All credit goes to www.RealHistorywww.com

1. Anatomy of the War on Drugs in
Black and White:

2. • The United States has focused its efforts on the
criminalization of drug use. The government has,
to no avail, spent countless billions of dollars in
efforts to eradicate the supply of drugs. Efforts of
interdiction and law enforcement have not been
met with decreases in the availability of drugs in
America. Apart from being highly costly, drug law
enforcement has been counterproductive.
Current drug laws need to be relaxed. The United
States needs to shift spending from law
enforcement and penalization to education,
treatment, and prevention.

3. History of U. S. Drug Policy
• Drugs first surfaced in the United States in the
1800’s. Opium became very popular after the
American Civil War. Cocaine followed in the
1880’s. Coca was popularly used in health
drinks and remedies. Morphine was
discovered in 1906 and used for medicinal
purposes. Heroin was used to treat respiratory
illness, cocaine was used in Coca-Cola, and
morphine was regularly prescribed by doctors
as a pain reliever.

4. • The turn of the century witnessed a heightened
awareness that psychotropic drugs have a great
potential for causing addiction. The abuse of
opium and cocaine at the end of the 19th century
reached epidemic proportions. Local
governments began prohibiting opium dens and
opium importation. In 1906 the Pure Food and
Drug Act required all physicians to accurately
label their medicines. Drugs were no longer seen
as harmless remedies for aches and pains.

5. • The Harrison Narcotics Act, passed in 1914, was the
United States’ first federal drug policy. The act
restricted the manufacture and sale of marijuana,
cocaine, heroin, and morphine. The act was
aggressively enforced. Physicians, who were
prescribing drugs to addicts on “maintenance”
programs were harshly punished. Between 1915 and
1938, more than 5,000 physicians were convicted and
fined or jailed (Trebach, 1982, p. 125.) In 1919, The
Supreme Court ruled against the maintenance of
addicts as a legitimate form of treatment in Webb et al.
v. United States. America’s first federal drug policy
targeted physicians and pharmacists.

6. • In 1930, the Treasury Department created the Federal Bureau of
Narcotics. Harry J. Anslinger headed the agency until 1962 and
molded America’s drug policy. Under his tenure, drugs were
increasingly criminalized. The Boggs Act of 1951 drastically
increased the penalties for marijuana use. The Narcotics Control Act
of 1956 created “the most punitive and repressive anti-narcotics
legislation ever adopted by Congress. All discretion to suspend
sentences or permit probation was eliminated. Parole was allowed
only for first offenders convicted of possession, and the death
penalty could be invoked for anyone who sold heroin to a minor
(McWilliams, 1990, p.116).” Anslinger was critical of judges for
being too easy on drug dealers and called for longer minimum
sentences. He established a punitive drug policy with a focus on
drug law enforcement.

7. • The Federal Bureau of Narcotics also used propaganda
as a preventative measure. They created myths and
horror stories about drugs. Marijuana was blamed for
bizarre cases of insanity, murder, and sex crimes.
Anslinger said that marijuana caused some people to
“fly into a delirious rage and many commit violent
crimes (McWilliams, 1990, P. 70).” It is puzzling that
Anslinger and the FBN fabricated such tales, while
there existed less dramatic, but true horror stories
connected to drug abuse. The propaganda of the
1940’s and 1950’s was often so far-fetched that people
simply didn’t believe the government’s warnings about
drugs.

8. • The 1960’s gave birth to a rebellious
movement that popularized drug use. The
counterculture made marijuana fashionable
on college campuses. Other “hippies” sought
to expand their minds with the use of
hallucinogens like LSD. Many soldiers
returned from the Vietnam War with
marijuana and heroin habits. In short, the
demand for drugs in America skyrocketed in
the 1960’s.

9. • The Johnson Administration, in reaction to a sharp
rise in drug abuse, passed the Narcotics Addict
Rehabilitation Act of 1966. The act specified that
“narcotic addiction” was a mental illness. The law
recognized that the disease concept of alcoholism also
applied to drug addiction. Drug use, however, was still
considered a crime. The act did not have a major
impact because the small amount of funding that was
appropriated for treatment couldn’t meet the
increasing demand for drugs in the late 1960’s and
early 1970’s. The act did pave the road for federal
expenditures on drug abuse treatment.

