Read You Will Die: The Burden of Modern Taboos Online
Authors: Robert Arthur
44.
In 2005, one of my clients pleaded not guilty to drug distribution, had a jury trial, lost, and was sentenced to state prison for at least two years. The assistant district attorney who prosecuted the case admitted that if he had pleaded guilty, he would have likely received probation.
45.
MacCoun,
Drug War Heresies
, p. 160.
46.
Sect. from Gray,
Drug Crazy
, pp. 67–68.
47.
Morone,
Hellfire Nation
, p. 326.
48.
Adjusted to 2005 values.
49.
Gray,
Drug Crazy
, p. 69.
50.
Ibid., p. 70, and Morone,
Hellfire Nation
, pp. 327–328.
51.
Gray,
Drug Crazy
, p. 68.
52.
This is likely the origin of the phrase “to drink yourself blind,” and explains the many blind blues singers. Nick Davies, “Make Heroin Legal,”
Guardian.co.uk
, 14 June 2001.
53.
Antonio Escohotado,
Brief History of Drugs
(1999), p. 82.
54.
These deaths are ignored by those who claim Prohibition was a success because it lowered cirrhosis rates. Jacob Sullum,
Saying Yes
(2003), p. 83.
55.
Davies, “Make Heroin Legal.”
56.
MacCoun,
Drug War Heresies
, p. 166.
57.
Sect. largely from Gray,
Drug Crazy
, pp. 40–52.
58.
In the 1920s, “wowsers” referred to meddling reformers.
59.
Frank Dikötter, Lars Laaman, and Zhou Xun,
Narcotic Culture
(2004), pp. 107–117.
60.
An opiate authority at the time was Dr. Charles Terry. Unlike Wright, he actually conducted a study. He wrote, “. . . a very large proportion of the users of opiate drugs were respectable hardworking individuals in all walks of life, and . . . only about eighteen percent could in any way be considered as belonging to the underworld.” Gray,
Drug Crazy
, p. 53.
61.
Ibid., p. 43.
62.
Ibid., pp. 43–44.
63.
Ibid., p. 44.
64.
Ibid., p. 45.
65.
Ibid.
66.
Gray,
Drug Crazy
, p. 43.
67.
In its defense, it believed opium addiction was easily cured. However, it based this on the “research” of an uneducated insurance salesman whose “cure” was merely a strong laxative.
68.
Gray,
Drug Crazy
, p. 52.
69.
Anslinger info largely from ibid., pp. 72–91.
70.
Ibid., p. 75.
71.
Richard Davenport-Hines,
Pursuit of Oblivion
(2002), pp. 239, 346.
72.
Ibid., p. 240.
73.
Jacob Sullum,
Saying Yes
(2003), p. 140.
74.
Ibid., p. 202.
75.
This paragraph from ibid.
76.
Gray,
Drug Crazy
, p. 79.
77.
The AMA was only told about the bill and its hearing two days prior, despite the bill being prepared for two years. Peter McWilliams,
Ain’t Nobody’s Business If You Do
(1996), p. 286.
78.
Although these representatives could have been asinine, they were perhaps merely bitter. The committee was filled with New Deal Democrats who despised the AMA for fighting them over Social Security and health care issues. In addition, the committee chairperson was a key DuPont Corporation supporter and DuPont stood to profit immensely from the criminalization of marijuana. Gray,
Drug Crazy
, p. 80, and ibid.
79.
Gray,
Drug Crazy
, p. 80.
80.
Ibid., p. 81.
81.
Davenport-Hines,
Pursuit of Oblivion
, p. 348.
82.
McWilliams,
Ain’t Nobody’s Business
, pp. 286–287.
83.
Gray,
Drug Crazy
, pp. 81–82.
84.
Ibid., p. 81.
85.
Sullum,
Saying Yes
, p. 204.
86.
James Morone,
Hellfire Nation
(2003), pp. 359–361.
87.
Gray,
Drug Crazy
, p. 81.
