An anniversary

On June 17, 1971 President Richard Nixon declared the War On (Some) Drugs. Now, I've repeatedly pointed out some of the side effects -- the militarization of our police forces, the enrichment of drug gangs in other countries, the disenfranchisement of large swathes of minority America either through placing them in jail or through removing their right to vote after they get out of jail, and so forth. I've also pointed out that the War on (Some) Drugs has not ended drug abuse, indeed, there's as much drug abuse as ever. But let's get to the bottom line: Is the War on Drugs a success?

Now, you might wonder why I'm asking that question. Well, that's probably because you're one of the suckers who believes that the War on Drugs is -- or ever has been -- about drugs. But of course it isn't. It's never been about drugs. When Nixon declared the War on Drugs, he wasn't actually declaring war on drugs. He didn't give a shit how much pot people smoked or how much acid they dropped. He was a lizard person, remember. Lizard people don't view humans as people. They view humans as prey. Nixon could no more have cared about the horrors of drug abuse than a newt could care about the feelings of the fly he just snagged with his tongue and is in the process of eating. As a sociopath, he simply was biologically incapable of feeling anything for human beings.

So if the War on Drugs was never about the horrors of drug abuse... why, then? Okay, let me count the ways...

1. A strike against the counterculture. The counterculture had our lizard overlords scared shitless. You had all these young people who'd tuned in, turned on, dropped out, who were going out onto the land and growing their own food and shit, not buying, not consuming... how were the lizard people going to continue their project of farming humans for profit if the humans left the plantation and went off on their own? But see, the "back to nature" counterculture had a fatal flaw: even early 20th century subsistence farmers needed a "cash crop" to buy those things that could not be grown or made on the farm, things like farm implements, cloth, jars for canning food, and so forth. And given their origins, pharmaceuticals were a primo cash crop for the counterculture. So basically, the War on Drugs allowed the lizard people to destroy the counterculture, which was a direct threat to their plantation economy where humans are farmed for profit.
2. Put those uppity Negros in their place. It's not an accident that drugs that are most popular with minorities are also the drugs whose use or possession or sale results in the largest penalties. By giving the most onerous punishments to drugs primarily used by minorities, the War on (Some) Drugs accomplishes two things simultaneously -- it gets some scary darkies off the street (and, sister, *all* darkies are scary to tighty whitey bigot-Americans), and it disenfranchises these darkies so they won't be voting (they won't be votin' for sure while in jail, and mostly will be disqualified from voting after they get out of jail too). Can't let the darkies vote, why, they might vote for someone who, like, isn't a bigot! The horror, the horror! So by putting 25% of all black men into the criminal justice system, you give a wink and nod to poor white trash upset that now black people are as good as them under the law. And by removing the ability of these minorities to vote, you do more to preserve white power than all KKK covens combined.
3. Expand the paramilitary forces available to the lizard people. The lizard people don't understand why, but they do understand that their programs that result in large numbers of "surplus" humans dying of starvation, exposure, or lack of medical care are unpopular with the majority of human beings and can only be imposed by force. By providing huge sums of money and motivation for militarizing the police forces, the lizard people now no longer need to hire Pinkertons to deal with uppity humans who dare resist their program of human farming with methods other than whining and wringing of hands. Instead, they have a huge number of paramilitary policemen trained to believe that all "civilians" are The Enemy and whose notion of "serve and protect" is to serve and protect their lizard overlords, not the human beings who pay their salaries.

So is the War on (Some) Drugs a success? Why... yes! It's a *SMASHING* success! Why do you ask?

-- Badtux the Cynical Penguin