10. The Modern Drug War
• In 1971 President Richard Nixon declared war
on drugs. He proclaimed, “America’s public
enemy number one in the United States is
drug abuse. In order to fight and defeat this
enemy, it is necessary to wage a new, all-out
offensive (Sharp, 1994, p.1).” Nixon fought
drug abuse on both the supply and demand
fronts. Nixon’s drug policies reflect both the
temperance view and disease view of
addiction.

11. • Nixon initiated the first significant federal funding
of treatment programs in. In 1971, the
government funded the then experimental and
enormously controversial methadone
maintenance program. In June 1971, Nixon
addressed Congress and declared, “as long as
there is a demand, there will be those willing to
take the risks of meeting the demand (Sharp,
1994, p.27).” In this statement he publicly
proclaimed that all efforts of interdiction and
eradication are destined to fail.

12. • Unfortunately, Nixon failed to listen to his own advice.
Nixon launched a massive interdiction effort in Mexico.
The Drug Enforcement Agency was created in 1973.
They initiated Operation Intercept, which pressured
Mexico to regulate its marijuana growers. The U S
government spent hundreds of millions of dollars
closing up the border. Trade between Mexico and the
U. S. came to a virtual standstill. Mass amounts of
Mexican crops headed for the U. S. rotted, while
waiting in line at the border. In the end, Nixon
achieved his goal of curtailing the supply of Mexican
marijuana in America. Columbia, however, was quick
to replace Mexico as America’s marijuana supplier.

13. • The interdiction of Mexican marijuana was the
government’s first lesson in the “iron law of drug
economics (Rosenberger, 1996, p.22).” Every
effort the U S government has made at
interdiction since Operation Intercept has at most
resulted in a reorganization of the international
drug trade. Heavily monitored drug routes have
been rerouted. Drugs enter the United States
through land, sea, and air. Closing our borders to
drug smugglers is an impossibility as long as the
demand exists.

14. Study: Recent Trends in Fatal
Poisoning by Opiates In the United
States (1982)• Abstract: Deaths in the United States classified as unintentional poisoning
by drugs and medicaments fell from 14.7 per million population in 1975 to
8.8 in 1978, a 40 per cent decrease. Seventy-three per cent of this drop
was attributable to a reduction in deaths coded to opiates and intravenous
narcotism. These two categories accounted for 38 per cent of all
unintentional drug deaths in 1975 but only 15 per cent in 1978. There was
no simultaneous increase in other drug-related deaths, including suicides,
to account for the reduction in deaths coded to opiates. The highest
mortality rates and the greatest variation in mortality during 1970-78
occurred in 20-29 year old non-White males. Racial and sex differences in
opiate poisoning mortality, notable early in the decade, were greatly
reduced by 1978 due to a relatively larger decline in mortality of males
and non-Whites. Time trends in mortality from opiate poisoning appear to
coincide with variations in the amount of heroin smuggled into the
country. (Am J Public Health 1982; 72: 1251-1256.)

15. • Results
During the nine years studied, there were
67,851 deaths in the United States ascribed to
poisoning by drugs, of which 22,826 (34 per
cent) were classified as unintentional (Table
1). The annual number of deaths from
unintentional poisoning by drugs and
medicaments rose from 2,505 in 1970 to a
high of 3,132 in 1975, then dropped to 1,906
in 1978.

16. • Between 1975 and 1978, the mortality rate per million population
declined by 40 per cent, from 14.7 to 8.8.For all ages combined,
mortality was twice as high in non-White males as in White males,
and 1.5 times as high in non-White females as in White females
(Table 1). Among 20-29 year old Whites, no decline in mortality
occurred until the second half of the decade, and then it was
limited to males (Figure 2). In non-Whites, on the other hand, the
decrease began in the first half of the decade and reversed
temporarily in 1974-1975. The drop in mortality was greater among
non-White males than among non-White females. 1976-1977 U.S.
health report US DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH, EDUCATION, AND
WELFARE Drug dependence accounted for a Greater proportion of
emergency room visits for blacks and other Minorities than for
whites.
•

17. •
• CNN
•
Report: Aide says Nixon's war on drugs
targeted Blacks and Hippies
• By Tom LoBianco, March 24, 2016

18. • Washington (CNN): One of Richard Nixon's top advisers and a key
figure in the Watergate scandal said the war on drugs was created
as a political tool to fight blacks and hippies, according to a 22-year-
old interview recently published in Harper's Magazine. "The Nixon
campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two
enemies: the antiwar left and black people," former Nixon domestic
policy chief John Ehrlichman told Harper's writer Dan Baum for the
April cover story published Tuesday. "You understand what I'm
saying? We knew we couldn't make it illegal to be either against the
war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies
with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing
both heavily, we could disrupt those communities," Ehrlichman
said. "We could arrest their leaders. raid their homes, break up
their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening
news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we
did."

