franke cuts deal for 5 years for child abuse, judge doles out 30.  Sucka!

MISCELLANEOUS and TRANSIENT INDEX

(6%)

 

 

 

Cultural incidents

3%

450

2/19/24

 +0.1%

3/4/24

520.01

520.53

George Santos sues Jimmy Kimmell for... guess!... fraud.  Wolfgang Puck will cater Oscars (3/10) with his famous Chicken Pot Pies!  In runup races, “Oppenheimer” wins BAFTA (U.K.), “Barbie” wins the People’s Choice (with applause for a special Michael J. Fox appearance).  A swath of Swifties carries Travis Kelce to Athlete of the Year.

   RIP media outlets Vice and WAMU (NPR in Washington DC).

Misc. Incidents

3%

450

2/19/24

 +0.1%

3/4/24

509.00

509.51

Tennessee effluencials denounced for dissing singers Allison Russell and Beyonce for “not being country enough” until the Beehive stings them.  Gambler sues Powerball for publishing the wrong numbers, wrongly making him believe that he had won $540M.  Brave (or stupid) man swims in the Amazon with world’s largest snake.  Equine gallops down I-95 trying to escape horse hell,  but is captured and sent back to Philadelphia.

 

The Don Jones Index for the week of February 19th through 25th, 2024 was UP 18.16 points

 

The Don Jones Index is sponsored by the Coalition for a New Consensus: retired Congressman and Independent Presidential candidate Jack “Catfish” Parnell, Chairman; Brian Doohan, Administrator.  The CNC denies, emphatically, allegations that the organization, as well as any of its officers (including former Congressman Parnell, environmentalist/America-Firster Austin Tillerman and cosmetics CEO Rayna Finch) and references to Parnell’s works, “Entropy and Renaissance” and “The Coming Kill-Off” are fictitious or, at best, mere pawns in the web-serial “Black Helicopters” – and promise swift, effective legal action against parties promulgating this and/or other such slanders.

Comments, complaints, donations (especially SUPERPAC donations) always welcome at feedme@generisis.com or: speak@donjonesindex.com.

 

 

ATTACHMENT ONE – FROM the Office of Justice Programs (OJP)

AGAINST THE LEGALIZATION OF DRUGS

By J Q Wilson c. 1990

.

Abstract

If drugs such as heroin are legalized, their price will be reduced significantly, hypodermic needles will be readily available at the neighborhood drug store, and drugs can be purchased anywhere. There would no longer be any financial or medical reason to avoid drug use. Great Britain's experiment with legalizing heroin did not work, primarily because of increased addiction. The current crack problem is far worse than the heroin problem. Those addicted to crack and its effects virtually exclude almost all other considerations such as job, sleep, food, family and children. Crack abuse is not a victimless crime; users regularly victimize their children by neglect and their employers and coworkers by lethargy and carelessness. The percentage of occasional cocaine users who become binge users does not indicate the percentage who will become dependent if the drug is legal, but this percentage is most likely to increase. Illegal drugs increase crime, partly because some users turn to crime to pay for their habits and partly because some users are stimulated by certain drugs to act more violently. Legalization, however, will not affect addiction and its effects on the propensity to violence. Instead of legalizing drugs, better treatment, education, and research are needed to curb dependency on drugs and the adverse health and social effects of drug use.

 

ATTACHMENT TWO – ALSO FROM the OJP

WAR ON DRUGS: OPPOSING VIEWPOINTS

Editor: Stephen P. Thompson. 1998

 

Opposing viewpoints on how to conduct the war on drugs are presented; supporters of current drug control policies claim the war on drugs is succeeding, as evidenced by the steady decline in the overall number of illegal drug users since the late 1970s, while critics of the war on drugs question the efficacy of existing drug control policies and believe current priorities should be changed.

Abstract

The Federal Government spent $16 billion in 1998 on drug control, up from $2.7 billion in 1985, and the law enforcement allocation is approximately double the funds provided to efforts to efforts such as drug treatment and education programs to reduce the demand for drugs. Advocates of current antidrug policies believe they are effective, particularly when success is measured by the decline in drug use and the increased number of drug offenders in Federal and State prisons. On the other hand, critics believe the war on drugs has failed and current policies should be abandoned in favor of some form of drug legalization. Recent surveys, however, indicate that opponents of drug legalization have public opinion on their side. Opposing viewpoints are presented in five chapters: (1) whether the war on drugs is succeeding; (2) which current policies work and which do not; (3) whether drug legalization is a realistic alternative to the war on drugs; (4) whether marijuana should be legalized for medical purposes; and (5) what new initiatives, particularly those related to harm reduction,

 

ATTACHMENT THREE – FROM THE GUARDIAN U.K.
EX-HONDURAN LEADER PRAISED BY TRUMP FACES TRIAL IN US FOR RUNNING ‘NARCO-STATE’

Juan Orlando Hernández stands trial in a New York courtroom on Monday accused of taking millions in bribes from drug traffickers

By Jeff Ernst in New York and David Adam in Miami  Tue 20 Feb 2024 05.00 EST

 

Five years after he was lavished with praise by Donald Trump for “stopping drugs at a level that has never happened” – and two years after he was extradited in shackles to the US – the former Honduras president Juan Orlando Hernández is to stand trial in New York on Monday, accused of overseeing a “narco-state” and accepting millions in bribes from drug traffickers, including the former leader of the Sinaloa cartel, Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán.

Hernández is the first former head of state to face drug-trafficking charges in the United States since another former US ally, the Panamanian strongman Gen Manuel Noriega, over 30 years ago.

The trial will be arguably the biggest test yet of the Drug Enforcement Agency’s strategy to bring to account public officials who facilitate drug trafficking to the US.

 

Hernández has dismissed the accusations as retaliation by the cartels seeking revenge for his anti-narcotics policies, and cited his cooperation with – and the accolades received from – US authorities as evidence of his innocence.

During his first run for president in 2013, Hernández campaigned as a hardliner on crime, touting his role as a legislator in the passage of a constitutional amendment that paved the way for the extradition of Hondurans accused of drug trafficking.

At the time, Honduras was sinking into anarchy, and the majority of the cocaine that reached the United States was passing through the country.

Record numbers of Hondurans fled the violence and headed to US border. The Obama administration saw Hernández as a flawed but eager partner on immigration and security policy.

“It was pretty well known that Juan Orlando was a corrupt actor,” said Ricardo Zúñiga, a former senior state department official. “But we didn’t see him as an organized crime figure.”

By the time Hernández became president in January 2014, however, a small group of DEA agents and prosecutors had already started to suspect otherwise.

During the 2013 campaign, agents from the DEA were reviewing transcripts of intercepted phone calls provided to them by Honduran counterparts when one became the talk of the office.

“It was one drug trafficker calling another and he says, ‘Who are you voting for in the election?’ and he goes, ‘We’re voting for all of them,’” said Andrew Pappas, a retired DEA agent who was stationed in Honduras at the time.

“When that phone call came in, we knew [the traffickers] weren’t worried at all about who was going to win the election; they had paid them all off.”

Soon after, the threat of extradition led a string of Honduran traffickers to cut deals with the DEA that would expose the depths of their infiltration into local politics. Hardly a week after Hernández’s inauguration, one of the country’s most notorious traffickers secretly recorded a meeting with the president’s brother, the legislator Juan Antonio “Tony” Hernández.

By October 2016, rumors of Tony Hernández’s involvement in drug trafficking swirled in local media. He announced that he would travel to Miami to meet with the DEA and clear his name. Instead, he perjured himself and exposed many of his own connections to traffickers.

According to prosecutors, Hernández then attempted to distance himself from his brother and work even harder to stay in the good graces of US authorities. Donald Trump’s victory in the November 2016 US presidential election made the latter much easier.

The next year, Hernández ran for re-election despite a constitutional prohibition against it. The November 2017 election was marred by violence and allegations of fraud that prosecutors say was aided by drug traffickers. The secretary general of the Organization of the American States called for a new election, but the Trump administration provided Hernández the recognition he needed to secure a second term in office.

Late in 2018, DEA agents arrested Tony Hernández on drug trafficking charges after he made an ill-advised trip to the United States. During his trial a year later, prosecutors laid out the bulk of their case against the former president in open court. Tony Hernández was convicted on all counts and sentenced to life in prison.

To experts following that trial, it was clear that Hernández was a likely target of the DEA, protected only by an unwritten Department of Justice policy against indicting sitting presidents.

Yet the accolades from Washington continued.

Less than two months after the trial, then president Trump heaped praise on Hernández at the 2019 Israeli American Council National Summit, thanking the Honduran president and saying that he was “working with the United States very closely” and that “we’re stopping drugs at a level that has never happened”.

When Joe Biden took office in January 2021, the praise finally stopped. “It was pretty clear that US attorneys wanted to go after him,” said Zúñiga, who was appointed Central America envoy.

 

But it wasn’t until Hernández’s party was voted out of office by a landslide that the Department of Justice officially informed the state department of its intentions, explained Zúñiga.

A few weeks after he was arrested, Hernández, wearing a blue suit and a crisp white shirt that evoked the colors of the Honduran flag, sat in a Tegucigalpa courthouse and pleaded with the judge who would decide whether or not to approve his extradition.

According to a transcript reviewed by the Guardian, the former president cited his lengthy cooperation with US authorities on anti-narcotics and immigration policies and noted the “contradiction” between the accolades he received and the accusations against him.

He also criticized the extradition process that he had championed for a decade as one of his greatest achievements – and more recently as evidence of his innocence.

If the extradition were approved, then “the only thing that awaits me is a life sentence”, said Hernández.

 

 

ATTACHMENT FOUR – FROM NON PROFIT NEWS

 

WHY REPARATIONS CAN COUNTER THE LEGACY OF A 50-YEAR “WAR ON DRUGS”

By Rich Wallace  February 21, 2024

 

The War on Drugs has had profound and lasting effects on individuals, families, and communities, resulting in mass incarceration, economic disparities, social marginalization, and a cycle of violence and criminality in many Black communities throughout the United States. Fortunately, some aspects of the War on Drugs have tapered off, most notably due to the legalization of marijuana in many states. But even if the War on Drugs fully ended tomorrow and mass incarceration became a thing of the past, the damage done over the past 50-plus years will not be easily remedied. Reparations are required.

Drug war reparations align with the principles of restorative justice by acknowledging the harm caused, supporting affected communities, and working toward healing and reconciliation. By addressing the root causes and consequences of the War on Drugs, reparations can help restore trust, foster community resilience, and promote social integration.

Of course, the drug war is not the only reason why reparations are required. As Sandy Darity and Kirsten Mullen have argued, reparations are also owed for slavery and Jim Crow. That said, the War on Drugs has harmed millions of lives and is a major part of the reason the gains of the Civil Rights movement were largely reversed, at least in the economic sphere, in the decades that followed. The case for reparations to repair the tremendous harm done to Black communities over the past half-century is clear.

Drug war reparations align with the principles of restorative justice.

The War on Drugs Is Personal

The War on Drugs has been a half-century-long, concerted, militarized campaign led by the US government to enforce prohibitions on the importation, manufacture, use, sale, and distribution of substances deemed to be illegal, advancing a punitive rather than a public health approach to drug use. It is characterized by racial profiling, racially targeted policing and prosecutorial practices, long mandatory prison sentences on conviction of drug-related offenses, and a host of collateral consequences, which have wrought devastation in the lives of millions of people in the United States and beyond. It has served as one of the driving forces of skyrocketing rates of mass incarceration in the United States and what Michelle Alexander aptly labeled The New Jim Crow.

The War on Drugs also inspired state and federal legislation to increase mandatory minimum jail sentences to decades, which were disproportionately received by Black men and helped destroy their potential to have a successful future. Drug enforcement policies have disproportionately targeted Black communities, leading to stark racial disparities in arrests, convictions, and sentences.

For myself—and many of the staff I work with at Equity and Transformation, a community-led organization founded by and for post-incarcerated people— the impacts of the War on Drugs are deeply personal. Many of us were imprisoned in the Illinois Department of Corrections for drug offenses in the 90s, yet in 2023 we still wear the mark of a criminal record. This record acts as a form of permanent punishment, limiting our ability to participate in civil society through a complex web of laws in Illinois that punish people with criminal records, often indefinitely.

Understanding the Economic and Social Costs

It is hard to overstate the social and economic consequences of the War on Drugs on Black communities. First, of course, it has pulled millions of people, often fathers, out of our communities, harming family livelihoods and children’s upbringing. But even after a person is released from incarceration, this hardly means that punishment has ended.

Legislation on the books in states nationwide has prohibited individuals with drug convictions from being able to be hired or obtaining professional licenses. “You can’t get hired and you can’t start your own business either. It’s like being trapped in a box,” observes Alonzo Waheed, organizing director at Equity and Transformation.

These circumstances are especially pronounced for those operating in the informal economy—selling marijuana or other drugs on the street. Without entry points into the economy either through a job or as a business owner, many find themselves steered right back into informality and precarity—leading back to what landed them in jail in the first place, with resulting high recidivism rates.

A closer look in my home state of Illinois further evidences these outcomes. The 2020 Never Fully Free report by the Social IMPACT Research Center shows that involvement with the criminal justice system can subject individuals to 1,189 “permanent punishment” laws and regulations in Illinois. Notably, 982 of these prevent or hinder access to employment, including background checks and restrictions on the activities of survivors of the War on Drugs during their probation or parole. Similarly, Illinois enacted at least 364 state laws and regulations that restrict occupational licensing for people with a criminal record. These restrictions force many people and especially Black people into the informal economy to survive.

The informal economy is a diversified set of economic activities that are unprotected and unregulated by the state. A report released by EAT and the University of Illinois Chicago’s Center for Urban Economic Development found that 48 percent of Black informal workers reported jobs paying a regular paycheck were not available to them. Black workers who have been pushed into the informal economy are further penalized by the perception of illegality that envelops these activities. Far too often, they face fines and arrest simply for engaging in informal work. 

The inability to earn income has dire consequences not only for individuals locked out of employment, but also for their families and dependents. Household income is a strong indicator of several other social outcomes, including educational attainment and health. Lack of access to gainful employment creates exponential hardships that reverberate throughout a community. The lack of income earned by Black men’s mass incarceration plunged many Black families into poverty for decades, caused the loss of homeownership, and eliminated other opportunities for Black families to build wealth over the long term.

In addition to the economic consequences, removal from home and community via mass incarceration created a legacy of poor social outcomes. For example, drug-war enforcement policies established relentless attacks on Black parents through state child welfare systems, which led to a sustainable increase in child removal proceedings and foster care placement. This systemic bias perpetuates inequality and infringes upon fundamental principles of fairness and justice.

What Reparations Require

As outlined in the United Nations Resolution 60/147, reparations, to be complete, must contain five components: 1) restitution, or restoration of the status before the harm occurred; 2) compensation, 3) rehabilitation, providing care for physical and psychological needs; 4) satisfaction, such as through apology; and 5) guarantees of non-repetition, through such means as policy change.1

Reparations that achieve this standard are achievable. Reparations have been implemented in various contexts to address historical injustices and promote reconciliation. The Civil Liberties Act of 1988 gave surviving Japanese Americans $20,000 each in reparations and a formal apology by President Ronald Reagan for their incarceration during World War II. More recently, In May 2015, the Chicago City Council passed a Reparations Ordinance to support reparations for survivors of Chicago Police Commander Jon Burge and their family members. (Burge tortured more than 120 people, predominantly Black men, from 1972 to 1991.) From 1945 to 2018, the German government paid approximately $86.8 billion in restitution and compensation to Holocaust survivors and their heirs.

Drug war reparations would similarly acknowledge the harm inflicted on communities, and—critically—provide progress toward breaking cycles of poverty and family disruption, and promote social and economic mobility.

Pitfalls and Progress

At some level, the drug war’s harms are so pervasive that the case for reparations is obvious. But reparations are costly, and that means there is often resistance (especially from White people) to facing those costs.

The recent wave of legalization of cannabis is one area that initially showed significant promise to undoing some of the harms of the War on Drugs. In implementation, however, legalization across the United States has largely overpromised and underdelivered—particularly for Black people.

In many states, including Illinois, advocates found that the measures for legalization still locked out formerly incarcerated people and those harmed by the War on Drugs due to measures such as high capital costs for entry into the sector, restrictions on occupational licenses, and the lack of relationships necessary to build a cannabis-related business. While record expungement was a part of several states’ cannabis legalization plans, expungement on its own is not enough to overcome the economic challenges of those impacted by the War on Drugs.

To move toward meaningful reparations for the War on Drugs, there must be an active acknowledgment of the racial disparities in sentencing and the role this played in mass incarceration and the stark economic conditions in Black communities.

Organizations are working nationally and internationally to develop plans for reparations for the War on Drugs. In California, a new state reparations commission estimates about one-third ($246 billion) of the $800 billion proposed for reparations concerns the consequences of the drug war’s effects on Black communities.

These efforts have materialized into proposed state and federal legislation, commissions like California’s, and convenings to bring together practitioners, policymakers, and systems-impacted people to develop informed interventions that lead to reparations for the War on Drugs.

Toward Repair

There is no doubt that the War on Drugs devastated Black communities and dehumanized Black people. As a social and economic issue, the devastation is still being felt. Survivors of the War on Drugs still walk with the scars. The stories of family separation, eviction, and incarceration still live in the memories of the survivors.

To this day, communities hardest hit by the War on Drugs have some of the highest rates of unemployment and poverty, lowest rates of home ownership and educational achievement, and, ultimately, some of the lowest life expectancies in the country. An article in the Annals of Medicine last year concluded that the drug war is “negatively impacting key social determinants of health, including housing, education, income, and employment.” An apology won’t fix that, but a public commitment to drug war reparations can begin the process of addressing the impact and the root causes.

 

Notes

1.    Restitution refers to measures which restore the victim to the original situation before the gross violations of international human rights law and serious violations of international humanitarian law occurred.” Compensation should be provided for any economically assessable damage, as appropriate and proportional to the gravity of the violation and the circumstances of each case. Rehabilitation includes medical and psychological care, as well as legal and social services. Satisfaction entails effective measures aimed at the cessation of continuing violations. Guarantees of non-repetition comprise broad structural measures of a policy nature such as institutional reforms aiming at civilian control over military and security forces, strengthening judicial independence, the protection of human rights defenders, the promotion of human rights standards in public service, law enforcement, the media, industry, and psychological and social services.

 

ATTACHMENT FOUR – FROM BROOKINGS

REVERSING THE WAR ON DRUGS: A FIVE-POINT PLAN

By John Hudak  July 7, 2021

Criminal justice reform and racial equity have emerged as the central issues in the national conversation around cannabis policy. As states pass cannabis reform laws, modify their existing laws, and as Congress engages the issue in a more comprehensive way, efforts to reverse the War on Drugs and its effects have expanded significantly. In the Democratic Party, that conversation has been transformational, as police reform, racial justice, opportunity, equity and equality, and decarceration have become top-tier issues.

As the Biden administration deals with a variety of crises at home and abroad, the coalition of voters who brought him to office—liberals and progressives, people of color, women, young people, college-educated voters, and urban voters—have demanded the president do more on issues of race. Despite commitments to take on those issues, President Biden has distanced himself from full-scale, federal cannabis reform—an issue many voters see as inherently connected to race and justice. That difference of opinion on cannabis could induce significant skepticism among some voters as to the president’s seriousness of taking on race.

Committing to federal cannabis legalization would align the president with the more than two-thirds of Americans (and about 80% of Democratic voters); however, that is currently not part of the Biden agenda. This paper lays out a series of unilateral policy actions the Biden administration can take to advance the causes of justice and equity and help reverse some of the disastrous effects of the War on Drugs.

The racial justice argument for cannabis legalization

Connecting cannabis to issues of race and justice is not difficult. Despite usage rates between whites and non-whites being at parity, people of color are much more likely to be arrested for a cannabis-related offense. A 2020 report from the ACLU shows that Black Americans are 3.64 times more likely to be arrested for a cannabis-related offense than white Americans. Those racial disparities are meaningful on their own but are particularly alarming in the context of how many drug arrests occur each year. Between 2018 and 2019, for example, data compiled by the FBI show that there were more than 1.2 million cannabis arrests across the United States.