88.
Ibid., p. 84.
89.
McWilliams,
Ain’t Nobody’s Business
, p. 287.
90.
Gray,
Drug Crazy
, pp. 83–84.
91.
McWilliams,
Ain’t Nobody’s Business
, p. 287.
92.
Paul Gahlinger,
Illegal Drugs
(2001), p. 61.
93.
“No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size. Government programs once launched, never disappear. Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we’ll ever see on this earth!” McWilliams,
Ain’t Nobody’s Business
, p. 151.
94.
Paragraph from Gahlinger,
Illegal Drugs
, pp. 50, 51, 63.
95.
Richard Davenport-Hines,
Pursuit of Oblivion
(2002), p. 333.
96.
In a 2005 drug trial of mine, the district attorney struck a woman from the jury pool who supported marijuana legalization. Afterwards a police officer poked fun of her by mimicking the stoned hippie voice popularized by Cheech and Chong in the 1970s, “Yeeeah, dude. Let’s legalize pot, man.”
97.
A syndicated series of newspaper articles in 1967 falsely linked LSD to cancer and birth defects. Another popular myth was that LSD caused kids to stare at the sun until they went blind. Davenport-Hines,
Pursuit of Oblivion
, pp. 333–334.
98.
Gahlinger,
Illegal Drugs
, p. 63.
99.
Gray,
Drug Crazy
, p. 94.
100.
According to his Chief of Staff, Nixon said in 1969, “You have to face the fact that the whole problem is really the blacks. The key is to devise a system that recognizes this all while not appearing to.” Dan Baum,
Smoke and Mirrors
(1996), p. 13.
101.
Ibid., p. 21.
102.
Nixon later had the numbers cut so he could say he was fixing the “crisis” in his campaign.
Agency of Fear
(1977), pp. 174–177.
103.
Ibid., p. 140.
104.
Gray,
Drug Crazy
, p. 96.
105.
Nixon’s close friend, the evangelist Billy Graham, blamed “all those sleeping pills” for his downfall. Davenport-Hines,
Pursuit of Oblivion
, pp. 420–421.
106.
Sect. from Gray,
Drug Crazy
, pp. 98–100.
107.
After anthropologist Margaret Mead testified before Congress for marijuana legalization in 1969 she was mocked in national cartoons and a mother wrote that she was a “dirty louse” and a “crazy . . . dope fiend” who deserved punishment. “Margaret Mead as a Cultural Commentator,” 15 Feb. 2006, ret.
loc.gov
, 28 May 2007.
108.
Baum,
Smoke and Mirrors
, p. 166.
109.
Leon Felkins, “Position Paper of Forfeiture Endangers American Rights Foundation,” 27 Mar. 2002, ret. FEAR. org, 11 Nov. 2006.
110.
Stories from London’s
Q
magazine, Feb. 2001, pp. 53–56, 60.
111.
A study of New York City homicides in 1988 found that eighty-five percent of crack-related murders stemmed from black-market disputes, another seven percent came from crimes committed to support a crack habit. Only one homicide out of 118 involved a perpetrator who was high on crack. Jacob Sullum,
Saying Yes
(2003), p. 195.
112.
James Morone,
Hellfire Nation
(2003), p. 467.
113.
Gray,
Drug Crazy
, pp. 100–110.
114.
Gahlinger,
Illegal Drugs
, p. 66.
115.
Ibid., p. 66.
116.
Morone,
Hellfire Nation
, p. 467.
117.
Gray,
Drug Crazy
, p. 116.
118.
Ibid., pp. 116–117.
119.
Sect. largely from ibid., pp. 119–131.
120.
Ibid., p. 123.
121.
Gray,
Drug Crazy
, p. 124.
122.
When the undercover agent first made the request for that location the suspect said, “Where the [expletive] is the White House?” Michael Isikoff, “Drug Buy Set Up for Bush Speech.”
Washington Post
, 22 Sep. 1989.