19. • Ehrlichman's comment is the first time the war on drugs has been plainly
characterized as a political assault designed to help Nixon win, and keep
the White House. It's a stark departure from Nixon's public explanation for
his first piece of legislation in the war on drugs, delivered in message to
Congress in July 1969, which framed it as a response to an increase in
heroin addiction and the rising use of marijuana and hallucinogens by
students. However, Nixon's political focus on white voters, the "Silent
Majority," is well-known. And Nixon's derision for minorities in private is
well-known from his White House recordings. The comments come as
there has been a marked shift in attitudes toward handling drug use --
ranging from the legalization of marijuana in various states to White
House candidates focusing heavily on treatment as an answer to New
Hampshire's heroin epidemic while they were campaigning across the
state. Ehrlichman died in 1999, but his five children questioned the
veracity of the account.

20. • Quote from the Godfather movie (1972) - Don
Zaluchi: "I, too, don't believe in drugs. For years I paid
my people extra to stay away from that sort of stuff,
but someone comes along saying, I've got powders
where if you put up a three to four thousand dollar
investment, you can make fifty thousand distributing,
then there is no way to resist it. I want to keep it
respectable. I don't want it near schools. I don't want
it sold to children! That's an infamia. In my city, we'd
keep the traffic to the Dark People, the Coloreds -
they're animals anyway, so let them lose their souls."

21. Rockefeller Drug Laws
• The Rockefeller Drug Laws are the statutes dealing with the
sale and possession of "narcotic" drugs in the New York
State Penal Law. The laws are named after Nelson
Rockefeller, who was the state's governor at the time the
laws were adopted. Rockefeller had previously backed drug
rehabilitation, job training and housing as strategies, having
seen drugs as a social problem rather a criminal one, but
did an about-face during a period of mounting national
anxiety about drug use and crime. Rockefeller, a staunch
supporter of the bill containing the laws, had Presidential
ambitions and so wanted to raise his national posture by
being "tough on crime."[citation needed] If this strategy
worked, he would no longer be seen as too liberal to be
elected. He signed it on May 8, 1973.

22. • Under the Rockefeller drug laws, the penalty for selling
two ounces (57 g) or more of heroin, morphine, "raw
or prepared opium," cocaine, or cannabis or possessing
four ounces (113 g) or more of the same substances,
was a minimum of 15 years to life in prison, and a
maximum of 25 years to life in prison. The original
legislation also mandated the same penalty for
committing a violent crime while under the influence
of the same drugs, but this provision was subsequently
omitted from the bill and was not part of the
legislation Rockefeller ultimately signed. The section of
the laws applying to marijuana was repealed in 1977,
under the Democratic Governor Hugh Carey.

23. • The adoption of the Rockefeller drug laws gave
New York State the distinction of having the
toughest laws of its kind in the entire United
States — an approach soon imitated by the state
of Michigan, which, in 1978, enacted a "650-
Lifer Law," which called for life imprisonment,
without the possibility of parole for the sale,
manufacture, or possession of at least 650
grams (1.43 lb) of cocaine or any Schedule I or
Schedule II opiate.

24. • In 1977 President Carter called for the
decriminalization of marijuana. In a speech to
Congress he said, “penalties against
possession of the drug should not be more
damaging than the drug itself (Rosenberger,
1996, p25).” Although Carter endorsed lenient
laws towards marijuana use, he was against
legalization. Carter’s drug policy was focused
on the supply front, with most funding going
to interdiction and eradication programs.

25. • Marijuana decriminalization did not fail, but
failed to be realized. Carter’s presidency
witnessed a sharp increase in cocaine use. From
1978 to 1984, cocaine consumption in America
increased from between 19 and 25 tons to
between 71 and 137 tons. The demand for
cocaine increased as much as 700 percent in just
six years (Collett, 1989, p. 35). Marijuana was
widely connected to cocaine as a feeder drug.
Thus, the federal and state governments moved
away from marijuana decriminalization.

26. • In 1981, President Reagan gave a speech mirroring
Nixon’s admission that fighting the supply side of the
drug war was a losing proposition. He said, “It’s far
more effective if you take the customers away than if
you try to take the drugs away from those who want to
be customers.” Reagan, like Nixon did not heed is own
advice. The average annual amount of funding for
eradication and interdiction programs increased from
an annual average of $437 million during Carter’s
presidency to $1.4 billion during Reagan’s first term.
The funding for programs of education, prevention,
and rehabilitation were cut from an annual average of
$386 million to $362 million (Rosenberger, 1996, p. 26).