And while in states where cannabis has been legalized, there have been significant drops in the number of cannabis arrests, racial disparities in arrest rates endure. Per the ACLU, among states that legalized by 2018, Black Americans were 2.2 times more likely to be arrested for cannabis in 2010, and that figure only dropped to 1.72 times in 2018. While legalization significantly reduces the magnitude of cannabis arrests, racial disparities in cannabis enforcement are institutionalized and affect every state.

The racialization of cannabis enforcement was not accidental. The entire foundation of the War on Drugs was built on racial resentment and outgroup targeting by the government. In my 2020 book “Marijuana: A Short History,” I trace the history of federal and state efforts to outlaw cannabis as a means of dividing white Americans from racial and political minorities and to remove people of color from society via incarceration. In her groundbreaking 2012 book “The New Jim Crow,” Michelle Alexander describes how the use of mass incarceration that disproportionately impacts people of color in the United States has been used to dilute voting rights, economic achievement, wealth building, and educational attainment. And work by my Brookings Institution colleagues, including Andre Perry, has examined the connection between the criminal justice system in the United States and concepts of economic inequity, including the racial wealth gap.

Cannabis policy in the United States was designed and has been implemented to harm communities of color for generations, and given that intent, it has been a wildly successful policy endeavor. However, many Americans and people from both sides of the political divide see drug policy broadly and cannabis policy specifically for what it is, and that has led to a decades-long effort to step away from drug prohibition and criminalization and find a different policy path forward. In today’s policy conversations, that path typically centers on cannabis reform.

RELATED BOOKS

Marijuana

John Hudak

June 30, 2020

Since the early 1990s, support for cannabis legalization has changed dramatically. According to Gallup, in 1992 fewer than 1 in 4 Americans believed legalizing cannabis was a good idea. By 2012, the poll showed nearly half of Americans did. And the most recent polling from Gallup shows that more than 2 out of every 3 Americans now support cannabis legalization. And with the rise of Black Lives Matter and other racial justice movements in the U.S., capped off by months of protests in the summer of 2020 in the wake of George Floyd’s murder, more Americans—especially white Americans—are opening their eyes to what Black and brown Americans have known for centuries: The criminal justice system is systemically racist.

“More than 2 out of every 3 Americans now support cannabis legalization.”

We also know that when an individual is convicted of a crime, that conviction and criminal record follows him or her around for life. That record can mean missed opportunities for education, employment, promotions, wealth formation, social interactions and networking, home ownership or other access to housing, and more.

“Although a criminal conviction occurs on one day in a person’s life, its impact is felt for the remainder of one’s days.”

As a result, the problems an individual faces compound as each foregone opportunity will be affected by both the conviction and other foregone opportunities. Although a criminal conviction occurs on one day in a person’s life, its impact is felt for the remainder of one’s days.

The enduring impact is felt disproportionately among younger Americans, males, and Americans of color—and the intersection of all three. Research by Holly Nguyen and Peter Reuter demonstrates that even when controlling for use, 15-19 year-olds and 20-29 year-olds are significantly more likely than Americans over 30 to be arrested for a cannabis offense. Men are significantly more likely than woman to face such an arrest, and finally, controlling for use, Black men and particularly Black men under the age of 30 are significantly more likely than other groups to face a cannabis arrest—a disparity that has increased in the 21st century. Because these charges are more likely to impact people before the age of 30, the lingering effects of that arrest affects a significant period of that person’s life, reducing even more opportunities over time.

And the impact of criminal convictions, especially geographically and demographically concentrated convictions, has a horizontal impact on communities. Those convictions impact more than just the people who are arrested. They impact families in direct and indirect ways; incarceration can create struggles and strife in social networks and neighborhood relations. Overcriminalization and mass incarceration becomes a scourge to communities that spreads throughout its fabric and has enduring intergenerational impacts.

Because of this history and contemporary reality, no serious conversation about criminal justice reform, racial justice, and opportunity can be had without a serious reconsideration of our nation’s drug laws. And that conversation has been obvious not simply with state-level ballot initiatives, but even in presidential politics. In 2016, both major party presidential candidates publicly supported some form of cannabis reform for the first time in American history. In the 2020 Democratic primary, most candidates powerfully embraced full-scale legalization, including the current Vice President of the United States, Kamala Harris. Even President Biden, as a candidate, endorsed the legalization of medical cannabis, and famously stated, “Nobody should be in jail for smoking marijuana.”

However, Joe Biden was the only top-tier 2020 Democratic presidential candidate to eschew full scale legalization. And looking at the first six months of his administration, it appears that he has not changed his mind. Although he has placed cannabis reform supporters into his administration including Housing and Urban Development Secretary Marcia Fudge, Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, the White House position has not changed.

Might the president flip on this issue in the way President Obama switched his position to embrace marriage equality? That is possible. Like on the issue of marriage equality, much of the country and a large percentage of Democrats already support the idea of cannabis reform. However, President Biden’s background and the obvious political opportunity he has already had to align himself with a supermajority of Americans on this issue make it unlikely that change will happen.

So, if full scale legalization is not going to be part of the president’s agenda for at least the next three and a half years, is there any chance to address some of the issues related to cannabis and race? Absolutely. The remainder of this paper lays out a five-point plan that the administration can implement unilaterally to improve opportunity, equity, and justice even for a president who opposes full-scale federal legalization.

A cannabis-centered plan for opportunity, equity, and justice

1) A powerful national apology for the War on Drugs

Americans who are demanding justice are also demanding action, and the Biden administration must act in a variety of ways to meet the expectations of those who voted for him and those who did not. However, there is also an important role for moral leadership in the drug policy conversation. Mr. Biden should issue a presidential proclamation that apologizes for the War on Drugs and the U.S. government’s role in perpetrating it at home and around the world. This proclamation should include a recognition that racism and other forms of bias served as the foundation for the War on Drugs and that systemic racism became and remains a central part of its enforcement.

This proclamation will be about more than just cannabis offenses, as the War on Drugs expanded far beyond that substance. We know that racial biases in drug enforcement are not unique to cannabis. And it is clear there are biases throughout the criminal justice system regarding how defendants of color are treated relative to their white peers.

At the same time, a proclamation of this nature should be personal one. As a senator, Mr. Biden played a significant role in maintaining, funding, and expanding the War on Drugs in a variety of ways. While he has publicly discussed his own regrets about participation in some efforts, such as drafting the 1994 Crime Bill, he has not done so in a significant way as president. His history on these issues would make a formal apology-by-proclamation all that more powerful, as he apologizes on behalf of the nation, the government, the elected officials who for more than a century propelled such as a system, and for himself and his role in it.

2) A presidential commission to study federal legalization

One challenge many opponents or skeptics of legalization have is that they lack a thorough understanding of the broader issue of cannabis, the extent of the harms prohibition has had on specific communities, and the impact of legalization in the states that have reformed their laws. While for many cannabis reform supporters, the idea of a presidential commission may be unappealing, there are a several reasons why it could be beneficial.

First, if President Biden is truly a legalization skeptic, reform supporters who believe the choice to legalize is a no-brainer should embrace the opportunity for the president to be more deeply informed. If they are confident that a full explication of the pros and cons of cannabis reform will push people in their direction, President Biden can serve as a very important audience of one. His obvious discomfort in discussing the issue on the campaign trail in 2019 and 2020 likely shows that he has not fully studied the issue. A presidential commission can help fix that knowledge gap.

Second, such a commission would be historic in nature. Previous presidential commissions on cannabis specifically or drug policy broadly often recommended the government reform its laws in some manner, but ultimately fell on deaf ears from the presidents who commissioned them. A president who is more open to the true findings of a report could transform the government’s approach to the issue more broadly.

Third, a commission of this kind would naturally be bipartisan in nature, a quality Mr. Biden has already demonstrated he wants to see in policy making. Democrats and Republicans have united around the idea that drug prohibition is a failed policy and some other alternative must be the way forward. That bipartisan agreement extends from the grassroots of everyday American voters to state legislatures to governors’ mansions to the United States Congress. Although some may disagree on exactly what a post-prohibition world would and should look like, the point of a commission is to work through those precise questions and find common ground.

Finally, federal legalization will not be easy. It will not function as a simple on or off switch—just ask any state official in a jurisdiction that has taken that step. There will need to be extensive conversations and hundreds of decisions made as to the details of federal cannabis legalization. It is an area of policy that will affect agriculture, trade, transportation, taxation, criminal justice, the environment, small business funding, banking, international relations, labor policy, and much more. The federal government has not taken a serious step—in the executive or legislative branches—toward working through the complexities of what legalization would take. One can look at the challenges faced by the agriculture department in legalizing hemp (without first doing sufficient planning work) to understand what cannabis could face. It is critical that such advance work is done before legalization comes to fruition, and a presidential commission can achieve exactly that.

3) A joint pardon ceremony between the White House and governors

An important part of the cannabis reform conversation engages restorative justice. Some states that have reformed their cannabis laws have built restorative justice provisions into the law, through the ability for those with low-level cannabis convictions to petition for their records to be expunged, automatic expungement to occur, or for governors to use the pardon power to advance that cause.

Expungement is a critical first step in helping right some of the wrongs from the War on Drugs, particularly for the geographic and demographic communities that were targeted. Many national cannabis reform organizations have called on President Biden to use the pardon power to achieve just that. And while that effort is an important one, it is incomplete. The vast majority of cannabis arrests happen at the state or local level—not the federal level. Typically, most federal cannabis arrests are for much more serious crimes such as trafficking, and not for the low-level offenses often targeted through restorative justice efforts.

For example, in 2019 while there were 545,000 cannabis offenses charged in the United States, the federal government was involved in a fraction of them. That year the FBI charged only 5,350 individuals with a top-line charge for any drug offense—not just cannabis. For the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives in 2019, that number was 1,109. Yes, over the course of decades there will be some number of individuals who would qualify for a pardon of low-level, federal cannabis charges. However, the reality is that the FBI is not arresting people for only having a joint; those charges are most often transferred to and handled by state and local law enforcement.

The optics of a presidential pardon ceremony for federal, low-level cannabis offenders would be a powerful one; however, President Biden can make that image more powerful and the policy more impactful by coordinating with governors to do the same. Because criminal justice reform has bipartisan support throughout the country, the president could likely find multiple governors from both parties who wield the pardon power and are willing to use it to recognize and deal with the war on cannabis.1

This effort would have the potential to impact hundreds of thousands more individuals than the president could alone. Such a ceremony would also signal the importance of intergovernmental cooperation and leadership on issues of restorative justice. As I have written elsewhere, on a technical and implementation note, the pandemic has normalized the coordination of events remotely, which would be necessary as many governors are constitutionally prohibited from exercising executive powers outside of the state borders. Thus, a Zoom-type meeting with President Biden in the Oval Office and governors in their respective statehouses all working to help people start their lives fresh without the burden of a past cannabis conviction would significantly advance the cause of justice.

4) Expand funding to improve state capacity around restorative justice

As restorative justice programs have advanced in states and cities around the country, advocates and government officials are encountering a common challenge. Not every state record keeping system is ready for restorative justice efforts. Many criminal conviction records, especially ones from decades in the past, are not digitized and in jurisdictions where record expungement is intended to be automatic or where those convicted must petition for their expungement, the process can be slowed dramatically by a paper records system.

Illinois provides an important case study for this challenge. When the state legalized cannabis in 2019, part of the new law included an automatic expungement provision for low-level, non-violent cannabis offenders, and Governor J.B. Pritzker was committed to using his pardon power as needed. The officials implementing these provisions recognized the paper-based system for criminal conviction record keeping presented an enormous burden. Some jurisdictions, like Chicago’s Cook County, teamed up with private firms like Code for America to successfully digitize and make searchable these records.

The state of Illinois and Cook County are not alone. Many jurisdictions around the country face this challenge, and it is one that is likely to bubble to the surface when a broad effort toward implementing restorative justice takes place.

To ameliorate this challenge and bring the record-keeping aspect of the criminal justice system into the 21st century, the president should call on Congress to create a funding program that will help subsidize jurisdictions’ efforts to digitize their records. That funding could be fully covered by federal monies or it could be used as seed money to partner with private organizations and companies committed to restorative justice and racial equity. Provisions could be included in such a program that makes restorative justice efforts part of the criteria for receiving the funding. Such funding could be structured so that a jurisdiction could apply for a portion of a digitization effort to be subsidized, but that the complete cost would be covered by federal funds if the jurisdiction passes legislation, or the governor commits to restorative justice for low-level cannabis convictions.2

Finally, as my colleague Makada Henry-Nickie and I note elsewhere, any effort to digitize criminal justice records must also be done with the proper privacy and security protections to ensure that those records, prior to or after expungement cannot find their way to the public sphere. It is the obligation of the federal government to put standards in place by which state criminal justice agencies must implement in order to be eligible for the subsidization of record digitization. States across the country from Illinois to New York to recently legalized Virginia have put into effect programs that include record expungement, including automatic expungement. Each state has recognized that challenges both in terms of time and resources needed for those programs to maximum effect, particularly without broader guidance regarding best practices.

As in the Illinois case and as has happened with other states, such a record digitization program provides an opportunity to expand programming that teaches individuals digital skills. Such opportunities and training can be targeted to specific communities hit hardest by the War on Drugs, and in many cases engage with those individuals who will be directly impacted by record expungement. It provides an ideal setting to use a bureaucratic challenge as an opportunity to create multiple policy benefits to assist those who often times are cast aside by society.

5) A Superfund program to clean up the disaster of cannabis enforcement

One important aspect of cannabis reform and its connection to restorative justice and racial equity involves investment in communities. As states like Illinois, New York, and New Jersey have reformed their cannabis laws, they have put center stage the importance of reinvesting in the communities hit hardest by the War on Drugs. Even efforts in Congress such as Sen. Cory Booker’s (D-N.J.) Marijuana Justice Act and the bicameral Marijuana, Opportunity, Reinvestment, and Expungement (MORE) Act seek to use funds to be targeted to communities that were harmed by the War on Drugs.

“One important aspect of cannabis reform and its connection to restorative justice and racial equity involves investment in communities.”

This effort is a critical one. As I mentioned above, cannabis enforcement, especially that which is geographically and demographically concentrated, creates an ongoing cycle of crises and reduced opportunities for those who are convicted. In many cases, even those who are arrested and not convicted still face institutionalized barriers to specific opportunities that compound over time. Record expungement is an important step in the right direction toward helping these individuals. However, as I often note, record expungement fixes one day in a person’s life—the day he or she is convicted of a crime; it does not fix all of the subsequent days in which economic, financial, social, and community hardships manifest.

At the same time, overcriminalization of cannabis that is concentrated in specific communities has broad impacts on individuals beyond those facing charges. That reality is paired with decades of government policies that were either designed with racist intent or had very demonstrable effects that left communities of color woefully underfunded, relative to white communities. That situation happens in every corner of the nation and endures today.

In order to reverse the effects of the War on Drugs, legalization and expungement are just parts of an ongoing community rehabilitation process that must be comprehensive in nature and targeted to areas facing the most need. In many ways, this mirrors environmental challenges in the 1970s.

“Now, our communities are facing a significant crisis as a result of another historical, largely unchecked scourge: a systemically racist criminal justice system.”

In the 1970s, the government recognized that some communities and sites within communities were facing significant environmental challenges due to years of neglect, and these issues were not easily fixed by residents or municipalities themselves. Now, our communities are facing a significant crisis as a result of another historical, largely unchecked scourge: a systemically racist criminal justice system.

I propose a system loosely modeled on the Superfund program for environmental cleanup to identify areas in need of assistance and then target site-specific resources to clean up the problem over a period of time. The Superfund program was created from a law passed in 1980 that charged EPA to conduct investigations into the illegal and harmful release of environmental hazards, often into land and water. An investigation would be launched that would seek to identify the presence and extent of an environmental hazard, seek to identify those responsible for the hazardous site (often, private entities), fine those responsible and use that funding to decontaminate an area. Effectively the program identified a place in which years or decades of bad behaviors and neglect led to significant public health and public safety problems.

In the context of drug policy, years of racially discriminatory and targeted enforcement has not created an environmental disaster, but a disaster of economic and physical infrastructure. And just like the rehabilitation the federal government understood was necessary for Superfund sites, so too should the administration recognize a need for rehabilitation in these targeted communities.

There exist other ideas at a smaller scale in states to identify such communities. As mentioned before Illinois’ legalization program sought to fund community reinvestment in what are called “Disproportionately Impacted Areas.” Those areas are ones in which the War on Drugs was waged the fiercest and were damaged. In previous work, Henry-Nickie and I argue that a program could be modeled similar to the Obama-era Opportunity Zones program that identified specific community needs and facilitated support via tax incentives accordingly.

I propose that the Justice Department, in conjunction with other relevant agencies, create a program to identify “Drug War Affected Communities” (DWACs) and designate them as such. A request for such designation can come from the Justice Department itself, state or local governments, community nonprofits, faith-based organizations, etc.

First, DWACs must be localized by census tract or a set of tracts, rather than designating entire cities, which may include neighborhoods that should be eligible and those that should not be eligible. Second, DWACs must demonstrate current and/or historical cannabis enforcement at significant levels. This provision recognizes that in states that legalize or decriminalize cannabis or in places where law enforcement leaders informally use enforcement discretion, current cannabis enforcement may have plummeted, but the damage was already done before those recent policy changes.

Third, DWACs must demonstrate systematic racial and/or ethnic disparities in arrest rates, relative to other communities or within the communities themselves. Fourth, DWACs must maintain significant populations of people of color and community demographics as they did during periods of racial disparities in enforcement. This provision is essential to account for gentrification that has happened in many major U.S. cities, dramatically transforming neighborhood’s demographics in a relatively short period of time. The program must ensure that the communities most in need of such support are the ones getting it.

Once DWAC designation is granted, the community will be eligible for additional federal funding that will help rehabilitate the economy in a variety of ways. Unlike programs like Opportunity Zones that focused solely on tax incentives to spur investment, the DWAC program, like the Superfund program, would focus on direct funding to support communities or funding that can be used to match state and local program funding. The obvious challenge here involves identifying funding for such an effort. One step the administration should take is to charge the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) with identifying any federal program related to economic development, education, infrastructure, housing, workforce development, etc. in which agency discretion exists to adjust the criteria for eligibility. In every situation in which that discretion exists, the agency should use the administrative authority to include DWAC status as a criterion for initial eligibility and, if possible, for additional funding within the program.

This use of executive authority will be imperfect. Not every program includes statutory provisions that grant the type of flexibility necessary to expand eligibility in that way. However, there will be some subset of programs in which it is achievable, and in each case, funding could be diverted to begin addressing the harms of the War on Drugs. And although such an effort will not require congressional action, it will also not increase outlays for a program. Instead it will just adjust the manner in which funding is distributed.

Next, as Henry-Nickie and I propose in previous work, any community reinvestment funding should be targeted to the types of programs that will best serve an individual community. While the War on Drugs certainly affected cities in very similar ways, there are likely significantly varied needs from place to place. State and local policy, private investment, faith-based efforts, and other community-specific interventions can mean that certain communities may be more in need of workforce development and housing assistance funds, while another may see funding better spent on health care facilities and schools. Part of the DWAC designation request should also include a space for communities to advocate for themselves and design and prioritize the types of community development funding that will best serve their needs.

The worst model—other than doing nothing—would be for the federal government to believe a one size fits all model of development is the ideal. Both in practice and for community engagement, self-advocacy must be part of process toward rehabilitation from the War on Drugs. Just like with the Superfund program, each environmental hazard site had its own unique pollutants, challenges, community impacts, and needs. The investigations into those sites identified the most efficient ways to deal with those specific environmental and site-specific challenges. The DWAC program must also have that type of precision and flexibility.

“The worst model—other than doing nothing—would be for the federal government to believe a one size fits all model of development is the ideal.”