123.
Gray,
Drug Crazy
, p. 124.
124.
In 1980, thirty percent of high school seniors said cocaine was available. In 1995, forty-six percent did. In 1995 cocaine cost less than a third of what it had 1981. Robert MacCoun and Peter Reuter,
Drug War Heresies
(2001), pp. 31–32.
125.
Sect. largely from Gray,
Drug Crazy
, pp. 133–143.
126.
The fight between the two cartels began when a Tijuana mole installed within the Sinaloa Cartel ran off to San Francisco with the wife and two children of Sinaloa’s leader. There the mole had her withdraw $7 million from the bank before removing her head and mailing it back to her husband. The mole then took the kids to Venezuela and threw them off a bridge. The Tijuana Cartel knew revenge was imminent so it launched a preemptive strike.
127.
Ted Carpenter,
Bad Neighbor Policy
(2003), pp. 189–190.
128.
James McKinley, “With Beheadings and Attacks, Drug Gangs Terrorize Mexico,”
New York Times
, 26 Oct. 2006.
129.
“Drug Violence in Mexico,” Trans-Border Institute, U. of San Diego, Mar. 2012.
130.
“Turning to the Gringos for Help,”
Economist
, 27 Mar. 2010.
131.
For the attitude in Chicago see Gray,
Drug Crazy
, pp. 11–13.
132.
Before September 11, 2001, the drug war was viewed by the U.S. security bureaucracy as the cash cow that could replace the cold war. Ted Carpenter,
Bad Neighbor Policy
(2003), pp. 42–49.
133.
One example was the 1997 Mapiripán massacre, in which over fifty villagers were tortured for days, hacked to pieces with machetes, and then tossed in a river. Some were decapitated with chainsaws. Roxanna Altholz, “Human Rights Atrocities Still Go Unpunished in Colombia,”
AlterNet.org
, 28 Jan. 2008; and Jo-Marie Burt, “Massacre at Mapiripán,”
ColombiaJournal.org
, 3 Apr. 2000.
134.
Scott Wilson, “Colombian Fighters’ Drug Trade is Detailed,”
Washington Post
, 26 June 2003.
135.
“Paramilitaries’ Heirs,” Human Rights Watch, 3 Feb 2010, ret.
HRW.org
, 1 Oct. 2010.
136.
From the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s coca acreage in Peru rose steadily according to the UN, the Peruvian Ministry of Agriculture, and a respected American consulting firm. The State Department claims acreage is flat or declining. Carpenter,
Bad Neighbor Policy
, p. 97.
137.
Perhaps most telling, U.S. street prices for cocaine have been unaffected. Ibid., pp. 76–78.
138.
Ibid., pp. 61, 70.
139.
Ibid., p. 107.
140.
Ibid., pp. 142–143.
141.
Ibid., p. 150.
142.
James McKinley, Jr., “Under U.S. Pressure, Mexico President Seeks Review of Drug Law,”
New York Times
, 4 May 2006.
143.
Ibid.
144.
“They hate our freedoms . . .” George W. Bush, “Address to a Joint Session of Congress,” 20 Sep. 2001, ret.
whitehouse.gov
, 31 Mar. 2007.
145.
“Marijuana Prosecutions for 2010 Near Record High,”
NORML.org
, 19 Sep. 2011, ret. 20 Apr. 2012.
146.
Robert MacCoun and Peter Reuter,
Drug War Heresies
(2001), p. 125.
147.
Roy Walmsley, “World Prison Population List,” (8
th
Ed.), International Centre for Prison Studies (UK), 2009.
148.
From 1998–2006 the government appropriated nearly $1.5 billion to the Drug-Free Media Campaign. Mark Eddy, “War on Drugs,” Congressional Research Service, 3 July 2006, p. 3.
149.
Ibid., p. 1.
150.
Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands have decriminalized marijuana. Eric Schlosser, “Up In Smoke,”
New York Times
, 1 June 2003.