27. • Reagan’s demand side initiatives focused on “getting
tough” on drugs. The program became known as the
“zero tolerance” program, where punitive measures
against users were emphasized. The 1986 Anti-Drug
Abuse gave the drug user full accountability. Drug
users were to be prosecuted for possession and
accordingly penalized. Although some block grants
were given for drug treatment, the rehabilitative
efforts were insufficient to meet the overwhelming
amount of drug abuse. Reagan’s demand side drug
policy largely reflects the colonial, or moralist view of
addiction.

28. • Despite headlining innovative drug policies, Clinton has
largely continued the Republican’s supply sided drug policy.
In the 1995 budget, Clinton earmarked an extra $1 billion
for both the demand and supply fronts of the government’s
drug policy. Clinton attracted the media’s attention when
he doubled the spending for rehabilitation and prevention
programs. However, more substantial increases were made
for eradication programs and law enforcement. The 1995
budget included $13.2 billion for drug policy. $7.8 billion
was spent on supply sided efforts, while only $5.4 billion
was spent on education, prevention, and rehabilitation.
Although Clinton did increase the percentage spent on the
demand front of the drug war, his policy clearly reflects
supply sided tactics (Rosenberger, 1996, p. 51).

29. • It is important to note that Congress has a
significant influence on shaping America’s drug
policy. The Republican 104th Congress
successfully killed many of Clinton’s attempts to
spend more on the demand side. Even the
Democratic 103rd Congress of the early 1990’s
fought shifting the drug policy towards
prevention and rehabilitation. Both Democratic
and Republic Congresses overwhelmingly favored
continuing with supply sided efforts.

30. • Although Clinton didn’t significantly change the
direction of U S drug policy he presented some
innovative proposals. Clinton encouraged
Community Action Programs and grass roots
organizations to participate in the demand side of
the drug war. However, of the $1 billion given to
the Community Empowerment Program only $50
million was allocated to drug education,
prevention, and treatment (Rosenberger, 1996, p.
63). Thus, the potential of the programs was
never realized.

31. • Epub Feb 8, 2007
• Study: Years of Potential Life Lost among
Heroin Addicts 33 Years after Treatment
• By Breda Smyth, M.D., M.P.H.,a Valerie
Hoffman, Ph.D., M.P.H.,a Jing Fan, M.D.,
M.S.,a and Yih-Ing Hser, Ph.D.a

32. • Abstract
Objective
• To examine premature mortality in terms of years of potential life lost (YPLL) among a cohort of long-term heroin
addicts. This longitudinal, prospective study followed a cohort of 581 male heroin addicts in California for more
than 33 years. In the latest follow-up conducted in 1996/97, 282 subjects (48.5%) were confirmed as deceased by
death certificates. YPLL before age 65 years were calculated by causes of death. Ethnic differences in YPLL were
assessed among Whites, Hispanics, and African Americans.
• Results
•
On average, addicts in this cohort lost 18.3 years (SD = 10.7) of potential life before age 65. Of the total YPLL for
the cohort, 22.3% of the years lost was due to heroin overdose, 14.0% due to chronic liver disease, and 10.2% to
accidents. The total YPLL and YPLL by death cause in addict cohort were significant higher than that of US
population. The YPLL among African Americans was significantly lower than that among Whites or Hispanics.
• Conclusion
• The YPLL among addicts was much higher than that in the national population; within the cohort, premature
mortality was higher among Whites and Hispanics compared to African American addicts.
•

33. • The changing face of Drug addiction - It's White!
• {It's in the so-called "Heartland" and it's much worst than Blacks ever did}.
•
• Study: Drug Poisoning Deaths in the United States, 1980–2008
• Margaret Warner, Ph.D.; Li Hui Chen, Ph.D.; Diane M. Makuc, Dr.P.H., Robert N.
Anderson, Ph.D.; and Arialdi M. Miniño, M.P.H.
•
• Poisoning is the leading cause of death from injury in 30 states. In 2008,
poisoning was the leading cause of injury death in the following 30 states:
Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Hawaii,
Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan,
Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Ohio,
Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Utah, Vermont, Washington, West Virginia,
and Wisconsin.