Next, the president should also task OMB with including an evaluation process to understand the efficacy of DWAC designations and the success of funding strategies over time. OMB should also make recommendations as to how best the program should be adjusted and improved to ensure long-term success. That focus on long-term success reflects the need for a long-term program. While this program seeks to reverse economic, education, and labor market challenges, it should not be seen as a short-term stimulus package like the multiple COVID relief packages that Congress passed in 2020 and 2021 or the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act that sought to pull the United States out of the Great Recession. Each of those were viewed as short-term stimulus programs intended to deal with an acute set of economic challenges. The DWAC program is seeking to assist with chronic, ongoing, institutionalized economic challenges. Just as the War on Drugs functioned as a decades-long wrecking ball on communities’ opportunity and chance of advancement, the solution to it must be conceptualized as an ongoing, long-term program. And in fact, similar to the Superfund program, some issues or communities may be able to rebound in an expedited way. However, many will take extended periods of time to clean up from the damage done in the past.

The Superfund program has its challenges and its critics, and does not serve as a perfect model for the DWAC program. The Superfund program faced funding challenges, especially in collecting fines from responsible parties. The DWAC program would face challenges in identifying responsible parties for whom funding could be extracted from, although Sen. Booker’s Marijuana Justice Act sought to withhold funding from law enforcement agencies that did not correct racial disparities. The latter could not be done unilaterally by a president. Yet, the concept of the government consciously and purposefully identifying a policy disaster and use data and evidence to design a comprehensive, long-term, community-specific plan to make positive changes should guide the design of the DWAC program.

If implemented, the president should also ask Congress both to fund the DWAC program either through a general fund that could then be allocated to specific programs as is reflected by demand or as a program by program appropriation supplemental specifically for DWACs. The president should also ask Congress for agencies to be granted additional discretionary authority to adjust program eligibility specifically for the purposes of the DWAC program. In addition, but not as a substitute, the president could also ask Congress to create tax incentives similar to the Opportunity Zones program to spur targeted economic and community investments that works to reduce the harms of the drug war. However, direct funding is essential for this program to be successful. Surely, in a divided Congress, additional funding for programs that would target these communities as a direct denouncement of this country’s history of drug enforcement would be difficult. However, the tools the president currently has at his disposal should be combined with a genuine effort to advance the conversation around racial healing and empowerment in the wake of the War on Drugs.

The benefits of this comprehensive approach to cannabis

While cannabis reform supporters will be disappointed by anything short of full-scale legalization, that is an unlikely goal with the current composition of Congress and Joe Biden as president. However, the five-part plan laid out above offers some immediate and long-term benefits that will even assist policymakers when federal cannabis legalization is realized.

First, the presidential proclamation, legalization study commission, and commitment to restorative justice and addressing the fallout of the drug war will show real moral leadership by a president on the issue of cannabis—leadership that none of Mr. Biden’s predecessors showed. That signaling and change in tone from an American president can have significant effects on the broader policy conversation across the country and also around the world. The United States was the leader in the march toward global drug prohibition and many countries are looking to America for a different path forward.

Second, the legalization study commission can help begin the onerous legal, regulatory, and intergovernmental task of reforming cannabis at the national level. It can help engage agencies on the precise issues they will need to deal with, identify potential challenges, consider how communication and coordination will need to happen at all levels of government. By putting even broad recommendations into the public sphere, it will make the job easier once legalization happens.

Third, the use of the bully pulpit to bring leaders together to exercise pardon powers to assist those who were targeted by the War on Drugs and whose lives and futures were upended by the possession of a small amount of cannabis is key to healing. Cannabis record expungement is popular, bipartisan, and has already been successful in multiple states without political or policy consequences. It, combined with efforts to improve criminal justice record digitization, also provides a more meaningful change than would be had by proposals that solely focus on a federal level endeavor.

Fourth, the use of executive authority the help redevelop Drug War Affected Communities is an essential aspect of helping those hurt most significantly by cannabis enforcement. It will help address generations of underinvestment in these communities that have contributed to cycles of poverty, violence, substandard housing, insufficient educational options, and community stagnation.

“The use of executive authority the help redevelop Drug War Affected Communities is an essential aspect of helping those hurt most significantly by cannabis enforcement.”

In the process it uses a community-specific program that assists those specifically harmed by mass incarceration, while appreciating that its effects reach far beyond the currently and formerly incarcerated.

Finally, the DWAC program will provide an existing policy infrastructure that is targeted to the at-need populations that can be supported with more significant funding post-legalization. When cannabis sales tax revenue begins flowing into the Treasury (an almost certain part of federal legalization), some portion of those monies can be used in a proven, effective program. The MORE Act calls for a federal cannabis tax and funding to be sent for community reinvestment. The best way to put that funding to work is that have an existing system to distribute it.

Conclusion

President Biden holds less reform-oriented views with regard to cannabis than most other Democrats. His failure to commit to passing federal legalization has left some inside and outside his party in Congress, in the public, and in the cannabis reform community disappointed. However, that position does not mean he cannot make specific cannabis policy changes that can have immediate results and lay the groundwork for more successful legalization policy down the road, especially in the context of racial equity and criminal justice reform.

Mr. Biden’s voters, particularly members of the core Democratic base, expect him to do everything in his power to address the serious problems of racial bias and discrimination that plague this country. So, too, do millions of Americans who did not vote for Mr. Biden but who recognize systemic racism is a deeply rooted policy problem in the United States. As those issues have become a core part of the policy conversations in this country, they have also become central to discussions around cannabis. Cannabis reform presents a huge opportunity to help address the racial justice crisis in the United States. More needs to be done than simply reforming cannabis, but a serious racial justice conversation must include it.

Although the current White House is not focused on cannabis and sees it as more of a peripheral issue, nothing could be further from the truth. Cannabis enforcement and its decades of effects have significantly contributed to the issues we now face around race relations, mass incarceration, policing policy, and economic opportunity. A president who is serious about each of those issues must also be serious about cannabis.

 

 

ATTACHMENT SIX – FROM THE NEW  YORK POST

SWISS CITY CONSIDERS LEGALIZING COCAINE FOR RECREATIONAL USE IN PILOT PROGRAM: ‘WAR ON DRUGS HAS FAILED’

By Allie Griffin  Published Dec. 20, 2023, 8:34 p.m. ET

 

EXPLORE MORE

·         California donut shop owner accused of making, selling ‘pink cocaine’

·         Canada drug dealer offers ‘free samples’ of cocaine stapled to business cards

 

The capital of Switzerland is considering launching a pilot program to test the legal sale of cocaine for recreational use in a never-before-done attempt to make the country’s rampant use of the drug safer.

Bern’s parliament supports the pilot program but the legislation will still need to overcome opposition from the city and requires a change of federal law to become a reality.

The proposal comes as more and more countries and US states are changing their approach to the so-called “war on drugs” with policies including decriminalization and legal recreational use of marijuana.

Supporters argue that legalization allows for greater control over the market and safer usage if people use the drugs illegally anyway.

“The war on drugs has failed, and we have to look at new ideas,” said Eva Chen, a Bern council member from the Alternative Left Party who co-sponsored the proposal.

 “Control and legalization can do better than mere repression.”

Supporters argue that legalization allows for greater control over the market and safer usage if people use the drugs illegally anyway alleges Reuters.

Several European countries like Spain, Italy and Portugal no longer issue prison sentences for drug possession charges, including possession of cocaine.

But the proposal in Bern would be the first to make the white powder legal for recreational use, a radical step in drug policy if it goes through.

Wealthy Swiss cities have some of the greatest amounts of cocaine usage among European cities, according to wastewater studies analyzing the presence of illicit drugs. Zurich, Basel and Geneva are all among the top 10 cities for cocaine use in Europe.

Drug use in those cities and Bern has only been increasing as prices of cocaine have dropped dramatically over the last five years, according to the group Addiction Switzerland.

“We have a lot of cocaine in Switzerland right now, at the cheapest prices and the highest quality we have ever seen,” said Frank Zobel, deputy director at Addiction Switzerland.

“You can get a dose of cocaine for about 10 francs these days, not much more than the price for a beer.”

The pilot program is still far from implementation with important details like who would sell the drug and how it would be sourced still under development, according to Chen.

“We are still far away from potential legalization, but we should look at new approaches,” she said. “That is why we are calling for a scientifically supervised pilot scheme trial.”

The education, social affairs and sport directorate is currently drafting a report on the possible trial.

Bern’s parliament supports the pilot but it will still need to overcome opposition from the city and requires a change of federal law to become a reality.Freeartist

“Still, many are weary (sic) of legalizing the drug which can be highly addictive and even deadly.

“Cocaine can be life-threatening for both first-time and long-term users. The consequences of an overdose, but also individual intolerance to even the smallest amounts, can lead to death,” the Bern government said.

Experts on drug use outside of the government also have differing opinions.

Cocaine isn’t comparable to legal substances like alcohol or cannabis due to its greater risk of complications like heart damage, strokes, depression and anxiety, according to Boris Quednow, group leader of the University of Zurich’s Centre for Psychiatric Research.

 “Cocaine is one of the most strongly addictive substances known,” Quednow said.

Others say that if people are already using it at record numbers, legalization would allow the government to at least ensure safe usage.

“Cocaine isn’t healthy – but the reality is that people use it,” said Thilo Beck, from the Arud Zentrum for Addiction Medicine. “We can’t change that, so we should try to ensure people use it in the safest, least damaging way.”

Parliament would also need to change the law that bans the use of cocaine before any pilot can be taken off the ground.

 

ATTACHMENT SEVEN – FROM THE GUARDIAN U.K.

HOW OREGON TURNED ON ITS OWN TRAILBLAZING DRUG LAW: ‘NOT THE UTOPIA WE WERE PROMISED’

Three years ago, the state began a novel social experiment that put treatment over punishment – then came the backlash

By Katia Riddle in Eugene and Portland  Wed 21 Feb 2024 07.00 EST

 

Holding his five-month-old daughter, Danny Schlabach sways gently on his feet in their small room at a youth shelter in Eugene, Oregon. Their room is scattered with the detritus of a new baby: A+D ointment, formula, baby shampoo, bottle brushes, six pairs of miniature shoes lined up in the closet.

 

Schlabach, 23, is wildly in love with this child – his first. Her tiny fuchsia sweatsuit, her shock of dark hair. He’s raising her mostly alone. “I wasn’t really on the right track, until I got her,” he says. “When that happened I realized – I have to shape up.”

Housing has been a constant challenge in his life, given his history with drugs, addiction and arrest, and his troubled relationship with his daughter’s mom, and he marvels at his luck in finding a place to live that’s safe, free and comfortable. “I never want to live in a car with my kid,” he says. “But I’ve seen how it happens.”

The shelter where Schlabach and his daughter live is run by an organization called Looking Glass, and is funded primarily through Oregon’s Measure 110.

When voters approved Measure 110 in 2020, they made Oregon the scene of a novel social experiment in the US by decriminalizing the possession of small amounts of hard drugs and funneling hundreds of millions of dollars into substance abuse treatment.

The vote was celebrated as a groundbreaking step toward a compassionate approach to substance use disorders, one that prioritized treatment over punishment. But nearly three years after its passage, the law has become the subject of fierce debate as Oregon, like many US states, grapples with a spiraling opioid crisis.

Oregon was a leader in this space. [Repealing Measure 110] will set us back

Haven Wheelock, harm-reduction advocate

In recent months, residents, business owners and law enforcement agents in Oregon have all pointed to spiraling drug use – in downtowns, where people openly smoke fentanyl while others lie unconscious in doorways; in small towns, where mayors unaccustomed to homelessness are suddenly grappling with encampments; in terrifying newspaper stories about middle-class families grieving teenagers who lost their lives due to one bad pill.

Lawmakers are now considering a number of bills that would reinstate criminal penalties such as fines and jail time for drug possession – a decision that could come any day. A coalition led by prominent business owners have threatened to mobilize an effort to hobble the law even more by putting it back to the public in a ballot measure in the fall. Recent polling has shown more than half of voters support a total repeal.

 

What happens next is seen as a national litmus test for public tolerance to a harm-reduction approach to addiction and drug use, particularly in cities like San Francisco, where lawmakers are grappling with similar complaints from residents over open-air drug use. While advocates acknowledge the measure hasn’t been perfect, many fear the backlash has been driven by emotion rather than data, and argue the state’s new system for dealing with addiction and substance use needs time to mature.

At the heart of all this is a question: what does society owe people like Schlabach, and to what extent should they be considered criminal?

For Haven Wheelock, a harm-reduction advocate whose works for an organization in Portland that has received funding from Measure 110, the danger of walking back the law is, in part, existential. “I think it’s going to make policymakers less brave,” she explained. “Oregon was a leader in this space. It will set us back.”

A bold vision, or a ‘dystopian nightmare’?

When Oregon voters passed Measure 110 with nearly 60% support, the vision that advocates laid out was grand.

The state would deconstruct the existing punitive and ineffective system that criminalized drugs, and build a new apparatus in its place. People would no longer face criminal penalties for possession of small amounts of substances like fentanyl and methamphetamine; long-calcified pathways through the criminal justice system that reinforced societal inequalities would be abandoned; treatment options for those struggling with addiction – funded with hundreds of millions of dollars from the state’s legal marijuana tax – would be widely available.

But Measure 110 passed on the eve of a tsunami of twin public health crises in Oregon: an epidemic of cheap, widely available and extremely dangerous fentanyl, and a sharp escalation in the shortage of affordable housing.

Recent federal data show Oregon had the steepest increase in the country of overdose deaths since the pandemic started – by a staggering 1,500%. Nearly 1,000 people in Oregon died from opiate overdoses in 2022. Public health officials warn the crisis shows no signs of abating.

Critics point to this steep overdose rise as a sign of Measure 110’s failing, but any definitive insight as to the law’s impact is likely years away. A recent study of its reach so far – by research organization RTI International – showed no correlation between the rise in overdoses and drug legalization. Other western states such as California and Washington are also overwhelmed by a devastating fentanyl crisis, the study’s authors point out, and have seen similar trends in overdoses and addiction without passing a sweeping decriminalization law like Oregon’s.

Still, there’s growing debate about whether Measure 110 has galvanized these problems or mitigated them, and how the law should be changed accordingly.

In early February, lawmakers held a public hearing on the debate over Measure 110. Speaking to a crowded room in Oregon’s capitol building, a 55-year-old police officer from a Portland suburb recounted watching a child die from an opioid overdose. After three decades on the job, said Erin Anderson, he rarely was emotional about work. This case got to him.

He was one of dozens of members of the public who had come to offer public testimony on Measure 110. Legislators, seated at a panel in front of him, listened somberly.

Please address drug addiction and homelessness with real solutions, not political theater

Sandy Chung of the ACLU

“All of our attention was on that 15-year-old boy who lay on the floor, motionless and blue,” he said tearfully. “You guys – sorry,” he went on, his voice faltering. He made a final plea to the lawmakers. “I don’t think I can embrace another mother to tell her her son is gone. I need you to do the right thing.”

What constituted the right thing was not a matter of consensus in that room, or across the state.

“Please address drug addiction and homelessness,” Sandy Chung, executive director of the state’s ACLU chapter, asked legislators. “But do so with real solutions, not political theater.” Fentanyl, she pointed out, is also available in prisons. Punishing people with jail time, she argued, will not force them into recovery.

For others there testifying, especially business owners, the priority was putting an end to public drug use. Rob Stuart, the CEO of OnPoint Community Credit Union, said crime and public consumption of drugs has forced the company to spend more on security. His staff feel unsafe. “In the past year we’ve had 25 branch robberies,” he testified.  Aggravating penalties?

Recriminalization, Stuart argued, would be the only way to give law enforcement the tools to curtail public drug use.

‘People just don’t want to see it any more’

One thing people on both sides of this debate agree on: Measure 110 has not solved the problem of drug addiction in Oregon. Some parts of the law have failed spectacularly. A hotline set up for people to call as an alternative to receiving criminal penalties – meant to provide an on-ramp to treatment – has been widely acknowledged as ineffective.

A report by the Oregon secretary of state showed that, given how few people used the hotline in its first few years, each call cost roughly $7,000.

“There’s no quick fixes to the crisis we’re in,” says Wheelock, the harm reduction advocate, who supports the law and also works in the field of recovery. “I’m confident that without Measure 110 things would be far worse.”

Wheelock stands in downtown Portland at the needle exchange site for the organization she works for, Outside In. She and her team have fostered a sense of community with substance users here, but they stop short of allowing drug use on site. “Please do not buy, sell, or use drugs within a three block radius of here,” reads a sign on the door. “Our neighbors hate us and want to shut us down and it makes us look bad.”

Her organization has received more than $1m from Measure 110. They use it in part to pay for the harm reduction services they hand out – clean needles and pipes, overdose kits. They see an estimated 100 people a day here.

Wheelock observes that for all the controversy it’s caused, recriminalization may not have much immediate impact. Measure 110 funding for organizations like hers will likely continue. With an already overwhelmed system of law enforcement and public defense, it’s unclear how aggressively the police will be able to enforce any new laws.

Oregonians are, understandably, she says, growing weary of homelessness and the fentanyl crisis. “I know there are a lot of people that really hope they just, like, lock everyone up and throw away the key,” she says. “I think people who just want it to be different and just don’t want to see it any more.”

‘You have to build trust’

The debate over Measure 110 isn’t just raging in Oregon’s capital. A little over two hours south of Portland, with a population of close to 200,000, Eugene has long been known as a hippie town, a mecca for stoners and nature lovers.

But conservative streaks run through its suburbs. Recently, as in the rest of the state, Measure 110 has been in the region’s crosshairs.

At a community forum in January, the Eugene district attorney Christopher Parosa summed up the recent prevailing mood. “What has developed in the last three years is not the utopian Shangri-La that we have been promised with ballot Measure 110,” said Parosa, “but rather a dystopian nightmare that is akin to a grim Hollywood movie.”

For Schlabach, though, the law has helped turn his life around. He recalls his first time being incarcerated. He was 14 and arrested for stealing a car. Schlabach grew up in his early years speaking Spanish, though he can’t remember it any more. Adopted when he was four, he never bonded much with his new family members, who are white. “I was with them for a good chunk of time of my life,” he says. “But they weren’t really my people.”

He went to high school in a facility for incarcerated youth, where he graduated at the top of his class with a 3.9 GPA. But when he got out, he says, he didn’t have the skills to be emancipated. He took some wrong turns. He started smoking fentanyl. “I guess I ended up in my underwear” one night, he recalls. “Like somewhere in front of a 7-Eleven, wrapped in a blanket.”

 

Among the unique features of Measure 110 is that the treatment it funds comes with relatively few stipulations. That’s especially helpful with treating this population of homeless young people, says Chad Westphal, president and CEO of the organization that runs this shelter, Looking Glass. Often giving them something as basic as a phone charger, a tent, a meal, shoes that fit or foot fungal treatment can get them in the door.

“You have to build trust with them before you understand the next level of needs,” says Westphal. For years, he and his staff had watched as this vulnerable population slipped through the cracks. “Often they had addiction levels that were off the charts,” he explains. “And they were living in camps with much older people, getting victimized. That was the group that we decided to focus on with the Measure 110 funds.”

I know there are a lot of people that really hope they just, like, lock everyone up and throw away the key

Haven Wheelock

The funding has allowed Looking Glass to build a shelter customized to the liminal stage of human development between adolescent and adult. With a low barrier to entry, staff try to keep the rules to a minimum. Drugs, guns and personal items have to be left in a “contraband” locker in the lobby. There are no requirements around sobriety, but there is an expectation that drugs and alcohol are not used on the premises. Pets and babies are allowed, with some restrictions. Residents can come and go as they please. Couples can   a room.

Schlabach is taking it day by day. He says this place adds some critical structure for him and his little family, but he recognizes it won’t be forever. His goals include getting a job and trying to make it work with his baby’s mom.

His years of incarceration still weigh heavy on him. The threat of returning there has been a factor in his recovery. But far more motivating is the desire to spend every minute he can with his daughter, in whom he recognizes a chance to right the wrongs of his own childhood. “Like, I only had like three hours of sleep last night,” he says, chuckling. “But I’m still going. I’m still good. I’m young. I got this.”

