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That doesnt make sense. If it was done for attrition purposes the effects wouldnt benefit Nixon until well after he is out of office. If done simply as an excuse to target leaders, then those people werent drug users. Which means the drug charges were made up, which means there was no need to make drugs illegal to do it, you could have just as easily made up a similar heinous charge and used that to justify the arrest.
The logic here makes absolutely no sense.
@freemo @MelodyCooper Because you're looking at it from a legal perspective.
If you assign drugs to someone, and say the drugs are what made them bad, then going after those people to get the drugs gives you cover ('what, shouldn't we go after heroin? look at how bad it is? The black people aren't to blame, it's the heroin! Are you a racist?').
It's assigning emotional reaction, then using that as cover. Anything bad done by a hippy or a black person was drugs. You need to stop the drugs.
Dude the narrative itself is a lie, the idea that Nixon criminalized narcotics isnt true. It was already criminalized heavily and completely 44 years earlier.
Under Nixon he passed a law that actually made drugs **less** criminalized, causing simple possession to go from a felony to a misdemeanor.
Literally not only does the reasoning in the post not make sense, but the stated facts are bald faced lies too that can easily be checked.
@freemo
While I agree the "banned drugs" conclusion isn't supported by Erlichmann's quote (or legislative history (from what I understand,) the broader concept of "associating" certain drugs with those groups ostensibly provided cover for unbalanced enforcement of existing laws (persecution). "Plausible deniability" is par for the course in the Nixon administration, when it comes to racism, among other tactics/goals. @Oggie @MelodyCooper
If someone just made the general argument that the "war on drugs" has been used immorally to and disproportionately to attack and lock up peaceful minorities, then absolutely. As long as there is racism in a society there will always be unfair application of laws, particularly laws that outlaw nonviolent acts. So no doubt there.
Only thing i call BS on is the specific content of this post and the quote provided. The content of the quote is factually and logically wrong and clearly not a truthful interpretation of the genesis of drug laws.
If the first line had instead been ‘this is why we invented the comically racist mandatory minimum drug schedule classification’, would that have suited you better?
No
With that change the quote would still be factually and logically wrong. The phrase “and then criminalize both heavily” makes no sense since Nixon did not criminalize both heavily. The criminalization took place 44 years earlier and Nixon actually reduced the penalties not increased them.
Therefore even with that change its factually wrong,and logically wrong since the reason it claims nixon did a thing he didnt actually do cant possibly make logical sense.
That’s what this is in reference to, I am fairly certain, and the controlled substances act business we’re still dealing with fallout now from. That was from Nixon in 1970, and is when the deeply horrible systems got installed.
Yes this is trying to reference the 1970 act, but again that act reduced the penalty on possession from a felony to a misdemeanor, it didnt make it more criminalized it made it less. Thus why literally no part of the original quote makes any sense logically or factually.
Help me out here, please.
Are Republican politicians from the Nixon era to blame for our never ending War on Drugs? I suspect that statement lacks nuance. Could you offer another statement (s) that better reflect what took place?
Sure, Nixon seemed largely worried about addiction, and thought that addiction running rampant was harming the country.. his top concern however was not the general population but the military in Vietnam at the time.
His actions also suggest he saw the addicts as mostly victims, this is seen by the fact that he significantly reduced penalties for possession and use. But his goal was still to eliminate the number of addicted people in the USA. So he started the DEA to try and cut the supply off to the users.
In short his tactic was reduced criminality, but increased enforcement, primarily within the military and internationally, but also to reduce the production and supply within the USA.
Most of his actions resulting from the drug policy during his administration were target at the military, enacting things like drug tests and consequences there.
@freemo
Hmm.
So the assertion that Nixon mostly did that work for political purposes, getting reelected by creating us v them, is just wrong? That was your point in this thread?
Is it fair to associate the outcomes that his policies delivered to his sponsoring them? Or, again, insufficiently nuanced?
No. The point of the reply was
1) To show the objective facts stated in the quote are the literal opposite of what actually happened.
2) Show the quote is fake both as a result of #1 and the fact that it has been exposed as such (other links in the thread).
3) that what people inferred these actual imply, with regard to Nixon’s intent makes no sense since the actions didnt occur in the first place and is a gross misrepresentation
4) That Nixon explicitly lessened the criminality of drugs didnt increase it
The above 4 points were the point of my post. The fact that that may be used, by a reasonable person, to infer the points you said may be perfectly reasonable, but was not my intent. My intent is to make sure the facts are clearly stated, what conclusions you draw from the facts is still up to you to make and debate freely.
Is it fair to associate the outcomes that his policies delivered to his sponsoring them? Or, again, insufficiently nuanced?
Id need more nuance to know what policy and what outcome you mean. The outcome of his policies, for example, is that people who used to be arrested and getting very serious charges for simple possession now got simple misdemeanors. He reduced the consequences and criminality of processioning and consuming drugs. Yes he very much is to blame this reduction in criminality.
@freemo
Thank you. I’m continually surprised by my ignorance and the ease with which I accept as fact things I read and watch….
The outcomes I was referring to relate to those delivered by decades of the “war on drugs.” In particular, the narco traffickers and the induced migration of those fleeing the resulting violence not to mention the focus on enforcement and incarceration rather than treatment and prevention.
1/2
I have assumed that it was “fair” to blame Nixon as the originator, particularly as the falsehood that he kicked off these policies in order to get reelected seemed accurate and truthful - it seemed to align with my understanding of his personality. I easily imagined that would be his intent.
I was wrong - he intended to reduce the suffering of returning vets who were addicted.