34. • Key findings: In 2008, poisoning became the leading cause of injury
death in the United States and nearly 9 out of 10 poisoning deaths
are caused by drugs. • During the past three decades, the number
of drug poisoning deaths increased sixfold from about 6,100 in 1980
to 36,500 in 2008.• During the most recent decade, the number of
drug poisoning deaths involving opioid analgesics more than tripled
from about 4,000 in 1999 to 14,800 in 2008. • Opioid analgesics
were involved in more than 40% of all drug poisoning deaths in
2008, up from about 25% in 1999.• In 2008, the drug poisoning
death rate was higher for males, people aged 45–54 years, and non-
Hispanic white and American Indian or Alaska Native persons than
for females and those in other age and racial and ethnic groups.

35. • TODAY!
• PBS Newshour - Sep 29, 2017
• Opioid addiction is the biggest drug epidemic in U.S. history. How’d we get here?
•
• WILLIAM BRANGHAM: It’s hard to grasp the full scope and scale of the opioid crisis we’re in the
midst of. The numbers are staggering. Almost half-a-million Americans have died in the last 15
years from an overdose, and the majority of those involve opioids. On average, 91 Americans are
still dying every single day. In that same period, the rate of addiction to opioids has shot up by
almost 500 percent. And the availability of addiction treatment hasn’t kept up at all.
• So, how did we get here?
• Most experts say this crisis began in the 1990s, when some doctors and medical associations
argued that, for generations, their profession had ignored the problem of chronic pain, which had
caused unnecessary suffering for millions of patients. They started pushing the idea that pain be
seen as the fifth vital sign, something to be checked as often as blood pressure, and treated
accordingly. At roughly the same time, the pharmaceutical industry, which was eager to boost sales
of its new class of painkillers, like OxyContin, told doctors that these new drugs could be used
without fear of their patients becoming addicted.

36. •
• WHEN WHITES ARE THE ADDICTS - IT'S OKAY.
• Comment: on another T.V. station covering this issue: a Black
commentator tried to interject how different America was
treating this latest Drug epidemic. In the 60s and 70s when it was
associated with Urban Blacks, the call was to "Lock them up and
throw away the Keys!" But today, when the epidemic is associated
with Suburban and Rural Whites, the call is for TREATMENT in
place of incarceration. The Black commentator was told that since
the Opioid epidemic STARTED with LEGAL Grugs, the analogy
didn't hold. In other words: if White American business is the
producer - it’s okay. However, if Dark-skinned or other non-White
people are the producers, then it’s a terrible crime, punishable by
death or life in prison. (The White commentator said it with a
"Straight Face").

37. •
• HEADLINE:
• Drug overdoses killed more Americans
• last year than the Vietnam War
• By Ashley Welch, CBS News - October 17,
2017

38. • The opioid epidemic ravaging the United States is taking a grim and growing toll. The latest
numbers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that 64,070 people died from
drug overdoses in 2016. That's a 21 percent increase over the year before. Approximately three-
fourths of all drug overdose deaths are now caused by opioids — a class of drugs that includes
prescription painkillers as well as heroin and potent synthetic versions like fentanyl. A new report
from Police Executive Research Forum (PERF), an independent research organization that focuses
on "critical issues in policing," puts those numbers into context. According to the report, more
Americans died from drug overdoses in 2016 than the number of American lives lost in the entirety
of the Vietnam War, which totaled 58,200. Ex-DEA agent: Opioid crisis fueled by drug industry and
Congress The group says it is focusing its efforts on the opioid epidemic because "despite the
groundbreaking work that police and other agencies are doing, the epidemic is continuing to
worsen." The report also showed that the year's 64,070 drug fatalities outnumbered: The 35,092
motor vehicle deaths in 2015. AIDS-related deaths in the worst year of the AIDS crisis, when 50,628
people died in 1995. The peak year for homicides in the U.S., when 24,703 people were murdered
in 1991. Suicides, which have been rising in the U.S. for nearly 30 years and totaled 44,193 in 2015.
The data also shows that overdoses of synthetic drugs, such as fentanyl — which is 50 to 100 times
stronger than the painkiller morphine — are driving the sharp increases in opioid overdose deaths.