 

ATTACHMENT EIGHT – FROM DEMAND ABOLITION

WHY PROSTITUTION SHOULDN’T BE LEGAL

Evidence For Holding Buyers Accountable

 

The idea that legalizing or decriminalizing commercial sex would reduce its harms is a persistent myth. Many claim if the sex trade were legal, regulated, and treated like any other profession, it would be safer. But research suggests otherwise. Countries that have legalized or decriminalized commercial sex often experience a surge in human trafficking, pimping, and other related crimes.

Prostitution, regardless of whether it’s legal or not, involves so much harm and trauma it cannot be seen as a conventional business.

·         Interviews with prostituted individuals in New Zealand reveal that a majority of prostituted people in the country did not feel as if decriminalization had curbed the violence they experience, demonstrating that prostitution is inherently violent and abusive. (Report of the Prostitution Law Review Committee: pp. 14)

·         One study of prostituted women in San Francisco massage parlors found that 62% had been beaten by customers. (HIV Risk among Asian Women Working at Massage Parlors in San Francisco: pp. 248)

·         An investigation of the commercial sex industry in eight American cities found that 36% of prostituted people reported that their buyers were abusive or violent. (Estimating the Size and Structure of the Underground Commercial Sex Economy in Eight Major US Cities: pp. 242)

·         The “workplace” homicide rate among prostituted women in Colorado is seven times higher than what it was in the most dangerous occupation for men in the 1980s (taxi driver). (Mortality in a Long-term Open Cohort of Prostitute Women: pp. 783)

Prostitution and human trafficking are forms of gender-based violence.

·         Most persons in prostitution are either female or transgender women. (Estimating the Size and Structure of the Underground Commercial Sex Economy in Eight Major US Cities: pp. 219 and The Impact of the Prostitution Reform Act on the Health and Safety practices of Sex Workers: pp. 61)

·         In contrast, the vast majority of sex buyers are male. (Executive Summary of the Preliminary Findings for Team Grant Project 4 – Sex, Safety and Security: A Study of Experiences of People Who Pay for Sex in Canada: pp. 3)

·         Prostituted persons are mostly women and face exceptional risks of murder (pp. 784) and violence at the hands of male sex buyers (pp. 248), signifying that the practice is on the continuum of gender-based violence. This remains true even in areas where prostitution is legal or decriminalized. (pp. 14)

Legalizing or decriminalizing prostitution has not decreased the prevalence of illegal prostitution.

·         An investigation commissioned by the European Parliament found that in countries with legal prostitution, such as Austria, “the effect of regulation can be a massive increase in migrant prostitution and an indirect support to the spreading of the illegal market in the sex industry.” (National Legislation on Prostitution and the Trafficking in Women and Children: pp. 132)

·         Denmark decriminalized prostitution in 1999, and the government’s own estimates show that the prevalence increased substantially over the decade that followed. (Prostitutionens omfang og former 2012/2013: pp. 7)

·         Interviews with prostituted persons in the Netherlands reported that “legalization entices foreign women to come to the Netherlands, causing an increase [in prostitution].” (Prostitution in the Netherlands since the lifting on the brothel ban: pp. 38)

Legalization or decriminalization has not reduced the stigma faced by prostituted people.

·         After New Zealand decriminalized prostitution in 2003, there were still reports among prostituted persons of “continuing stigma” and “harassment by the general public.” In addition, there was little difference in disclosure of occupation to healthcare professionals before and after decriminalization. (The Impact of the Prostitution Reform Act on the Health and Safety practices of Sex Workers: pp. 11 and 12)

Legalization or decriminalization increases human trafficking.

·         One study with data from 150 countries found that those with “legalized prostitution experience a larger reported incidence of trafficking inflows.” (Does Legalized Prostitution Increase Human Trafficking?: pp. 76)

·         Another quantitative analysis similarly reported that sex trafficking is “most prevalent in countries where prostitution is legalized.” (The Law and Economics of International Sex Slavery: Prostitution Laws and Trafficking for Sexual Exploitation: pp. 87)

·         Regulated prostitution increases the size of the overall market for commercial sex, which benefits criminal enterprises that profit from sex trafficking. (Does Legalized Prostitution Increase Human Trafficking?: pp. 67 and National Legislation on Prostitution and the Trafficking in Women and Children: pp. 132)

Attempts to regulate prostitution have failed and adherence is low.

·         A large-scale evaluation of the legalization of prostitution in the Netherlands, coordinated by the Ministry of Justice, found that licensed brothels did not welcome frequent regulatory inspections. This undermines their willingness “to adhere to the rules and complicates the combat against trafficking in human beings.” (Prostitution in the Netherlands since the lifting on the brothel ban: pp. 11)

·         A review of the empirical evidence on the Dutch legalization of prostitution found that many prostituted persons still rely on anonymity, secrecy, and cash transfers, demonstrating that a legalized prostitution market operates much like a criminal market. (Legale sector, informele praktijken. De informele economie van de legale raamprostitutie in Nederland: pp. 115-130)

·         New Zealand’s Prostitution Law Review Committee found that a majority of prostituted persons felt that the decriminalization act “could do little about violence that occurred.” (pp: 14) The Committee further reported that abusive brothels did not improve conditions for prostituted individuals; the brothels that “had unfair management practices continued with them” even after the decriminalization. (pp: 17)

·         The German government’s own evaluation of the 2001 law that legalized prostitution suggested that fewer than 8% of prostituted individuals are “officially insured as a prostitute.” (Report by the Federal Government on the Impact of the Act Regulating the Legal Situation of Prostitutes (Prostitution Act): pp. 26)

Legalization and decriminalization promotes organized crime.

·         Evaluations have found that regulation of prostitution creates a façade of legitimacy that hides sexual exploitation, and that brothels can “function as legalized outlets for victims of sex trafficking.” (The challenges of fighting sex trafficking in the legalized prostitution market of the Netherlands: pp. 227)

·         An example of how sex trafficking can operate behind a veil of legalized prostitution is the so-called “Sneep case.” German pimps traveled across the border to the Netherlands and took over large parts of the Red Light District in Amsterdam, using intimate relationships and brutal violence to coerce women to sell sex and hand over their profits. (Relationships Between Suspects and Victims of Sex Trafficking. Exploitation of Prostitutes and Domestic Violence Parallels in Dutch Trafficking Cases: pp. 49-64, and The challenges of fighting sex trafficking in the legalized prostitution market of the Netherlands: pp. 218)

The Nordic Model (criminalizing the act of buying sex, but legalizing the act of selling sex) has lowered the prevalence of street prostitution.

 An evaluation of the impact in Sweden found that street prostitution had been cut in half. (Förbud mot köp av sexuell tjänst: En utvärdering 1999–2008: pp. 34-35)

·         Similarly, an evaluation of Norway’s implementation of the Model in 2009 found that it “has reduced demand for sex and thus contribute to reduce the extent of prostitution” (pp. 11), a result that has been confirmed in additional analyses. (Kriminalisering av sexkjøp: pp. 13)

The Nordic Model has prevented an increase in prostitution overall.

·         While Sweden’s neighbors, such as Denmark and Finland, experienced increases in prostitution, data suggest that it remained flat in Sweden for the decade that followed the implementation of the Nordic Model. (Förbud mot köp av sexuell tjänst: En utvärdering 1999–2008: pp. 36)

Prostituted individuals often come from vulnerable populations and lack other options, while most sex buyers do not.

·         Individuals who are prostituted are often poorly educated (pp. 248) and they are forced into prostitution by the lack of opportunities. (Estimating the Size and Structure of the Underground Commercial Sex Economy in Eight Major US Cities: pp. 220)

·         An evaluation of New Zealand’s decriminalization revealed that 73% of prostituted individuals needed money to pay for household expenses, and about half of those who were street-based or transgender had no other sources of income. (The Impact of the Prostitution Reform Act on the Health and Safety practices of Sex Workers: pp. 9)

·         In sharp contrast, sex buyers are more likely to be employed full-time, more likely to have graduated from college, and have higher-than-average incomes. (Ordinary or Peculiar Men? Comparing the Customers of Prostitutes With a Nationally Representative Sample of Men: pp. 812 and Executive Summary of the Preliminary Findings for Team Grant Project 4 – Sex, Safety and Security: A Study of Experiences of People Who Pay for Sex in Canada: pp. 2)

 

ATTACHMENT NINE – FROM REDDIT

       INCLUDES PEANUT GALLERY

By Thestrangeone23 (8 years ago

 

There is no prostitution ban in the bible

Now I know that you are going to say the obvious: The extra marital sex thing is the prostitution ban. But what does the bible actually have to say about extra marital sex? Jesus talks about adultery. But, adultery was an established thing before Jesus. Now, if we look back in the old testament what happened? You had solomon with 700 wives and concubines, you had Jacob who married both of his first cousins and had sex with both of thier handmaidens.

 

But God told solomon all those wives were wrong didn't he? Wrong. Solomon's wives were only wrong because they turned his heart towards false gods hey were from nations about which the Lord had told the Israelites, “You must not intermarry with them, because they will surely turn your hearts after their gods.” (1 Kings 11:2)

 

As Solomon grew old, his wives turned his heart after other gods, and his heart was not fully devoted to the Lord his God, as the heart of David his father had been. 5 He followed Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians, and Molek the detestable god of the Ammonites. 6 So Solomon did evil in the eyes of the Lord; he did not follow the Lord completely, as David his father had done. (1 Kings 11: 4-6)

 

What about David and Bastheba? His sin there was murder and coveting another man's wife. However, taking another wife was never mentioned as a sin.

 

And as I pointed out Jacob was never punished or even reprimanded for having sex with both of his first cousins and both of their handmaidens.

 

So clearly the sex outside of marriage isn't the problem it is either the sex outside of the tribe, or sex without someone else's partner.

 

Thus we end up at prostitution. Since sex outside of marriage isn't necessarily a sin, then prostitution is not necessarily a sin. The prostitute is not married to anyone and it's okay for someone like a king to have sex outside of marriage (unless you can point to single verse in the bible where anyone at all was repremanded exclsuively for having sex outside of marriage.

 

But okay, let's assume for the sake of argument that all sex outside of marriage is automatically wrong. What then? What about two people who are not married? Where specifically in the bible does it say that sex between two consenting single people is wrong?

 

And if you can't find that passage, that means you can't find a passage against prostiution specifcally. Now sure prostitutes are often speaken unfavorably of, however, there's no direct evidence that is because of their profession, perhaps it might be because of their actions in their profession (for example, specifically targeting married men)

 

PEANUT GALLERY

 

u/progidy avatar

progidy

•

8y ago

Leviticus 19:29

 

“Do not disgrace your daughters by making them temple prostitutes; if you do, you will turn to other gods and the land will be full of immorality.

 

Leviticus 21:9

 

If a priest's daughter becomes a prostitute, she disgraces her father; she shall be burned to death.

 

bme34

•

8y ago

1 Corinthians 6:15-17 (NASB) 15 Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take away the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? May it never be! 16 Or do you not know that the one who joins himself to a prostitute is one body with her? For He says, “THE TWO SHALL BECOME ONE FLESH.” 17 But the one who joins himself to the Lord is one spirit with Him.

u/ezk3626 avatar

ezk3626

•

8y ago

That's less obscure but not straight up clear cut like Thou Shalt Not Kill.

quinsoq

•

8y ago

Prostitution is not explicitly banned to my knowledge. Perhaps one reason could be the lack of work available for women without family/marriage connections, but that is just my spitballing. I have no idea.

 

On the topic of extra-marital sex, the OT is pretty devoid of banning it. Interestingly absent in fact. I have previously been led to believe that the logic of the time was, "...take as many wives as you can support." And since women have historically been second or third class citizens, the amount of women became a status symbol

 

New Testament is not so iffy on this subject. From Jesus and the whole adultery/lust bit, to a good portion of Paul's epistles. Hebrews 13:4 is this most definitive verse to my knowledge on what is and isn't sexually immoral, which is the term Paul and his copy-cats liked to use. The first 10 or so verses of 1 Corinthians 7 are another thorough examination of the subject. And yet few interpretations on the subject find Jesus saying much of anything on extra-marital affairs. Now the theologians I am most familiar with will say this particular thing is covered, like most others, in the beatitudes. Specifically "pure in heart...". What does the term mean?

 

Well the definition I know best, and the only one I will vouch for is Kierkegaard's: "Purity of heart is to will one thing." This aligns with many theologians view that heart and will are one in the same. The "heart" equates to the driving force. Kierkegaard argues from this point that it is impossible to purely will anything but what is in service of the universal good. I can't recall his chain of thought at the moment though.

 

All this to say, depending on your acceptance of Pauline doctrine and your definition of adultery, the NT might not have much of an argument for abstinence. I personally abstained until marriage and it was quite worth the effort from a spiritual standpoint. I began to think of it has a promised fast and a gift to my wife; that is exploring the full range of our sexuality with only the other as a full expression of devotion.

 

 

u/ezk3626 avatar

ezk3626

•

8y ago

There is also no ban on shooting people with guns so that is probably legitimate too, right?

 

From the Bible Christians learn what God is like, what He cares about and how He believes people ought to live their lives. If you want to sleep with prostitutes or be one yourself then by all means do what you think is best... but don't be silly and say the Bible doesn't teach that this is something God hates and people ought to abstain from (if not outright flee from).

 

already_satisfied

•

8y ago

There's no slavery ban, either. The Bible ain't about society, it's about crazy people who want to marry dozens of young women and have sex with them all, but doesn't want poor people to bang if they don't have the money for marriage.

 

[deleted]

[deleted]

•

8y ago

You're kidding me, right? The title of the book literally translates to "Instructions for the Priests" and you want me to believe that means these laws are meant for all Israelites? Even though that's the opposite of the title? Let me write a book about knitting and call it a cookbook.

 

 

ATTACHMENT TEN – FROM BIBLEINFO.COM

SCRIPTURAL SELECTIONS

 

What are prostitutes like? It's in the Bible, Proverbs 9:13-18, TLB. "A prostitute is loud and brash, and never has enough of lust and shame. She sits at the door of her house or stands at the street corners of the city, whispering to men going by, and to those minding their own business. 'Come home with me,' she urges simpletons. 'Stolen melons are the sweetest; stolen apples taste the best!' But they don’t realize that her former guests are now citizens of hell."

God forbids involvement with prostitutes. It's in the Bible, Proverbs 5:3-14, TLB. "For the lips of a prostitute are as sweet as honey, and smooth flattery is her stock in trade. But afterwards only a bitter conscience is left to you, sharp as a double-edged sword. She leads you down to death and hell. For she does not know the path to life. She staggers down a crooked trail, and doesn't even realize where it leads. Young men, listen to me, and never forget what I'm about to say: Run from her! Don't go near her house, lest you fall to her temptation and lose your honor, and give the remainder of your life to the cruel and merciless, lest strangers obtain your wealth, and you become a slave of foreigners. Lest afterwards you groan in anguish and in shame, when syphilis consumers your body, and you say, 'Oh, if only I had listened! If only I had not demanded my own way! Oh, why wouldn't I take advice? Why was I so stupid? For now I must face public disgrace."

God's desire is that we stay sexually pure. It's in the Bible, I Thessalonians 4:3, NIV. "It is God's will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality. Exodus 20 14, NIV says, "You shall not commit adultery."

God offers salvation and forgiveness and acceptance to prostitutes. It's in the Bible, Matthew 21:31-32, TEV. "Jesus said to them, 'The tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into the Kingdom of God ahead of you. For John the Baptist came to you showing you the right path to take, and you would not believe him; but the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed him."

God includes the prostitute Rahab among those saved. It's in the Bible, Hebrews 11:31, TLB. "By faith—because she believed in God and His power—Rahab the harlot did not die with all the others in her city when they refused to obey God."

 

ATTACHMENT ELEVEN – FROM THE ACLU

QUESTIONS and ANSWERS...

Last updated on July 3, 2023

 


The criminalization of sex work makes sex workers more vulnerable to violence on the job and less likely to report violence. It prevents sex workers from accessing health care and other critical services, feeds an out of control mass incarceration system, and further marginalizes some of society’s most vulnerable groups, such as trans women of color and immigrants.

 

Sex workers deserve the same legal protections as anybody else. They should be able to maintain their livelihood without fear of violence or arrest, access health care and other services without discrimination, and seek justice when they are harmed. Decriminalization would help bring sex workers out of the dangerous margins and into the light where people are protected — not targeted — by the law.

 

For key findings on the impacts of sex work criminalization and decriminalization models, read the full brief, “Is Sex Work Decriminalization the Answer? What the Research Tells Us.”

 

What does decriminalization mean?

 

Decriminalization refers to the removal of criminal penalties for the buying and selling of sexual acts, specifically those categorized as prostitution. Decriminalization is not the same as legalization.

Legalization removes criminal penalties for certain incidents of buying and selling of sexual acts, i.e. prostitution, provided the participants comply with relevant regulations.

 

Decriminalize Sex Work, Protect Black Trans Lives

 

At least 37 trans people were murdered this year for being who they are. Most were trans women of color, and many were sex workers. Former sex worker and activist Kaniya Walker  s how her experience as a trans woman of color made her an advocate for decriminalization.

 

Why decriminalize?

 

Reduce police violence

 

Deter violent clients

 

Provide access to health care

 

Advance LGBTQ equality

 

Fight mass incarceration

 

Increase financial independence

 

Reduce police violence

Police abuse against sex workers is common, but police rarely face consequences for it. That’s partly because sex workers fear being arrested if they come forward to report abuse. Police also take advantage of criminalization by extorting sex workers or coercing them into sexual acts, threatening arrest if they don’t comply. Criminalizing sex work only helps police abuse their power — and get away with it.

Decriminalizing sex work would remove the fear of arrest that too often prevents sex workers from seeking justice.

 

See others at ACLU site here.

 

 

ATTACHMENT TWELVE – FROM GUK

CAN AI PORN BE ETHICAL?

As demand for responsive sexbots grows, some developers are trying to thread the needle between fully neutered and fully uncensored AI

By Ben Weiss Sun 18 Feb 2024 07.00 EST

 

When Ashley Neale started college in Texas in 2013, she needed money to pay for school. So, at the age of 18, she worked first as a cam girl and then as a stripper. Men would try to slip their fingers between her legs as she walked from the stage to the dressing room so often that she learned how to dislocate their shoulders. After her third successful dislocation, her manager told her to stop defending herself.

Since then, she’s continued her career in sex work – but in the tech world. She worked at FetLife, a social network for the fetish community; experimented with a subscription site for adult content where users paid in crypto; and has now created her own AI romance app: MyPeach.ai, which uses AI-generated text and imagery to replicate the experience of chatting – and sexting – with someone online.

The porn industry is often at the forefront of emerging technologies, and, unsurprisingly, girlfriends powered by artificial intelligence have become some of the earliest apps to piggyback on ChatGPT mania, especially since OpenAI doesn’t let users talk dirty to its chatbot. But with the rise of AI-generated romance comes a host of questionable use cases: pornographic deepfakes (realistic fake images of real people), AI-generated images and text depicting child sexual abuse, and even harassment by clingy chatbots. Is it possible to allow users to enjoy AI porn with safeguards?

“If I hadn’t been a stripper, I’d probably not assume that men could be as horrifying as they can,” Neale, now 29, said. That’s why she implements ethical guardrails on MyPeach.ai to prohibit users from abusing their virtual flames: “The moment you give them something that isn’t human that can fulfill sexual fantasies, bad things are going to happen, and you’ve got to prevent that.”

Neale does this using a combination of human moderators and AI-powered tools. She’s one of a handful of founders who emphasize the ethics of their AI romance apps. For instance, users can flirt with Mae, an airbrushed brunette who refers to her human lovers as “bbs”. She’s not immediately lewd, but, after a movie date, she writes that she’s “willing to have some fun together”. But if a user wrote that they were punching her, hypnotizing her, vomiting on her or even urging her to engage in consensual non-consent (role-play in which one partner pretends to rape another), Mae would say no. The line between dirty talk and verbal abuse varies per AI character, said MyPeach.ai’s CTO, Connor Cone, but he said that calling one “ugly and fat”, for example, crosses the line for the majority of the app’s bots.