@JoeStewart Its fair to blame Nixon as the originator in much the same way that it is fair to blame George Washington for the Kardashians because without George Washington the USA would have never gotten to the place it is today.
Basically Nixon started the DEA, and the existence of the DEA ultimately led to the abysmal state we are in. But the DEA when he started it wasnt the abusive organization in the way it is today, in fact it was quite reasonable at first compared to today.
Thank you. I’m continually surprised by my ignorance and the ease with which I accept as fact things I read and watch….
For what its worth before seeing this post I beleive the typical narrative of Nixon being the bad guy who started the war on drugs too.
What got me was when i was reading this i went “wait a second, they made it sound like he made heroin illegal, coulda swore it was already illegal”… I looked it up and sure enough it was made illegal 44 years earlier.
So then, beleiving my original assumptions must be true I went “Well surely he at least made it more illegal”.. so i looked up his exactly policy and read it and read his quotes. To my shock he actually passed laws that specifically reduced criminality, making pocession a misdemeanor for all drugs which used to be a felony.
After that I went and researched the quote and found it to be utterly fake. and well… we arrived at my post :)
The outcomes I was referring to relate to those delivered by decades of the “war on drugs.” In particular, the narco traffickers and the induced migration of those fleeing the resulting violence not to mention the focus on enforcement and incarceration rather than treatment and prevention.
The war on drugs certainly started with Nixon indirectly with the formation of the DEA. Nixon wanted less criminality, but actual enforcement. He thought drug abuse was a true ill to society as far as I could tell, so he did want to eliminate it, but he didnt want everyone to just wind up in jail. He largely wanted to target,it seems, the dealers and producers and leave the users out of it as far as severe punishments go. This was absolutely an improvement from the felony charges people used to get.
The problem is the DEA took on a life of its own, after Nixon it grew, became more pervasive, and the penalties started to increase again.
So one can argue that Nixon started a chain of events that ultimately led to the drug war and its abuse on the people. But when Nixon started it it wasnt like that, and as I said it actually was a lessening of charges.
@freemo @JoeStewart Former President Nixon was just too ahead of his time. Compared to the recent presidents, he did nothing wrong. There was the relationship with China that he improved and the EPA being started.
Nixon's presidency was one of the most important and misunderstood.
I mean, he may have done some good things, I agree.. but umm... watergate :)
@freemo @JoeStewart Watergate seems so small compared to January 6th.
I mean Jan 6th was bigger. But the difference is Jan 6th was something a bunch of radical people did, watergate is something a president directly did that was illegal.
@freemo @JoeStewart Technically he got others to do it and they weren't that good. That's why one shouldn't cheap out on contractors trying to protect the nation from a Commie plot.
@freemo @JoeStewart I read Junky and Pimp. People were worried about getting their cars seized in the 1930s for having dope on them. And there was a very lively drug trade back then, if the books can be believed. The WOD was well under way in the 50s when Junky was written, complete with undercover cops, buy-busts, the whole works. The only major difference was the Feds rather than state and local were leading it.
@freemo I see. I think the closest I can come to reconciling the legislation and the quote is that it includes the campaign, and the strategy of the administration as a whole, which may be in contrast to what was actually enacted. The intention was there, in pursuit of attacking certain groups.
@Oggie @MelodyCooper
That still doesnt reconcile the quote. Drugs like those mentioned were already illegal 44 years before Nixon's election. In fact Nixon explicitly did pass an act related to drugs, and it **reduced** the penalty, not increased it like the quote states (changing possession of drugs from a felony to a misdemeanor).
You cant reconcile something that is the literal opposite of what actually happened.
@freemo
For what it's worth, I see the veracity of the quote is contested:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Ehrlichman#Drug_war_quote
YeaI was fairly certain it was a fake quote.. it makes no sense the quote would be real.
@freemo
To play devil's advocate one last time, the quote could be real, and Erlichman could have been just plain wrong. (But not about the racism in the Nixon administration.)
@Oggie @MelodyCooper
Sure, in theory that could be possible. The reason I dont suspect that to be the case is simply because I would expect the guy to have the common sense not to say something that is so obviously not true and so easily verified as not true. Surely he knew those things had been illegal for many years prior.
Knowing Nixon, he probably recorded it, he did record a lot of things in the Oval Office. 
That said, while Nixon himself didn't criminalizing cannabis or heroin, he did create the DEA for the sole purpose to heavily enforce existing drug laws (aka War on Drugs), but by the time the DEA officially started, Watergate had happened and Nixon was getting drunk, yelling at paintings, so the enforcement lingered until Regan came along in 1980.
Yes Richard Nixon formed the DEA,**and** reduced the penalty for possession of drugs. So the idea that he did for the "sole purposely to heavily enforce"... when the same act that created it **reduced** penalties seem to be statements at odd with each other.
While he did reduced "simple possession" from a felony to a misdemeanor in 1970, it still carried up to a year in prison, increased penalties for those who the police considered "trafficking" and introduced "no-knock" entry to peoples homes without warning.
Remember too, he said "getting the public to associate" and then "criminalizing both heavily"
It was always going to be a long term plan, but by 1972 Watergate happened and that plan fell apart until Regan.
@freemo @gnate @Oggie @MelodyCooper
This is where the quote was taken from:
@freemo @gnate @MelodyCooper
If the first line had instead been 'this is why we invented the comically racist mandatory minimum drug schedule classification', would that have suited you better?
That's what this is in reference to, I am fairly certain, and the controlled substances act business we're still dealing with fallout now from. That was from Nixon in 1970, and is when the deeply horrible systems got installed.