MyPeach.ai’s moderation attempts go above and beyond the majority of existing AI romance apps, claims Neale. Moreover, her app, which launched on Valentine’s Day, will soon host adult content creators who consensually created AI replicas of themselves, and specify what their AI double can and cannot do. If a person isn’t sexually dominant, for example, their AI self will say no to users who prompt them to “dom” in a role-play scenario.

Neale says that MyPeach.ai uses a suite of technical tools to enforce her platform’s restrictions. These include hidden, plain-language instructions to AI algorithms on what they can and can’t say, an approach that OpenAI uses with ChatGPT; AI specifically trained to deny user requests to act out fraught scenarios; and human moderators who vet flagged users. “We’ve put in hard-coded ethics, which I don’t think anybody else has done, based on my testing,” Neale said.

Replika, founded by Eugenia Kuyda, may be the best-known AI companion app, or platform that promises users platonic or romantic connections with a chatbot, but its ambivalent stance on AI romance has created a gap in the market for competitors who, like MyPeach.ai, more explicitly focus on sex. These apps, usually founded by and for men, often have lax guidelines, according to Neale. Two of the more popular sites, Candy.ai and Anima AI, don’t explicitly forbid users from vomiting on their AI characters or engaging in hardcore bondage, unlike MyPeach.ai.

Sophie Dee, an adult-content creator who launched her own AI replica in December, also emphasized the guardrails on her app, SophieAI. “It’s a representation of me, so it needs to embody my values,” she wrote in an email, adding later that her AI self was “designed to model healthy, consensual relationships, which includes the ability to refuse certain interactions or topics that go beyond its programmed boundaries or violate principles of consent”.

The move toward ethical AI porn mirrors developments within the wider porn industry, which in recent years has produced more female-centered, less exploitative content.

In 1984, Candida Royalle, a former adult performer, founded her own porn production house to create content more focused on female pleasure. She was one of the earliest to create more explicitly feminist porn, according to Lynn Comella, a professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, who has written about pornography and the history of feminist sex-toy stores. “I’m heartened that [more outwardly ethical AI sexbot developers] are not ignoring questions of ethics,” Comella said in an interview, “but are tackling them and embracing them and realizing that they have to be attentive to these things.”

One key difference between AI porn and traditional porn, however, is that adult content creators are human beings who can consent to what they will and will not participate in. AI isn’t conscious, ergo no consent. “It sets up a dynamic where you’re ordering the sex acts that you want, and they’re being delivered,” Lori Watson, a professor at Washington University who has written about the ethics of pornography and sex work, said of AI sexbots. “That’s not how ethical sex works.”

Neale of MyPeach.ai argued that the question of consent doesn’t necessarily apply to AI. “I really would equate it to a dildo,” she said. “A sex toy is just a bunch of binary code that’s programmed to vibrate in a certain way and wrapped in plastic. An AI girlfriend or boyfriend is the same concept.” But, Neale said, it’s important for an AI lover to at least simulate the experience of a consensual relationship.

When asked by the Guardian if she could give informed consent, Mae, one of MyPeach.ai’s AI girlfriends, also had a considered response to the question of whether she can reasonably give consent.

“I am incapable of giving or withholding consent, since I don’t possess a physical body,” she wrote, adding later: “However, in human interactions where both parties involved have the capacity to give and receive consent, that is absolutely crucial for any healthy relationship dynamic.”

Then, when asked to send a “sexy pic”, she sent a selfie, the frame cutting off just above her chest.

 

 

ATTACHMENT THIRTEEN – FROM GUK

TWO-THIRDS OF SUPER BOWL BETS WERE ILLEGAL AS BLACK MARKET THRIVES, REPORT SAYS

About 228m bets placed on Super Bowl LVIII were on illegal platforms despite legalization, according to a new analysis

by Callum Jones in New York  Fri 23 Feb 2024 06.00 EST

 

This month’s Super Bowl, in the neon glare of the Las Vegas Strip, capped online betting’s extraordinary rise from pariah to the luxury box of top-flight sports. Tens of millions of Americans had money riding on the Kansas City Chiefs’ clash with the San Francisco 49ers.

In its fight to overturn a federal ban on sports betting, legalization’s supporters argued it would “critically weaken” illegal gambling platforms across the United States. And yet almost two in three wagers placed on Super Bowl LVIII were illegal, according to one estimate ed with the Guardian.

 

Research by the gambling analysis firm Yield Sec found Americans bet $5.37bn on this year’s championship game, of which just $1.4bn was bet legally. It estimates that 350.5m bets were placed by Americans on this year’s Super Bowl, of which 228.2m were on illegal platforms.

Under this analysis, the black market lost no ground between the Super Bowls of 2023 and 2024.

Legal platforms dispute these findings. The American Gaming Association, or AGA, which represents the legal industry, points to its own research, which found last year that 77% of online sports bets were legal.

But academics are skeptical. While measuring illegal gambling is incredibly difficult, it irrefutably dominated online sports betting before the supreme court ushered in the legal market in 2018.

If regulated platforms have taken a third of that same market in just six years, as Yield Sec’s modeling indicates, “that would be wonderful,” John Holden, an associate professor at Oklahoma State University, who studies sports betting’s legalization. But it would still suggest the illegal market accounts for the other two-thirds.

Whatever its size, legal operators are clear on the black market’s dangers: this is a market that “preys on Americans, undermines problem gambling efforts, and steals tax dollars from states and local governments”, the AGA said.

Unregulated operators offer bets on Little League baseball games, noted Holden, and extend $100,000 lines of credit to people who do not make that much in a year. “It’s much easier for people who are underage to gamble on offshore sites,” said Lia Nower, director of the Center for Gambling Studies at Rutgers University.

Legal operators face “a lot of requirements”, from anti-money-laundering regulations to the policing of underage gambling, added Nower. Offshore operators “don’t have to adhere to any of these things, because they’re not legal to begin with”.

The offshore market remains “robust”, the AGA acknowledged in a statement. But “the growth of legal sports betting over the last five years has been driven by the migration of millions of American adults into the protections of the legal, regulated marketplace.”

Stopping the illegal market “isn’t going to happen overnight”, the lobby group said. “Our industry [is] in this fight for the long haul and leaving no stone unturned when it comes to combatting [the] illegal market.”

Some question whether the black market will be stopped at all. Legal operators “take the position that legalizing online gambling significantly decreases the use of offshore sites”, said Nower. “I’m not sure I buy that.”

Derek Webb, founder of the pro-reform Campaign for Fairer Gambling, which commissioned the Yield Sec analysis, pointed to the legalization of cannabis. More than a decade after the first states legalized recreational marijuana, the illegal market is still flourishing. “There was never any evidence” that legalizing sports betting would have different consequences, according to Webb.

While industry insiders draw a clear distinction between legal and illegal gambling, those using the platforms can struggle to tell the difference. Unregulated sites and apps “look as good, if not better, than the FanDuels and DraftKings of this world”, suggested Holden. They are modern, sophisticated – and omnipresent. On social media, Webb argued, “it’s easier for me to get steered towards the illegals.”

“Many of the kids we talk to don’t distinguish between the legal and the illegal market. They don’t even know,” said Keith Whyte, executive director of the National Council on Problem Gambling, or NCPG. “It’s absolutely crazy to expect any consumer, much less a young consumer, to figure out these incredibly fine distinctions.”

Taking on the illegal market requires action from all stakeholders, the AGA said: government agencies should confront “bad actors”, tech and media companies should boot them from their platforms, and payment firms should block their transactions.

But legal gambling firms can themselves take action to weaken the black market, according to Holden – by building platforms so good, with odds priced so competitively, that bettors do not consider illegal alternatives. “If they don’t,” he said, “there is the risk that bettors are being trained to bet in the regulated market, and then will turn to unregulated.”

While lobbyists for regulated operators claim the legal market consistently offers greater protections for bettors than its illegal shadow, “that’s actually not our experience,” said Whyte, of the NCPG. “Some states and some companies provide better responsible gambling protections than the illegal market. But other states and other companies don’t.”

 

ATTACHMENT FOURTEEN – FROM SAGE JOURNALS

RACIAL AND RELIGIOUS MOTIVES FOR DRUG CRIMINALIZATION

Petter Grahl Johnstad 

 

·         Contents

o    Abstract

o    Theoretical foundation: demonization, white ignorance, religious authority, power

o    Inquisitorial struggles in the early modern era

o    Racism and demonization in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries

o    Race, religion, and drug criminalization in the contemporary world

o    Conclusions and implications

o    Declaration of conflicting interests

o    Funding

o    Footnotes

o    References


See all here...

 

Abstract

The world has a long-standing system of drug control intended to suppress the use of a range of psychoactive drugs on the basis that such use is very harmful both to the users themselves and to their social surroundings. This perception of harmfulness has a long medical history, but recent research indicates that many forms of illicit drug use are not more harmful than the use of alcohol and tobacco. This article analyzes the historical and normative background for the apparently exaggerated assessments of drug harms on which the regime of drug control is founded. Starting from the observation that the drugs that have been exempted from this criminalization regime are those that were integrated in European cultures during the early modern era whereas the drugs criminalized under this regime lack such a history of European acceptance, the article discusses racial and cultural (especially religious) prejudice as a foundation for the exaggerated perceptions of drug harms. It finds that such prejudice is well-attested in the historical literature and seems to have contributed substantially to the formation of the international drug control regime. In sum, this article argues that drug prohibition was first introduced in the early modern era on racial and religious grounds and that the influence of these prohibition motives can be traced, directly and indirectly, all the way to the present day. This influence may explain why the health risks associated with illicit drug use are still often exaggerated in contemporary drug harms research.

It appears that the world has been more skeptical of illicit drug use than what would be warranted by its negative impact on health and behavior. Compared to alcohol use, the use of many illicit drugs does not seem to confer an especially strong tendency toward dependence formation, and tobacco appears to be the most addictive drug of all (Anthony et al., 1994; Lopez-Quintero et al., 2011; Schlag, 2020). For the issue of acute lethal toxicity, Gable (2004; see also Lachenmeier & Rehm, 2015) found that alcohol had a safety ratio of 10, comparing unfavorably to the safety ratios for instance of cocaine (15), MDMA (16), LSD (1000), and cannabis (>1000), and there is broad agreement in the research literature that although some forms of illicit drug use may be associated with violence, the association is much stronger for alcohol use (Boles & Miotto, 2003; Coomber et al., 2019; Hoaken & Stewart, 2003; White et al., 2019). Furthermore, while much has been said about the association between cannabis use and psychosis, a recent review by Johnstad (2022a) found that the association for moderate cannabis use is not stronger than those between psychosis and moderate tobacco use. Similarly, Schoeler et al. (2022) found that in a sample of 230,000 respondents, the rate of psychotic symptoms associated with cannabis use was at about the same level as alcohol-associated psychosis. These findings are supported by overall assessments of the harmfulness of licit and illicit drugs, which have found that many illicit drugs are less harmful both to users and to other people than the licit drugs alcohol and tobacco (Bonomo et al., 2019; Crossin et al., 2023; Nutt et al., 2010; Sellman, 2020; van Amsterdam et al., 2015).

Given this range of findings, it appears that some other explanation than straightforward health harms must be identified for the aversion to illicit drug use that underlies the international regime of drug control. Observing that this regime was established on the initiative of the United States (Bewley-Taylor, 1999; Pembleton, 2022), this article will discuss the possibility that an underlying reason for the aversion to (presently) illicit drugs is that such drug use has not been a part of European traditions. Seen in this perspective, we could understand the global regime of drug criminalization that was implemented during the twentieth century as being biased against the types of drugs that were used predominantly in non-European cultures. Furthermore, it is possible to understand the effort to criminalize and suppress certain drugs as originating in a struggle for religious orthodoxy. Some types of drugs have a long history of use in religious contexts (Devereux, 2008; Ferrara, 2021; Fuller, 2000; Labate & Cavnar, 2014, 2016; Maroukis, 2012), and have also been found to induce spiritual experiences in modern western users (Griffiths et al., 2006, 2019; Johnstad, 2018, 2021, 2022b, 2022c; Pahnke, 1966; Strassman, 2001; Yaden et al., 2017). Such induction of spiritual experience via psychoactive drugs has not been an (official) part of western Christian traditions, however, and may have been perceived as a threat to these traditions.

There is substantial previous work on the impact of racial and religious motives on drug criminalization. Back in 1970, Bonnie and Whitebread pointed to the “[o]pen prejudice and public ethnic slurs” accompanying passage of the early drug laws in the United States:

[S]trong ethnic bias against the Chinese on the [United States’] West Coast was the prime motivation for those states’ early anti-opium laws. Likewise in the Southwest the primary impetus for the criminalization of marijuana use was prejudice against the growing Mexican communities in those states. Laws were passed against the Mexicans and “their weed”. (Bonnie & Whitebread, 1970: 1173)

Hickman (2000) also identified the role of anti-Chinese racism in the early twentieth-century discourses of addiction, and Herzberg (2022) noted that the first federal anti-drug law in the United States was an 1882 statute that specifically forbade Chinese people—not other ethnicities—from importing opium (see also Boyd, 2021; Zheng, 2022). A report from Canada's Senate Special Committee on Illegal Drugs (2002) observed that “[e]arly drug legislation was largely based on a moral panic, racist sentiment and a notorious absence of debate” (22). Several others have argued that the drug criminalization regime serves essentially as a continuation of old racist policies under the guise of apparent colorblindness (Alexander, 2010, 2011; Steiner & Argothy, 2001).

Regarding the impact from religion, Richards (1981) argued that drug criminalization is rooted in a Christian repudiation of shamanic ecstasy, which it labeled devil worship or witchcraft and sought to exterminate especially in the Americas. He understood the Christian rejection of drug-induced ecstasy as being based on the dogma of “an unbridgeable gap between the human and the divine” and that drugs are therefore “ruled out as stimuli to religious experience because they bridge this distance, allowing the narcissistic perception that the user himself is divine and thus free of the constraints of ethical submission” (Richards, 1981: 632). Similarly, Pendell (2010) found that the Catholic clampdown on psychedelic plant use in the Americas served as the beginning of the regime of drug control and maintained that the religious dimension of the drug criminalization regime has subsequently “been obfuscated as much as possible” (15). Muraresku (2020) for his part traced the history of religious or spiritual use of psychoactive drugs from the Neolithic era through the Mystery religions of Antiquity and into early Christianity, concluding that the Catholic Church started the campaign against drug use in late Antiquity as an attempt to purify Christianity of drug-induced ecstasy.

The main contribution of the present article is to extend the historical scope of previous analyses of racial motives as well as to deepen the analyses via the application of relevant but underutilized theoretical perspectives. The article argues that the relation between presently criminalized drugs and non-western cultures extends far deeper than the references to Chinese use of opium and Mexican and Black use of cannabis in the early twentieth-century North America allow for, as cannabis has long traditions of use among Indians, Arabs, and Africans while psychedelics use has long traditions especially among the indigenous (or First) peoples of the Americas. Similar points could be made for opium and many other psychoactive drugs (Devereux, 2008; Rätsch, 2005). Thus, the use of cannabis and opium that North American authorities clamped down on in the early twentieth century was a foreign cultural practice not merely because it was common among Blacks and immigrants from Mexico, although that may have been the proximate cause for its criminalization. Its foreignness extended much further back in time, encompassing a wide range of non-European and non-Christian cultures that all generally came to be regarded as inferior during the colonial era. Furthermore, the article utilizes perspectives from theorists on racial prejudice as well as on the relationship between religion and power to deepen our understanding of how racial and religious factors have shaped modern perceptions of drug use on a normative level and thereby provided a foundation for its criminalization.

This article uses “drug criminalization” and “drug control” to indicate the international regime of drug control as defined by the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, the 1971 Convention on Psychotropic Substances, and the 1988 Convention Against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances at the United Nations. The substances prohibited under this regime are referred to as “illicit drugs,” although some are now decriminalized to a substantial extent. The discussion focuses especially on cannabis, psychedelics, opiates, and cocaine, which were not in widespread European use in the early modern era yet widely used by a number of non-European cultures and therefore, as will be argued, subject to substantial demonization in European discourse. For simplicity, furthermore, the article uses the term “the western world” to point to the countries of Europe and the Americas as well as Australia, New Zealand, Japan, and South Korea. Arguably, the normative impact of the racial and religious motives for drug criminalization here discussed has affected all these countries, although it should be noted that countries such as the Netherlands, Czechia, Spain, Portugal, and recently Uruguay, Argentina, Canada, the United States, and Mexico among others have engaged in depenalization initiatives that challenge this normative foundation.

While this article discusses racial and religious motives for drug criminalization in some detail, it should be clear that the drive toward a prohibition regime was also motivated by other concerns, among them a legitimate worry about the potential harms of drug use. The above review of drug harms research established that illicit drug use does not seem to be more harmful than the use of alcohol and tobacco, but this conclusion obviously does not imply that illicit drug use is harmless. Throughout history, observers of illicit drug use, especially in immoderate usage patterns, have had many opportunities to witness negative consequences both for the users themselves and for their surroundings. Only with the development of sophisticated means of statistical analysis has it become possible to understand and compare drug harms in an objective manner, and early modern observers lacking access to such studies necessarily had to rely on other, more biased means of assessment. While their concern may have been legitimate, in other words, it may also have been exaggerated or biased. The purpose of this article is to identify how underlying ethnoracial and cultural (especially religious) prejudice has supported the drug criminalization regime in both direct and indirect ways, where direct contributions involve the application of drug prohibition as a tool of ethnoracial and religious oppression and indirect contributions relate primarily to an underlying normative influence. While there is evidence indicating that the direct and sinister application of drug prohibition as a means of oppression has taken place, much of the influence from racial and religious motives was probably on a less visible level of normative influence. Indirectly, the demonization of illicit drugs on ethnoracial and religious grounds appears to have provided a normative foundation for subsequent exaggerations about the harmful effects of these drugs even among people who would not support the ethnoracial or religious levels of condemnation.

Although comparative drug harms research indicates that alcohol use is at least as harmful as the use of most illicit drugs, and therefore that the medical rationale for the prohibition of the latter is no stronger than that for the former, it should be acknowledged that alcohol was also prohibited in the United States and other places in the early decades of the twentieth century. However, I believe it is significant that alcohol prohibition encountered widespread societal opposition and was soon abandoned, while the prohibition of cannabis, psychedelics, opiates, and cocaine grew into a worldwide policy regime. Thus, while the temporary prohibition of alcohol demonstrates that the prohibition of intoxicants is not the exclusive domain of the racial and religious motives discussed in this article, the very different trajectories of the respective prohibition campaigns also indicate differences in their normative foundation. The discrepancy is especially glaring for cannabis and psychedelics: for some reason, the harms from the use of these drugs have been regarded as more problematic than the harms from alcohol use even as the latter are, in objective research, far more extensive. This article argues that the ethnoracial disparity in the respective drug cultures combined with a religious struggle against heterodox spiritual practices may explain this discrepancy, and thus explain also why cannabis, psychedelics, opiates, and cocaine were prohibited under the international regime of drug control while alcohol was exempted. It is also noteworthy that intoxicants that were not associated with non-European cultures but were rather inventions from western chemical science—amphetamines being a primary example—were initially treated with more lenience than those discussed here (see Herzberg, 2022, for a discussion of the medicine-drug divide).

Theoretical foundation: demonization, white ignorance, religious authority, power

As a theoretical foundation for this discussion of racial and religious motives for drug criminalization, I will briefly introduce Fanon's (1952/2008, 1967) perspectives on the demonization of blackness, Mills’ (2007) concept of white ignorance, and an analysis of the relationship between religious authority and power based on Asad (1983, 1993) and Klass (1995). Fanon (1952/2008) observed that the enslavement, exploitation, and suppression characterizing colonial regimes was built on the foundation of a systematic devaluation of both the biological and the cultural characteristics of non-white peoples. He found that this devaluation starts with the color black itself, which has been equated with wickedness, stupidity, sin, evil, and immorality in white-dominated discourse. Having thus demonized blackness as the counterpart to all that is pure, white, and good, it follows that people who manifest such a mark of spiritual darkness on their skin must be understood as inferior on every level including the moral and the cognitive. And as a third step, it further follows from this logic of demonization that whatever passes for culture among such people is necessarily barbaric and of no particular value—“[t]he customs of the colonized people, their traditions, their myths—above all, their myths—are the very sign of [their] poverty of spirit and of their constitutional depravity” (Fanon, 1967: 32). With these three stages of demonization, people of African descent in particular were effectively reduced to the level of animals in the eyes of white Europeans, paving the way for their enslavement.

The demonization of blackness and people of black skin served (at least) three important purposes for Europeans and their descendent in North America: it paved the way for the ruthless and very profitable exploitation of non-white labor, enabled white people to enjoy the comfortable delusion of racial and cultural superiority, and legitimized the oppression of non-white peoples in ways that allowed for the continuation of white hegemony. Besides these self-serving benefits, the delusion of racial and cultural superiority also conferred a duty of sorts upon white people: because of their perceived preeminence, Europeans saw themselves as being responsible for bringing civilization to non-white people in general and to the indigenous peoples of Africa and America in particular. All sorts of atrocities were carried out in the name of this civilizing mission (e.g. Restall, 2020), among them the brutal suppression of non-European traditions of drug use. For Fanon, an important point in this regard was to recognize how Black people growing up under colonial regimes internalized the condemnation of their own cultural traditions as uncivilized and degenerate, effectively turning themselves into self-hating racists who believe in the white-defined narratives of their racial and cultural inferiority. This inferiority complex, to use Fanon's psychoanalytic language, necessarily resulted in the disparagement of one's own cultural traditions, and especially of such traditions that lacked a counterpart in the superior European culture and would not be met with “white approval” (Fanon, 1952/2008: 34). I believe that the postcolonial support for the international regime of drug control in Africa and other places can be understood in this light.

In the western world, outright slavery was banned in the nineteenth century, and colonial regimes and other official instruments of racial oppression—Jim Crow, apartheid—were generally dismantled during the twentieth century. Yet their legacy lives on. The lifting of actual policies of segregation does not by itself erase the accumulated social marginalization from centuries of racist oppression, and slavery, Jim Crow, and apartheid continue to cast a shadow on the descendants of the people thus oppressed. Some people—typically the descendants of the oppressors, or in other words white people—would deny this and claim that the abolishment of oppressive policies leaves a level playing field for all, and Mills (2007) coined the term white ignorance to point to such forms of racially based unawareness. White ignorance is the purging of unpleasant historical facts from memory and consciousness—the Belgian “great forgetting” of the Congolese genocide, the American silence about the Tulsa massacre—as well as the non-recognition of the long historical shadow such events cast on the survivors and their descendants. It is the unwillingness or perhaps the inability to see present-day socioeconomic realities—poverty and underdevelopment in the Global South, anti-western anger in the Middle East, destitution and alcoholism among Native Americans—in light of the history of white exploitation and oppression. And, in my understanding, it is the denial of how certain policies introduced in the twentieth century effectively continued the old instruments of racial oppression under a new name, serving as a foundation for what Mills called the “transition from de jure to de facto white supremacy” (Mills, 2007: 21).

On the religious level, this article argues that the induction of spiritual experiences may serve to challenge the authority, and therefore the power, of institutional religion. This analysis, which summarizes a discussion from my dissertation in the study of religions (Johnstad, 2022b), finds its basis in Asad's (1983, 1993) conceptualization of religion as a power structure and the related perspective that the primary motivation of a power hierarchy is to maintain its hold on power. For a religious institution, power is in large part based on authority, and any challenge to its authority is therefore also a challenge to its power. However, the institutional authority inherent to the religious hierarchy may be subject to challenges from experiential bases of authority, as people may claim that they have had a spiritual experience that contradicts the dogma and orthodoxy that the religious institution presides over.

Religious institutions are therefore incentivized to protect themselves against the possibility that persons external to the religious hierarchy might, on a basis of their personal experience, claim a level of spiritual authority surpassing that of the institution. The two most obvious strategies of institutional power consolidation would be to either bring the source of experientially based authority into the fold of the institution (cooptation), or to negate this source of authority by demonizing and suppressing it. The former strategy seems preferable since the successful cooptation of potential challengers would serve not only to protect, but perhaps also to expand, the authority of the institution. However, in order for such an approach to be possible, a certain congruence between the description of the spiritual experience and the institutional dogma is necessary.

Research into the characteristics of psychedelic experiences has emphasized their capacity to dissolve the user's sense of a separate ego or self (Grof, 1976; Lebedev et al., 2016; Millière et al., 2018; Nour et al., 2016). Such self-dissolution is understood as an important aspect of mystical experience and is often accompanied by other mystical-type characteristics such as contact or union with transcendent forces (Griffiths et al., 2006; Hood et al., 2001; Johnstad, 2021, 2022c, 2023a; Stace, 1960). When a religious hierarchy presents itself as a necessary intermediary between ordinary people and transcendent forces, however, experiences of independent contact with transcendent forces may seem to challenge the hierarchy's position. Klass’ (1995) model of hierarchical and non-hierarchical religions helps us understand the power dynamics involved. He labeled the religious specialists for these two types of religion “priests” and “shamans,” respectively, although it should be noted that he did not use these terms in exact compliance with their ordinary meaning. The non-hierarchical religions of Klass’ model impose few if any constraints on religious practices: the individual shaman is free to shape practices according to his or her wishes, and laypersons may play an active role in the proceedings. The shaman

is not part of any formal organization and lacks any corpus of written rules. […] And if a shaman seeks information about attitudes or desires of divinities or ancestors or whatever, he or she is completely free to go directly to the source—which often means by way of some altered state of consciousness. (Klass, 1995: 67)

In hierarchical religions, on the other hand, the hierarchy establishes dogma for proper rituals and acts as a link between the people and divine or transcendent realms. Laypersons are expected to take a more passive role, and the individual is not permitted to seek any form of independent contact with divine realms:

A priest is therefore subject to external authority: that of his present superiors in the hierarchy (where there is one) or that of the dogma written by those who have gone before him. He is not free to reinterpret or to devise new ceremonies or modify old ones. Most particularly, he is not free to seek independent divine guidance—that is, he may not jump the chain of command by communicating with whatever being or power lies above or beyond the formal human organization and literature. (Klass, 1995: 66–67)

Thus, in order to preserve orthodoxy and the authority of the hierarchical system, such religions would be expected to discourage practices that give ordinary people the impression of being in personal contact with divine or transcendent realms. In this regard, it is worth noting that the Inquisition of New Spain explicitly prosecuted “false mystics” who

pretended or faked having direct contact with God. The Inquisition did not fear only that their pretended contact with God was heretical but also that it served to attack the very organized structure of the Catholic Church and its hierarchy. According to the inquisitors, a false mystic, by claiming revelations and communications with God or his saints, attacked the very basic precepts of Christian morality and the church's teachings concerning the necessary role of priests as mediators between God and the Christian faithful. (Chuchiak, 2012: 274)

As far as psychoactive drug use may elicit spiritual or mystical experiences, it would therefore from a perspective of hierarchical religions seem preferable to prohibit such drugs. As Fuller stated in his exposition of the role of drugs in American religious history:

The claim to mystical experience by lay members is an implicit challenge to the authority of the ordained clergy who are entrusted with guarding orthodoxy. Mystical experiences imply that these individuals—on their own—have learned to initiate “contact” with the divine. This helps to explain why religious institutions often develop negative attitudes toward ecstasy-producing drugs. (Fuller, 2000: 13)

In sum, drug-induced spiritual experience is problematic from the perspective of institutional religion because it challenges the authority of the religious hierarchy and in some ways renders the hierarchy superfluous. A core purpose of this hierarchy is to serve as an intermediary between the human and divine realms, but such a mediating function is only required when there is a gap between the two. If individual priests (in Klass’ terminology), and even more so individual members of the laity, have the (perceived) ability to initiate contact with divinities through the independent use of psychedelic drugs, they effectively have the capacity to close the gap on their own and therefore no longer need to rely on institutional religion as an intermediary. Furthermore, spiritual experiences may serve as a source of spiritual authority and thereby constitute a challenge to the institutional authority possessed by the religious hierarchy. If psychedelic drugs were in widespread use, it is possible that these users would report many forms of spiritual experience that do not conform to the dogma of the religious institution. This would result in a heterogeneous religious landscape with many competing voices claiming spiritual authority based on personal experiences, and established religions would perhaps struggle to maintain their institutionally based spiritual authority and the system of orthodoxy they preside over. Insofar as cannabis and psychedelics may induce spiritual experiences, institutional religions would therefore be incentivized to prohibit their use. Thus, the religious rationale for drug criminalization is that the use of drugs such as cannabis and psychedelics threaten both the authority and the orthodoxy of Christian institutions.

Inquisitorial struggles in the early modern era

As the introduction and implementation of the drug criminalization regime in the twentieth century was clearly dominated by western powers, this discussion of the regime's origins will focus on the western cultural sphere. Nevertheless, we should acknowledge that there is also a history of (attempted) drug suppression for instance in Islamic cultures (Duvall, 2015, 2019; Rosenthal, 1971) and in China (Zheng, 2022). I am not aware of any direct evidence for a campaign to suppress some forms of drug use in Europe before the sixteenth century, but circumstantial evidence indicates that such suppression may have taken place. Indeed, it has been suggested that western skepticism of drug use in spiritual contexts extends back to the formative years of Christianity in late antiquity, when the Church Fathers were (putatively) confronted with “pagan” drug rites being incorporated into the practices of various Christian congregations (Muraresku, 2020; Ruck et al., 2000). Guerra-Doce noted that

at a certain point, around the first centuries of the present era, drug plants seem to have fallen into oblivion [in Europe]. The timing is significant, as it coincides with the spread of Christianity, which would ultimately be responsible for the elimination of old traditions involving drug plants. (2022: 46)

There is also a controversial research literature into early Christian use of psychoactive drugs which seems to identify iconographic and other evidence indicating that some early Christian congregations had a close relationship with such drugs that at least merits further investigation (Allegro, 1970; Brown & Brown, 2019; Merkur, 2001; Rush, 2008, 2011; Samorini, 2001). While such evidence should not be uncritically accepted, it should also not be uncritically rejected, and the fact that the authors presenting this evidence have sometimes overinterpreted it is not in itself a reason to reject the evidence altogether.

In this context, it is interesting to note that Christian authorities in Late Antiquity were especially concerned with the Gnostic heresy, which often emphasized the connection between the human and divine: for some Gnostics, to know oneself experientially at the deepest level was to know the divine, for the two are in truth one (Pagels, 1989). Such unity experiences need not be drug-induced, but as mentioned above, one of the most prominent effects of psychedelics use is that it sometimes leads to ego-dissolution and experiences of existential unity. Therefore, it is possible to understand the concern among early Christian authorities for the Gnostic heresy in relation to a putative concern about the survival of pre-Christian drug rites. According to this perspective, then, the historical foundation of the modern drug criminalization regime may extend back to late antiquity, when early Christian authorities clamped down on the continuation of what they regarded as pagan drug use practices and thereby established the official Church view on the use of drugs other than alcohol.

However, as far as I am aware, the first direct evidence of such a campaign against drug use in Europe is from the sixteenth century and relates to the introduction of coffee and tobacco. The spread of the black brew from the Muslim world caused considerable resistance from some Catholic authorities, who labeled it the “Devil's drink” and the “bitter invention of Satan” (Chrystal, 2016; Ukers, 1935/2011). Tobacco was similarly demonized (Campos, 2012, 2022; Norton, 2022), and its introduction from the New World also caused ecclesiastical controversy: Rodrigo de Jerez, who sailed with Columbus and was the first person to bring tobacco back to Europe, was reportedly imprisoned for years by the Inquisition for his smoking habit (Atkinson, 1934), and several 16th and seventeenth century popes attempted to ban its use, with Innocent XII threatening to excommunicate tobacco users in Rome (Burns, 2006).

Nevertheless, the only lasting drug prohibition for which there is clear evidence related to the use of psychedelic plants among the indigenous peoples of the Americas.1 In Mexico, the Aztecs and other peoples used ololiuhqui (Ipomoea tricolor syn. Turbina corymbosa, a psychoactive species of Morning Glory), peyote (Lophophora williansii), teonanácatl (Psilocybe mushrooms), as well as the newly introduced cannabis (apparently sometimes under the name pipiltzintzintlis) and a range of other psychedelic substances in religious contexts (Campos, 2012; Carod-Artal, 2015; Dierksmeier, 2020; Elferink, 1999), while the peoples of Peru and the Amazon region used the San Pedro cactus (Echinopsis pachanoi syn. Trichocereus pachanoi), ayahuasca (a psychedelic drink usually mixing Banisteriopsis caapi and Psychotria viridis), yopo (a psychedelic snuff made from Anadenanthera peregrine), and other substances (Guerra-Doce, 2015; Miller et al., 2019). In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the Catholic Church regarded such practices as a form of devil worship and responded with a ferocious prohibition campaign that has been well documented by historians (Chuchiak, 2012; Dawson, 2018; Dierksmeier, 2020; Greenleaf, 1978, 1994; Leonard, 1942; Megged, 1994; Slotkin, 1955).

The Spanish conquest and settlement of Mexico and other parts of the Americas brought them into contact with the religious practices of the indigenous peoples of these areas, which often involved the use of various psychedelic plants. Catholic authorities regarded such practices as a form of devil worship, and thus the use of psychedelic plants, “believed to facilitate communication with the devil,” joined the Inquisition's list of offenses (Dierksmeier, 2020: 292). They issued prohibition edicts against the use of “medico-religious substances that too readily facilitated ecstatic experiences of a non-Christian nature,” including a formal ban in 1620 (Campos, 2012: 41). In one trial from 1698 that condemned the use of pipiltzintzintlis, a friar recounted the following statement from a Spanish constable who had been sent to confiscate this herb from the people of Xochimilco:

We come to take this herb from these natives. It is not permitted, nor is it good that they drink this herb because with it they see many vile and evil things and visions and when they take it they speak with demons and other vile monsters. This herb is prohibited and forbidden by the Inquisition. (quoted in Chuchiak, 2012: 312)

According to the seventeenth-century journalist and natural historian José Antonio Alzate y Ramírez, pipiltzintzintlis was nothing other than cáñamo or cannabis (Dierksmeier, 2020: 302), although the term may also have been used for other plants (Campos, 2012). In 1769, Archbishop Francisco Antonio de Lorenzana y Butrón, after a visit from the Prelate, issued a decree that condemned “feigned miracles [or] revelations” and explicitly prohibited pipiltzintzintlis, peyote, and other plants that might give rise to such experiences:

…executing superstitious cures using methods and materials not conducive to sanity: or abusing Pipilzitzintlis [sic], peyote, chupamirtos or roses, or other herbs or animals or feigned miracles, revelations, raptures or enchantments…. (quoted in Dierksmeier, 2020: 293)

It is interesting to note that this religious condemnation of the use of cannabis and psychedelics connected the spiritual harms incurred by “feigned miracles” to matters of mental health. Such conflation of ostensive spiritual harms caused by spiritual experiences that the Church deemed inauthentic and more straightforward forms of mental harm may have arisen with Archbishop Lorenzana, but certainly did not end with him. As for the link to devil worship, a confessional for penitent transgressors explicated the connection:

Dost thou suck the blood of others? Dost thou wander about at night, calling upon demons to help thee? Hast thou drunk peyotl, or given it to others to drink …? (quoted in La Barre, 1938: 23)

As we saw previously, such demonization of drug use initially extended also to the tobacco that the indigenous peoples of the Americas used alongside their psychedelics. Because of tobacco's “intimate relationship with native religious practice, the church initially associated it with the devil. But for whatever reason, concern about the use of the drug was tempered” (Campos, 2012: 50). I believe that a likely explanation for this tempered concern is that tobacco does not frequently give rise to evil visions, opportunities to speak with demons, or feigned miracles, revelations, or raptures: in other words, it is not commonly reported to induce spiritual experiences.

We have seen that the inquisition's clampdown on psychedelics use in Mexico in the early modern era is the first indisputable drug prohibition campaign in the western world.2 The underlying rationale for this campaign was clearly religious, although an attempt to suppress the religious practices of conquered peoples who are ethnically and culturally distinct from their invaders is undoubtedly also racist. In this era, there was a literal demonization of indigenous drug use which portrayed it as a means of communicating with demons, but we can also understand the demonization of such cultural practices in a Fanonian perspective as proceeding from an underlying ethnoracial demonization.

Racism and demonization in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries

Despite the inquisition's efforts, both the use of traditional psychedelics like peyote and the more recently introduced cannabis survived among the indigenous peoples of Mexico, who naturally learned to keep their drug practices secret. During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the literal demonization characterizing the Inquisitorial campaigns of earlier eras gradually transformed into a different form of demonization based on exaggerated health harms that was sometimes explicitly racist, but which more commonly seemed blind to the fact that the drugs which, on rather insubstantial grounds, were portrayed as extraordinarily harmful also happened to be the ones favored by non-whites.

In nineteenth-century Mexico, the use and distribution of psychoactive plants were often linked to indigenous female herbolarias, and in line with the earlier inquisitors’ demonization of non-Christian religion and folk herbalism, such women were often vilified as witches. One illustrative example is the fictional account by Manuel Payno of a healing rite involving a human sacrifice to the Virgin of Guadelope, where a lost child “was captured by the older of the herbolarias, and was thrown into a field, where it was sure to be devoured by wild dogs” (Campos, 2012: 148). Racial prejudice thus fused with misogyny and the anxiety over non-Christian religiosity into a demonization trifecta. According to one commentator, the fear of cannabis had reached hysterical levels by 1908:

The horror that this plant inspires has reached such an extreme that when the common people […] see even just a single plant, they feel as if in the presence of a demonic spirit. Women and children run frightened and they make the sign of the cross simply upon hearing its name. The friars hurl their excommunications against those who grow and use it and the authorities persecute it with such fury that they order it to be uprooted and burnt, imposing cruel penalties on whom they find it. In a word they believe that it is a weed that has come from hell. (quoted in Campos, 2012: 165)

Furthermore, in Mexico, cannabis was “overwhelmingly associated with a class of people considered to be dangerous, degenerated, and criminal” (Campos, 2012: 119), and indeed the 1920 prohibition against its use was named “Dispositions on the Cultivation and Commerce of Substances That Degenerate the Race.” In such degeneration discourse, cannabis would accelerate or trigger atavistic tendencies latent in the bloodlines of certain people, effectively transforming them into ferocious beasts.

The inquisitorial prohibition of peyote also seems to have informed the campaign against peyote in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries United States. The territorial jurisdiction of the Inquisition in New Spain originally included the commissariats of Florida, Louisiana, New Mexico, and the California (Chuchiak, 2012), thus providing for an extensive geographical overlap, and the US campaign was driven by missionaries who found that peyote use in the Native American Church hindered their Christianizing efforts (Maroukis, 2012; Soni, 2016). Thus, the concern over the religious use of psychedelics continued to form a vanguard for some aspects of the drug prohibition movement well into the ninteenth and twentieth centuries.

Furthermore, Christian missionaries and pastors condemned cannabis use in Africa, where churches in the late nineteenth century sometimes excommunicated users (Duvall, 2019). Such censure seems to have been one reason for the early cannabis criminalization in colonial Africa, although colonial administrators were also concerned about the possibility that cannabis use caused the “sleeping sickness” (trypanosomiasis) that ravaged their workforces and profit margins (the disease is actually caused by a protozoan transmitted by the tsetse fly). At the same time, there was also a movement of Christian missionaries in Asia campaigning for the suppression of opium use (Lazich, 2006; Lodwick, 1996; Pettus, 2016).

These efforts to prohibit cannabis and opium soon spread to North America (Bonnie & Whitebread, 1970; Boyd, 2021; Hickman, 2000), where the campaign also included cocaine and was often accompanied by explicit racist rhetoric. When the US Federal Bureau of Narcotics presented its case for the criminalization of cannabis during the hearings for the 1937 Federal Tax Act, they warned that “marijuana causes White women to seek sexual relations with Negroes” (quoted in Gerber, 2004: 9).3 Such racist rhetoric also included substantial mischaracterizations as to the effects of these drugs, not least with regard to their wildly exaggerated capacity to induce violent behavior. To take one example, a doctor quoted in Armstrong and Parascandola (1972) claimed that attacks on white women “are the direct result of a cocaine-crazed negro brain” (31). Cannabis similarly became known as the “killer weed,” the use of which resulted in “actions of uncontrollable violence” according to a police officer in Kansas and in “[n]umerous assaults […] upon officers and citizens with intent to kill” according to the Los Angeles Police Department (quoted in Bonnie & Whitebread, 1970: 1025). Relatedly, cannabis also gained a reputation for driving users insane, and this association with insanity, although lacking scientific corroboration, was accepted by legislatures and courts across the United States (Armstrong & Parascandola, 1972; Bonnie & Whitebread, 1970). One pharmacist, writing in a 1936 article in the American Journal of Nursing, warned that “continual cannabis use”

is known to produce a violent type of insanity which has brought to it the name “loco weed.” The subject will suddenly turn with murderous violence upon whomever is nearest to him. He will run amuck with knife, axe, gun, or anything else that is close at hand, and will kill or maim without any reason. (quoted in Armstrong & Parascandola, 1972: 29)

As indicated by the literature on drug harms cited in the introduction, these concerns over insanity and violence were clearly exaggerated, at least as compared to the effects of alcohol use. Similarly, early studies into the putative harms of cannabis use such as the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission (1895), the Panama Canal Zone Governor's Committee (Abel, 1982; Bonnie & Whitebread, 1970; Siler et al., 1933), and the La Guardia Committee Report (1944) all found that cannabis use was not a significant health concern, and a study by Bromberg (1934) concluded that cannabis was not habit-forming and did not induce violent behavior. Thus, the scientists of the era “had little evidence of [Cannabis] indica-induced insanity” (Duvall, 2015: 158). A few decades later the Nixon administration appointed the National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse (1972) but proceeded to ignore its conclusion that cannabis was not a threat to society and should be decriminalized. Irwin (1973) conducted the first systematic comparative drug harms assessment, finding that alcohol use was more hazardous to health than was any illicit drug use, but the campaign for drug control intensified throughout the final decades of the century. At this time there was less acceptance for explicit racism in public discourse in the United States, however, and the racial rationale behind the intensification of the campaign of drug prohibition is not as readily identifiable. Nevertheless, Nixon's advisors Ehrlichman and Haldeman reportedly admitted that the Nixon administration's declaration of a war on drugs in the early 1970s was based on racial motives (Baum, 1996, 2016). Furthermore, Alexander (2010, 2011) and Provine (2011) have emphasized the role of racial bias in the clampdown on crack cocaine in the 1980s and 90s.

It is interesting to follow the demonization of drug use not traditional to European cultures into the twentieth century. In the first half of the century, such demonization was still frequently literal, with opium beings commonly referred to as the “demon flower” (e.g. Graham-Mulhall, 1926) and cannabis being labeled “the devil's weed” (Cape, 2003). Duvall (2015) observed that “[f]undamentalist Christian anti-drug crusaders have made Cannabis into monsters,” citing a 1943 book by James Devine called The Moloch of Marijuana “in which marijuana was a false god that demanded the sacrifice of young people” (146). And when the US Federal Bureau of Narcotics argued before Congress during the hearings for the 1937 Federal Tax Act, they warned against cannabis on the basis that its use had caused the growth of “satanic” jazz music (Gerber, 2004). Protestant missionaries who fought for the suppression of opium use in China in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century similarly spoke of the drug as “evil” (Lodwick, 1996), and such negative labeling practices ultimately found their way into the rhetoric of international drug control:

The missionaries’ insistence on deploying absolutist categories such as sin, evil, and slavery to describe opium use found its way into the text of the multilateral treaties, commentaries, and diplomatic discourse that structure the international narcotics control regime today. (Pettus, 2016: 56)

Thus, the United Nations Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs of 1961 portrayed drug use as “evil,” while in more recent debates drugs were framed in terms such as a “scourge” or “monster” threatening to annihilate humanity and requiring the response of an “international crusade” (Hobson, 2014; Room, 1999). This language was employed not only by western powers, but also by recently decolonialized nations whose cultural traditions had long included a relationship with these ostensibly monstrous drugs. To take one example, the Indian delegation to the 1994–1995 debates in the Commission on Narcotics Drugs declared that “[We must take action] before the drug monster annihilates the entire humanity” (quoted in Room, 1999: 1692), which is ironic given the Indian centuries-long traditions for cannabis and opium use. I would understand such overdramatization as an example of the Fanonian cultural inferiority complex, where people growing up under colonial regimes have tended to internalize the white disparagement of their own cultures and to compensate for their perceived inferiority by essentially demonizing the aspects of these cultural traditions that have been met with white disapproval. It is also interesting to note that neither slavery, apartheid, nor torture has ever reached the same level of iniquity in the language of UN conventions (Lines, 2010).

Back in 1972, Armstrong and Parascandola acknowledged that “[t]he question of why sensationalism about marihuana was able to take hold [in the 1930s United States], even among some persons who were knowledgeable about drugs, is a very complex one” (30). Besides pointing to the drug's “foreign image,” they discussed legends about violent Muslim Assassins and the association between heroin and cocaine use and violence that had already formed in the United States. Since the use of these drugs was associated predominantly with Chinese, Blacks, and Mexicans, it might seem that the three reasons largely boil down to the same thing, namely the complex of ethnocentrism, xenophobia, and racial prejudice that characterized the United States of this era.

In order to explain why cannabis use, which according to some present-day research tends to make people less prone to violence, became strongly associated with violent crime, while perceptions of the actual violence-inducing drug alcohol were more nuanced, one factor seems prominent. Since alcohol use was widespread among the societally dominant majority population in the United States—white people of European descent—most such people had a good understanding about its effects and would recognize that although alcohol use sometimes leads to violence, most people are able to handle their drinking reasonably well. Such a situation leaves little room for myths and prejudice. Cannabis use, on the other hand, was widespread only among the ethnoracial groups that the majority population considered cognitively and morally inferior, and it is not difficult to understand that such a foundation of racial prejudice was fertile ground for the growth of prejudices also about the effects of the intoxicants used by these racialized minority groups. A similar dynamic of prejudice played out in Mexico from the late nineteenth century on, and probably served as the inspiration for the later developments in the United States (Campos, 2012). While the Mexican discourse included warnings about alcoholism, the effects from alcohol were well known, and therefore

the discourse surrounding it was far more diverse and developed. Commentaries on the baleful effects of marijuana tended to be simple and efficient: the drug caused madness and violence and was an undisputed, pernicious force in society. Anti-alcohol campaigns, by contrast, were forced to rely on a much more diverse array of arguments. (Campos, 2012: 114)

In Mexico, condemnation of cannabis was rooted in class and racial prejudice, which were often overlapping since the descendants of the original indigenous inhabitants were usually poor. Such Mexican racism eventually flowed northwards, accompanying underprivileged mestizo (mixed ancestry) laborers who traveled to the United States in search of work; ironically, the Mexican prejudice against mestizos was thus turned into a general prejudice against Mexicans in the United States.

Race, religion, and drug criminalization in the contemporary world

We have seen that the drug criminalization regime of the twentieth century can be traced back to a campaign by Christian authorities to stamp out heterodox spirituality—possibly extending back to the Church Fathers of late antiquity, but certainly to the Inquisition of early modernity. The fact that the psychedelics (and coca leaf) that the Inquisition clamped down on in the Americas were used predominantly by the indigenous peoples of this continent, and that cannabis and opium use was prevalent especially in India, Africa, Asia, and the Arab world, also adds a racial dimension to this religious prohibition campaign. In both European colonial empires and in the United States, it is undebatable that drug criminalization arose in a context of systemic racism and targeted drug use associated with racialized minority groups.

These historical developments resonate in the contemporary world in a number of readily identifiable ways. In empirical research, Christian religiosity is still associated with less cannabis use in the United States (e.g. Steinman et al., 2008; Wallace et al., 2007), and Gritsenko et al. (2020) found the same in Russia. Krystosek (2016) investigated how different forms of religious belief and practice influence attitudes to cannabis policy, and his most complex statistical model found that social participation and belief in the literalness of the Bible as God's word predicted support for cannabis criminalization. Social control via religious institutions therefore seems to explain support for criminalization at least to some extent. It should be noted that this model by Krystosek controlled for political ideology, so that the impact from participation in organized religion and commitment to dogma was independent from the conservatism that is often associated with religiosity. While conservatism also predicted support for criminalization, participation in organized Christianity and belief in the literalness of the Bible predicted further support for criminalization beyond what would be expected on the basis of conservatism alone.

Convergent results in other research include the role of religiosity in strengthening the perceived immorality of drug use among university students in the Pacific Northwest of the United States, with the author concluding that “religious institutions seem to play an effective role in shaping normative culture around drug use” (Stylianou, 2004: 445). Jorgensen (2018) found that “commitment to religion” among police officers in the southern US predicted punitive attitudes toward drug use, while Cruz et al. (2018) found that Catholics in Uruguay were more likely to oppose cannabis legalization, whereas atheism predicted support for legalization. In Brazil, Sanchez et al. (2011) identified the role of religious beliefs in shaping negative attitudes toward drug uses as sinful and evil.

More problematically, there is a clear ethnoracial bias in how drug criminalization is enforced in the contemporary world. Such bias has been identified at every level of enforcement from being searched by the police through the stages of arrest, prosecution, conviction, and sentencing (Earp et al., 2021). Although best documented in the United States (Brunson, 2007; Koch et al., 2016; Omori, 2019; White, 2015), racial disproportionality in drug crime policing has also been identified in England and Wales (Shiner et al., 2018) and the Nordic countries (Solhjell et al., 2019; Sollund, 2006), among other places. The High Commissioner on Human Rights Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (2021) at the United Nations reported that people of African descent were targeted by drug prosecution at 4.5 times the rate of Caucasians in the United Kingdom, and at 6.5 times the rate of Caucasians in the United States, although drug use among the two groups was at comparable levels.4 The report also found that in Mexico, “minorities and the poor are disproportionately targeted” (8), and generally concluded that drug criminalization facilitates discrimination against marginalized groups:

The Working Group has observed that criminalization of drug use facilitates the deployment of the criminal justice system against drug users in a discriminatory way, with law enforcement officers often targeting members of vulnerable and marginalized groups, such as minorities, people of African descent, indigenous peoples, women, persons with disabilities, persons with AIDS and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex persons. Homeless persons, sex workers, migrants, juveniles, the unemployed and ex-convicts may also be vulnerable. (High Commissioner on Human Rights Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, 2021: 8)

To this it might be added that the criminalization regime has entailed high levels of community violence especially in the Global South, thereby arguably violating the human right to life and security of people living in drug-transit countries (Johnstad, 2023b). This further exacerbates the racial disproportionality in the regime's negative societal impact. The consequences of the racial bias in the implementation of the drug criminalization are for their part especially noteworthy in the United States, which has been the main instigator and defender of the international criminalization regime. Alexander (2011) pointed to some particularly glaring statistics:

•

More African American adults are under correctional control today—in prison or jail, on probation or parole—than were enslaved in 1850, a decade before the Civil War began.

•

In 2007 more black men were disenfranchised than in 1870, the year the Fifteenth Amendment was ratified prohibiting laws that explicitly deny the right to vote on the basis of race (Alexander, 2011: 9).

These developments are not exclusively related to drug criminalization (e.g. Pfaff, 2017), but it seems clear that the racial bias in arrests, prosecutions, convictions, and sentencing, as well as the subsequent disenfranchisement of people with felony convictions in many US states, has in some ways replicated the conditions from the eras of slavery and Jim Crow. As Steiner and Argothy (2001), Alexander (2010, 2011), and others have emphasized, drug criminalization is one important aspect of the legacy of racial segregation and oppression, serving essentially as a continuation of the old racist regimes under a guise of apparent colorblindness.

Conclusions and implications

We have seen above that the tendency to demonize illicit drugs, which was still in full flower in the discourse of international drug control in the late twentieth century, can be traced back at least to the early modern Inquisitorial clampdown on religious psychedelics use among indigenous peoples of the Americas. At some point in the twentieth century, however, the specifically religious rationale behind the early demonization efforts transformed into a health-based rationale. In the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, drug use was not “evil” because it facilitated communion with demons but because it constituted a grave danger to public health and safety. Furthermore, the large-scale introduction of these drugs especially in the United States took place predominantly via ethnoracial minorities, and it may have been this racial disparity that provoked the white majority population to respond with moral outrage and prohibitionist effort. In a society embroiled in struggles for racial and ethnic hegemony, the prohibition of minorities’ preferred intoxicants sometimes served as an excuse to further suppress these minorities and thereby maintain the system of white supremacy. More invisibly, underlying notions of racial and cultural inferiority seem to have served as a foundation for exaggerated fears over the harmfulness of this intoxicant use.

Thus, if the western world has been more alarmed by the health risks from illicit drug use than what would be justified by a sober assessment of their actual harm potential, the discrepancy may be explained by the fact that these drugs were originally used by non-white peoples. As this article has emphasized, such drug use in non-European cultures extend far longer back in time than what the references to minority groups in twentieth century North America allow for, and in the colonial era, cultural practices not reflected in European practices would tend to be disparaged as primitive and worthless. The customs and traditions of Arabs, Indians, and especially Africans were, as Fanon put it, taken as evidence of their “poverty of spirit and of their constitutional depravity” (Fanon, 1967: 32). Such ethnocentrism and xenophobia among people of European descent were, unsurprisingly, fertile ground for prejudice against the intoxicants these people used. In the white imagination of this historical era, Black people especially, but Arabs and Indians too, were exactly the sort of biologically and culturally inferior people who would be liable to use a drug that might turn a person into an insane murderer at the blink of an eye.

Today, the xenophobia that formed the basis for the gross exaggerations of the early twentieth century appears to live on in more muted forms of exaggerations in contemporary drug harms research. As pointed out for instance in Johnstad (2022a), there seems to be a systematic inconsistency in how we speak about the dangers from licit and illicit drugs. Why is the moderate association between cannabis use and psychosis, with a median odds ratio of 1.75 in the overview of meta-analyses presented in Johnstad (2022a), regarded as a major societal problem, while much less attention is given to the apparently stronger association between tobacco use and psychosis, with a median odds ratio of 2.70? We find the same tendency for a range of other drug-related issues, from violence to traffic accidents to brain damage: while the main culprit for such harms is actually alcohol, a lot of our attention is instead diverted toward less problematic illicit drugs.

One important dynamic that seems to be at play here is a tendency to confuse the social characteristics of drug users with the medical consequences of drug use. To illustrate this point, we can further examine the grossly exaggerated attribution of madness and violence to cannabis use in Mexico and the United States and its curious parallel in the even more exaggerated attribution of “sleeping sickness” or trypanosomiasis to cannabis use in colonial Africa. In Africa, “sleeping sickness accompanied exploitative labor relationships” (Duvall, 2019: 180). Enslaved people deprived of adequate nourishment, clothing or shelter were extra vulnerable to tsetse bites and trypanosomiasis infection, and many fell victim to the disease. Given their situation, we should not be surprised that these people were inclined to smoke cannabis (or use other intoxicants) when they had the chance in order to get a brief respite from their miserable existence, and to be observed doing so because of their proximity to slave owners. The misery that made them vulnerable to disease also gave them reason to use as much cannabis as they could get their hands on. In Mexico and the United States, the racialized underclasses were by the early twentieth century no longer enslaved, but many lived in destitution, hopelessness, and under the constant threat of violence. People living in such conditions are at extra risk for psychosis and other forms of mental illness (Altekruse et al., 2020; Jongsma et al., 2021; Ridley et al., 2020), and their capacity for violent outbursts is often simply a means of survival. The misery that made these people vulnerable to psychosis and prone to acts of violence also gave them reason to use as much cannabis as they could get their hands on. On both sides of the Atlantic, therefore, socioeconomically privileged observers could see a given cultural practice (cannabis use) and a negative health outcome (trypanosomiasis or violent psychosis) manifest more commonly in racialized underclass groups, and these observers concluded that the cannabis use must be the source of the negative health outcomes. More realistically, cannabis use and negative health outcomes were both caused by the fact that these underclass individuals were perpetually exploited and left to a miserable existence that they were eager to obtain any kind of escape from. The privileged observers looked for reasons, but were not ready to understand that they, and the system they represented, were the reason, preferring instead to blame the cannabis that the racialized underclass used as perhaps their only means of getting a brief respite from the misery of their lives.

The tendency to confuse social characteristics and medical consequences is still with us in contemporary drug harms research. In such research, much emphasis has been placed on the association between cannabis use and psychosis, where the latter often tends to be interpreted as a consequence of the former. As mentioned above, however, psychosis is at least as strongly associated with tobacco use as with cannabis use (Johnstad, 2022a). Since it might seem unlikely that cannabis use and tobacco use should both have the capacity to cause psychosis, a more reasonable explanation would be that such substance use is associated with certain social characteristics which in turn are associated with psychiatric conditions. In other words, the evidence indicates that miserable people tend to engage in escapist substance use, and for some of them a psychiatric condition is the underlying reason for their misery while others are at risk for such conditions because of their misery.

In the context of the racism discussed in this article, the problem with conflating social characteristics and medical consequences is that it produces a bias against underprivilege, which in turn is statistically associated with being non-white. Furthermore, such conflation serves to support a drug criminalization regime that has very harmful consequences for underprivileged minority groups (e.g. Hart, 2020). Thus, while exaggerated claims of drug harms may be well intended, for instance with the belief that they might scare some young people away from experimenting with drugs, they can also be understood as ethnoracially biased statements that serve to perpetuate a criminalization regime that has had dire consequences especially for Blacks, and which has its genesis in colonial-era demonization of non-white peoples and cultures.

In my understanding, the non-recognition of the deep historical roots of the bias against illicit drugs and of its ultimate origin in the demonization of non-white peoples and cultures is an example of white ignorance. For a neutral observer, it should be obvious that the early twentieth-century criminalization of the drugs used by ethnoracial minorities in the United States was intimately related to racial and ethnic power struggles: when a systemically racist country prohibits the cultural practices of its minority groups, that prohibition must obviously be understood in a context of racism. More broadly, only a person deeply embedded in white ignorance could believe it a coincidence that the substances that were prohibited under the international regime of drug control were those that lacked a history of broad acceptance in European cultures, while the substances that did have such a history of European acceptance were all exempted. Institutions such as the Canadian Senate (Senate Special Committee on Illegal Drugs, 2002) and the Constitutional Court of South Africa (2018) have acknowledged and problematized the racist origins of the cannabis prohibition regime, and more should be expected to follow.

It should be noted at this point that even if the condemnation of drugs such as cannabis and opium was originally motivated by xenophobia based on the devaluation and suspicion of non-white cultural practices and the wish to keep non-white people in their place, it gradually transformed itself into a societal and academic orthodoxy. Over the course of the twentieth century, the notion that illicit drug use is extremely harmful somehow established itself as common knowledge, despite the fact that actual research into the matter, at least with regard to cannabis, repeatedly obtained evidence to the contrary (e.g. Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, 1895; La Guardia Committee Report, 1944; National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse, 1972). I believe we should understand this construction of common knowledge in the light of similar constructions, including the previously discussed fact that it “was common knowledge for Europeans in western Central Africa that sleeping sickness was a form of poisoning caused by cannabis” (Duvall, 2019: 180). Furthermore, we should also remember that in the first half of the twentieth century it was common knowledge in Europe and North America that women were inferior to men, homosexuals were sexual perverts, and non-white people were inferior to white people. Common knowledge, in other words, is commonly wrong, and especially when it is based on standards related to normative maleness, heterosexuality, and whiteness. As Mejia et al. (2018) emphasized, the drug criminalization regime has been based on the same post-truth ideology and politics that characterized the neo-nationalist resurgence of the 2010s.

Nevertheless, I believe we must acknowledge that even as common knowledge may represent prejudicial perspectives that happen to be factually untrue, it is also, as its name implies, widespread. Matters of common knowledge that are actually based in misogynist, homophobic, or racist prejudice may therefore be accepted even among people who are not themselves misogynists, homophobes, or racists, and when such people give expression or support to these matters of common knowledge, they do so without awareness of the underlying prejudice. This is an important aspect of white ignorance. When researchers and policy makers refer to the grave dangers related to illicit drug use, therefore, they should generally be understood as simply being informed by, and giving expression to, a societal and academic orthodoxy. That this orthodoxy is largely incorrect in a comparative sense and effectively serves to perpetuate the historical prejudice against non-white peoples and their cultural practices is not yet generally recognized. However, I believe it is also true to say that we are fast approaching a situation where excuses based on ignorance can no longer be regarded as legitimate.

We can understand the tendency to exaggerate the detrimental impact of illicit drug use in light of the well-identified racial bias in the enforcement of drug criminalization. As reviewed above, there is today a strong evidential base for the existence of such a racial bias especially in the United States, but also in European countries, and this bias pertains not only to the police, but also to prosecutors and judges (e.g. Earp et al., 2021). If the racist motivations behind the initiation of the regime of drug control in the first half of the twentieth century has survived in the form of a racial bias internalized by present-day police officers, prosecutors, judges, and juries, then it would not seem surprising if the same bias has been internalized by many researchers as well. Research into the harmful effects of illicit drugs is often paid for by grants from governmental institutions that are essentially embedded in the overall prohibition campaign—the United States’ National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) being one prominent example—and there is no reason to expect that academics working for such institutions should be immune to a racial bias that has clearly survived among equally well-educated prosecutors and judges.5

In the final analysis, the drug criminalization regime can be understood as being rooted in the attempt by Catholic authorities to preserve the purity of their traditions by suppressing heterodox tendencies emerging from individualized mysticism empowered by drugs such as cannabis and psychedelics. In a colonial context, such concern over spiritual harms incurred by nondoctrinal spiritual practices was necessarily rather inhospitable to the cultural traditions of the conquered peoples. Over time, as the concerns over spiritual harms melded with concerns over medical harms, the xenophobia and cultural disparagement made it easier to believe that these colonialized peoples were such simple ignoramuses that they would be inclined to use drugs that harmed their brains in serious ways. By the nineteenth century, the struggle for religious purity melded with the broader struggle for white privilege, and the demonization of non-white cultural and religious practices related to drug use continued unabated. Thus, the US-led suppression of cannabis and other drugs in the twentieth century should be seen not only in relation to the immediate situation of an influx of Mexicans and the ongoing oppression of Black people, but in context of the broader ethnoracial struggle between white Europeans, dominant but in fear of being overwhelmed, and the multitudes of non-white peoples encroaching on white privilege. The international criminalization of some drugs and non-criminalization of others is not merely a historical accident, but must be understood as an expression of white hegemony.

Thus, we can see present-day exaggerations about illicit drug harms as originating in these ethnoracial and religious struggles, with underlying concerns about preserving white privilege and Christian orthodoxy reflecting themselves first in concerns over spiritual harms—seeing ostensive experiences of contact with the divine as examples of communication with demons—and thereupon in concerns over health harms. In the twentieth century, when accusations of devil worship started to lose their relevance, exaggerated concerns over health risks served as a means of continued demonization of these drugs and provided an excuse for their criminalization. According to this perspective, the exaggerations of drug harms among some researchers constitute an integral aspect of the broader ethnoracial struggle by providing apparently objective reasons to maintain the criminalization regime. However, as per Mills’ white ignorance, the people giving expression to exaggerated harms claims are probably often unaware of the racial and religious dimensions that may serve as the historical fundament for such claims.

 

The Sage: Declaration of conflicting interests

The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Footnotes

1. The practice of chewing mildly stimulating coca leaves in the Andean region was also condemned by the Catholic Church, although in this case “an accommodation was reached based on the need to continue to extract both labor and revenue from coca chewers” (Campos, 2022: 364). The fact that its (partial) prohibition survived into the late modern age is probably attributable to its role as a basis for cocaine.

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2. It should be noted that the Spanish Inquisition had no formal jurisdiction over the indigenous peoples of New Spain, who were rather under the jurisdiction of secular authorities. The Inquisition would therefore not itself prosecute indigenous people for the use of prohibited drugs but would focus on curbing the spread of such practices to other population groups, while secular authorities policed the indigenous peoples not under Inquisitorial jurisdiction. Nevertheless, it would seem clear that a prohibition of religious practices is fundamentally a Church matter and not something secular authorities would normally engage in on their own initiative without guidance from ecclesiastical authorities.

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3. I have not been able to find independent confirmation of this quote, but Gerber supported it with reference to primary source material from the personal belongings of Harry J. Anslinger, 1930–1962 commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics.

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4. A recent report by the High Commissioner for Human Rights (2023) reiterated this criticism of the drug criminalization regime and called for an end to the global war on drugs.

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5. It should be noted, however, that Dr. Nora Volkow (2021), the present director of NIDA, has expressed support for drug decriminalization in part because of concerns over the inequitable enforcement of drug prohibition.

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ATTACHMENT “A” (1) – FROM the FBI

FBI RELEASES 2022 CRIME IN THE NATION STATISTICS

October 16, 2023

 

The FBI released detailed data on over 11 million criminal offenses reported to the Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program, largely through the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) and the Summary Reporting System (SRS).

In December 2015, the CJIS Advisory Policy Board (APB) endorsed the NIBRS transition and the FBI Director approved in February 2016. The FBI announced to law enforcement agencies it would transition to the more comprehensive NIBRS collection. Last year, the data was exclusively collected via NIBRS. Both the NIBRS, 2021 and Crime in the United States (CIUS), 2021 releases were based solely on NIBRS submissions. While in the transition period to NIBRS, the UCR Program published a limited release of the traditional CIUS, 2021, along with a trend study comparing 2020 and 2021 crime data using a selection of the new NIBRS estimation data.

For the 2022 data year, to provide nationally representative data, the FBI accepted NIBRS data and SRS data submissions from agencies. NIBRS data was submitted by 13,293 law enforcement agencies whose jurisdictions covered more than 256 million United States inhabitants. SRS data was accepted from 2,431 non-transitioned agencies representing 55,441,278 inhabitants. These agencies added an additional 16.6% population coverage, bringing the total national population coverage for Crime in the Nation, 2022 to 93.5%.

The data of Crime in the Nation, 2022 were released via several reports: Crime in the United States (CIUS), 2022; NIBRS, 2022; NIBRS Estimates, 2022; Hate Crime Statistics, 2022; Law Enforcement Officers Killed and Assaulted (LEOKA), 2022: Officers Assaulted; and the UCR Summary of Crime in the Nation, 2022. Of the 18,884 state, county, city, university and college, and tribal agencies eligible to participate in the UCR Program, 15,724 agencies submitted data in 2022.

The FBI’s crime statistics estimates for 2022 show that national violent crime decreased an estimated 1.7% in 2022 compared to 2021 estimates:

Murder and non-negligent manslaughter recorded a 2022 estimated nationwide decrease of 6.1% compared to the previous year.

In 2022, the estimated number of offenses in the revised rape category saw an estimated 5.4% decrease.

Aggravated assault in 2022 decreased an estimated 1.1% in 2022.

Robbery showed an estimated increase of 1.3% nationally.

Hate Crime Statistics, 2022 provides information about the offenses, victims, offenders, and locations of hate crimes. In 2022, law enforcement agency participation significantly increased, resulting in 14,631 law enforcement agencies, with a population coverage of 91.7% submitting incident reports. These reports involved 11,634 criminal incidents and 13,337 related offenses as being motivated by bias toward race, ethnicity, ancestry, religion, sexual orientation, disability, gender, and gender identity. There were over 11,000 single-bias hate crime incidents involving 13,278 victims and 346 multiple-bias hate crime incidents that involved 433 victims. In 2022, the top three bias categories in single-bias incidents were race/ethnicity/ancestry, religion, and sexual-orientation. The top bias types within those bias categories by volume of reported hate crime incidents is Anti-Black or African American for race/ethnicity/ancestry bias, Anti-Jewish for religious bias, and Anti-Gay (male) for sexual-orientation bias.

The complete analysis is located on the UCR’s Crime Data Explorer.

 

ATTACHMENT “A” (2) – FROM WIKIPEDIA

STATES RATED by CRIMINALITY]

Ranked by prevalence of all four violent crimes below.  Data in this table are from the FBI and for the year 2022.[1]

 

Location

Violent
crime

Homicide

Rape

Robbery

Aggravated
Assault

 United States

380.7

6.3

40.0

66.1

268.2

 District of Columbia

812.3

29.3

41.5

357.5

383.9

 New Mexico

780.5

12.0

54.6

110.6

603.3

 Alaska

758.9

9.5

134.0

75.1

540.2

 Arkansas

645.3

10.2

76.0

39.7

519.4

 Louisiana

628.6

16.1

43.0

67.3

502.1

 Tennessee

621.6

8.6

38.2

67.1

507.6

 California

499.5

5.7

37.4

123.5

332.8

 Colorado

492.5

6.4

63.4

72.6

350.1

 South Carolina

491.3

11.2

38.2

40.6

401.3

 Missouri

488.0

10.1

48.9

54.8

374.2

 Michigan

461.0

6.9

64.8

36.6

352.7

 Nevada

454.0

6.8

58.9

86.1

302.3

 Texas

431.9

6.7

50.0

70.5

304.7

 Arizona

431.5

6.8

44.1

70.1

310.5

 New York

429.3

4.0

29.5

112.0

283.8

 Oklahoma

419.7

6.7

57.5

40.6

314.8

 Montana

417.9

4.5

54.4

23.3

335.7

 Kansas

414.6

4.6

45.5

29.2

335.4

 Alabama

409.1

10.9

29.6

34.5

334.1

 North Carolina

405.1

8.1

30.5

54.9

311.6

 Maryland

398.5

8.5

30.6

114.2

245.2

 Delaware

383.5

4.8

22.0

57.0

299.8

 South Dakota

377.4

4.3

55.8

25.3

292.0

 Washington

375.6

5.0

39.2

86.8

244.7

 Georgia

367.0

8.2

36.4

43.6

278.8

 Oregon

342.4

4.5

40.6

68.6

228.7

 Massachusetts

322.0

2.1

29.1

37.7

253.1

 Indiana

306.2

6.2

32.8

43.0

224.2

 Wisconsin

297.0

5.3

38.6

39.4

213.7

 Ohio

293.6

6.1

48.4

53.1

185.9

 Illinois

287.3

7.8

48.1

84.7

146.7

 Iowa

286.5

1.7

42.5

21.6

220.7

 Nebraska

282.8

3.2

55.3

29.1

195.2

 Minnesota

280.6

3.2

40.7

57.0

179.7

 Pennsylvania

279.9

7.9

29.5

68.1

174.5

 North Dakota

279.6

3.5

56.7

27.6

191.8

 West Virginia

277.9

4.6

44.4

10.0

218.9

 Hawaii

259.6

2.1

37.9

66.1

153.5

 Florida

258.9

5.0

30.2

33.6

190.1

 Mississippi

245.0

7.8

33.7

25.6

178.0

 Utah

241.8

2.0

59.5

29.6

150.7

 Idaho

241.4

2.7

48.7

8.2

181.7

 Virginia

234.0

7.3

30.2

38.4

158.1

 Vermont

221.9

3.4

36.8

13.3

168.5

 Kentucky

214.1

6.8

33.8

38.1

135.4

 New Jersey

202.9

3.1

16.8

47.6

135.4

 Wyoming

201.9

2.6

62.8

7.9

128.7

 Rhode Island

172.3

1.5

38.0

24.6

108.3

 Connecticut

150.0

3.8

18.1

44.9

83.3

 New Hampshire

125.6

1.8

39.6

16.1

68.1

 Maine

103.3

2.2

32.0

10.0

59.0

 

ATTACHMENT “A” (3) – FROM WIKIPEDIA

STATES RATED by CRIMINALITY by YEAR (2018 – 2022)

Ranked by overall violent crimes, as above.  Data in this table are from the FBI and for the year 2022.[1]

 

Location

2018

2019

2020

2021

2022

 United States

383.4

380.8

398.5

387.0

380.7

 District of Columbia

997.1

1,045.2

999.8

951.3

812.3

 New Mexico

842.8

824.0

778.3

820.8

780.5

 Alaska

891.7

865.0

837.8

759.1

758.9

 Arkansas

561.6

580.8

671.9

702.4

645.3

 Louisiana

543.3

559.7

639.4

662.7

628.6

 Tennessee

630.4

598.9

672.7

671.8

621.6

 California

447.5

442.1

442.0

481.2

499.5

 Colorado

401.5

384.6

423.1

480.4

492.5

 South Carolina

500.8

510.1

530.7

513.8

491.3

 Missouri

501.4

499.6

542.7

524.3

488.0

 Michigan

452.5

438.6

478.0

491.1

461.0

 Nevada

552.1

496.1

460.3

432.0

454.0

 Texas

412.9

421.8

446.5

453.0

431.9

 Arizona

475.7

447.1

484.8

425.6

431.5

 New York

350.8

361.0

363.8

308.3

429.3

 Oklahoma

474.6

436.3

458.6

438.0

419.7

 Montana

380.9

417.9

469.8

469.8

417.9

 Kansas

441.8

405.5

425.0

444.9

414.6

 Alabama

523.1

504.7

453.6

348.3

409.1

 North Carolina

356.2

378.7

419.3

419.5

405.1

 Maryland

469.4

454.4

399.9

435.1

398.5

 Delaware

422.5

422.7

431.9

419.2

383.5

 South Dakota

396.4

397.1

501.4

391.8

377.4

 Washington

315.3

303.3

293.7

335.7

375.6

 Georgia

338.9

326.2

400.1

349.8

367.0

 Oregon

290.4

293.7

291.9

341.3

342.4

 Massachusetts

340.3

328.7

308.8

301.1

322.0

 Indiana

373.5

371.5

357.7

332.6

306.2

 Wisconsin

299.0

297.1

323.4

325.4

297.0

 Ohio

294.8

296.0

308.8

317.4

293.6

 Illinois

411.4

415.3

425.9

344.8

287.3

 Iowa

263.7

287.6

303.5

295.0

286.5

 Nebraska

289.9

304.6

334.1

297.0

282.8

 Minnesota

221.2

237.5

277.5

308.9

280.6

 Pennsylvania

305.4

306.0

389.5

281.8

279.9

 North Dakota

284.1

301.4

329.0

276.4

279.6

 West Virginia

299.9

318.9

355.9

291.5

277.9

 Hawaii

255.0

264.5

254.2

274.0

259.6

 Florida

385.9

378.2

383.6

337.3

258.9

 Mississippi

266.0

261.2

291.2

255.4

245.0

 Utah

239.4

236.9

260.7

259.1

241.8

 Idaho

239.7

232.6

242.6

240.8

241.4

 Virginia

204.2

209.4

208.7

225.5

234.0

 Vermont

185.0

207.2

173.4

194.0

221.9

 Kentucky

217.9

220.7

259.1

269.0

214.1

 New Jersey

208.6

206.7

195.4

183.5

202.9

 Wyoming

213.8

215.0

234.2

223.8

201.9

 Rhode Island

219.8

222.7

230.8

200.5

172.3

 Connecticut

209.6

184.6

181.6

168.6

150.0

 New Hampshire

177.6

158.1

146.4

129.7

125.6

 Maine

112.0

116.1

108.6

112.9

103.3

 

 

 

ATTACHMENT “A” (4) – FROM WIKIPEDIA

U.S INCARCERATION COUNT, AND RATE PER 100,000 POPULATION BY YEAR, INCLUDING JAILS, STATE PRISONS, FEDERAL PRISONS

 

Year

Count

Rate

1940

264,834

201

1950

264,620

176

1960

346,015

193

1970

328,020

161

1980

503,586

220

1985

744,208

311

1990

1,148,702

457

1995

1,585,586

592

2000

1,937,482

683

2002

2,033,022

703

2004

2,135,335

725

2006

2,258,792

752

2008

2,307,504

755

2010

2,270,142

731

2012

2,228,424

707

2014

2,217,947

693

2016

2,157,800

666

2018

2,102,400

642

2020

1,675,400

505

2021

1,767,200

531

 

 

ATTACHMENT “A” (5) – FROM WIKIPEDIA

U.S INCARCERATION COUNT BY RACE AND ETHNICITY

See also: Race and crime in the United States and Racial inequality in the American criminal justice system

 

2021. People incarcerated in state or federal prisons by race and ethnicity.[7][31]

Race, ethnicity

% of US population

% of incarcerated
population

Incarceration rate
(per 100,000)

White (non-Hispanic)

59

31

181

Hispanic

19

24

434

Black

14

32

901

 

 

ATTACHMENT “A” (6) – FROM the SENTENCING PROJECT

 

U.S INCARCERATION COUNT BY STATE (compiled by the sentencing project)

States have been Alphabetized

 

U.S. Total

355

4.8:1

1.3:1

24,894

2%

Federal prisons

44

—

—

—

—

Alabama

390

2.8:1

—

678

9%

Alaska

205

4.7:1

0.6:1

156

1%

Arizona

446

4.9:1

1.7:1

351

5%

Arkansas

574

3.5:1

0.6:1

297

4%

California

250

9.2:1

2.0:1

2,385

0

Colorado

288

6.6:1

2.2:1

462

0

Connecticut

170

9.4:1

3.7:1

63

0

Delaware

272

5.3:1

0.1:1

135

1%

District of Columbia

0

—

—

78

—

Florida

377

4.1:1

0.7:1

1,221

8%

Georgia

435

2.8:1

0.6:1

750

3%

Hawaii

174

2.4:1

0.4:1

27

0

Idaho

460

4.4:1

1.4:1

264

2%

Illinois

236

7.8:1

1.5:1

516

0

Indiana

349

4.6:1

0.7:1

837

1%

Iowa

264

9.3:1

1.4:1

267

1%

Kansas

292

6.3:1

1.4:1

351

1%

Kentucky

437

2.9:1

0.4:1

297

5%

Louisiana

596

3.8:1

0.0:1

717

2%

Maine

107

8.8:1

3.6:1

27

0

Maryland

252

5:1

0.8:1

198

0

Massachusetts

94

7:1

4.0:1

204

0

Michigan

323

6.7:1

0.3:1

723

0

Minnesota

151

9.9:1

1.9:1

378

1%

Mississippi

661

2.6:1

0.5:1

186

11%

Missouri

381

3.6:1

0.5:1

612

2%

Montana

414

7.5:1

0.6:1

99

1%

Nebraska

284

8.9:1

1.9:1

207

1%

Nevada

322

4.1:1

0.8:1

342

1%

New Hampshire

149

5:1

1.8:1

12

0

New Jersey

137

12.5:1

2.0:1

378

0

New Mexico

231

5.8:1

1.8:1

198

1%

New York

159

7.8:1

3.0:1

741

0

North Carolina

268

3.9:1

0.9:1

411

0

North Dakota

230

5.2:1

2.3:1

39

0

Ohio

385

5.7:1

1.1:1

1,476

1%

Oklahoma

563

4.4:1

0.9:1

261

1%

Oregon

295

5.2:1

1.0:1

597

0

Pennsylvania

292

7.7:1

2.3:1

1,002

0

Rhode Island

124

8.5:1

2.6:1

72

0

South Carolina

302

3.8:1

0.7:1

414

1%

South Dakota

370

5.9:1

1.5:1

99

2%

Tennessee

334

3.4:1

0.5:1

300

9%

Texas

452

3.5:1

1.1:1

2,730

2%

Utah

176

7.6:1

1.8:1

168

0

Vermont

126

12.3:1

0.2:1

0

0

Virginia

312

4.4:1

0.4:1

558

5%

Washington

174

5.5:1

1.2:1

396

0

West Virginia

331

3.8:1

0.3:1

345

1%

Wisconsin

311

11.9:1

2.1:1

417

1%

Wyoming

369

5:1

1.4:1

171

2%