39. • The CDC identified 15,466 deaths from heroin overdoses in 2016, while 20,145 deaths were caused
by fentanyl or other synthetic opioids. Additionally, a survey conducted by PERF of its member
police chiefs earlier this year found half of the respondents reported an increase in fatal heroin
overdoses in their jurisdiction in 2016 compared to 2015, and 45 percent reported an increase in
drug overdose deaths attributed to fentanyl during that time. Twenty-three percent reported an
increase in fatal overdoses due to prescription opioid medications. This is consistent with research
suggesting that many people who become addicted to prescription painkillers often move on to
heroin or synthetic opioids when it becomes too difficult to or expensive to keep obtaining
prescription pills. A joint investigation by"60 Minutes" and the Washington Post this week
spotlighted how an act of Congress actually helped fuel the epidemic of addiction. Whistleblowers
revealed how the Ensuring Patient Access and Effective Drug Enforcement Act of 2016, which was
unanimously approved, derailed DEA efforts to crack down on suspect pharmacies that are
distributing millions of pills in hard-hit communities."So it is clear that police and other criminal
justice agencies, along with public health departments, drug treatment and social service providers,
elected officials, and others, must step up their efforts to prevent new cases of opioid addiction,
while helping addicted persons through the long and difficult process of getting free of opioid
drugs," the authors write.

40. • HEADLINE:
• More teens show up in ERs addicted to opioids
• NBC News Maggie Fox, Erika Edwards. Sep. 15, 2017
• More and more teens and young adults are showing up in emergency rooms
addicted to opioids, researchers reported Friday. And they say their findings are
probably only the tip of the iceberg. Most of the youths are not showing up
because they’re addicted, the researchers said in a report for an annual meeting of
pediatricians. They are coming in for some other reason and doctors are
discovering they are also addicted to or dependent on opioids.
•
• Courtney Nicole Howell mixed methadone with Children’s Tylenol and gave it to
her 17-month-old daughter, Jaslynn.
• The child died, and Howell was sentenced to up to 30 years in prison.

41. • "There is a challenge with America where we have
invested, unfortunately, in a war on drugs, which has been
profoundly painful to our nation, with a 500 percent
increase in incarceration in our country, disproportionately
affecting poor and disproportionately affecting minorities,"
Booker said. President Richard Nixon launched the war on
drugs in the early 1970s, and about 10 years later President
Ronald Reagan strengthened the effort. A spokesman said
Booker’s statistic comes from the Sentencing Project, a
criminal justice reform advocacy organization. It says the
current incarcerated population is 2.2 million — including
federal prisons, state prisons and local jails — which is a
500 percent growth over the past 40 years.

42. • The state and federal prison population grew from 218,466 in 1974
to 1,508,636 in 2014, which is a nearly 600 percent increase. For
comparison, the overall United States population has increased just
51 percent since 1974. The state and federal prison population
remained fairly stable through the early 1970s, until the war on
drugs began. Since then, it has increased sharply every year,
particularly when Reagan expanded the policy effort in the 1980s,
until about 2010. But how much of this increase is a direct result of
the tougher drug laws? The effort resulted in the Drug Enforcement
Administration's establishment, as well as policies such as
mandatory minimum sentences for drug crimes and new asset
forfeiture rules. It’s hard to say exactly how much of the increase
can be attributed to these policies because it’s difficult to isolate
the impact to any one cause, experts told us.

43. • That being said, "a lot of people attribute the increase in
incarceration to the war on drugs," said Nancy La Vigne,
director of the Urban Institute’s Justice Policy Center.
"While it's much more complicated than that, I suppose
most would agree that it was the single biggest driver." In
1980, about 41,000 people were incarcerated for drug
crimes, according to the Sentencing Project. In 2014, that
number was about 488,400 — a 1,000 percent increase.
More people are admitted to prisons for drug crimes each
year than either violent or property crimes, found Jonathan
Rothwell, a senior economist at Gallup. So drug prosecution
is a big part of the mass incarceration story, he said.

44. • Effect on minorities and poor people:
It is a well-established fact that minorities are
overrepresented in the prison population. About
58 percent of all sentenced inmates in 2013 were
black or hispanic, yet the two groups make up
just about 30 percent of the total population.
Research also suggests that when black and
white people engage in the same illegal activity
and have the same criminal history, black people
are more likely to be arrested, more likely to
face tougher charges and more likely to receive
longer sentences than whites.

45. • In a 2014 article, Rothwell found that the war on
drugs has significantly impacted black people. He
found that white people are more likely than black
people to sell drugs and about as likely to consume
them. Even so, black people are 3.6 times more likely
than white people to be arrested for selling drugs and
2.5 times more for drug possession. Minorities are
disproportionately represented in the prison
population, and some slightly dated research
indicates poor people are, as well. Evidence seems to
show that black people are more likely to be arrested
for drug crime than white people, despite being
equally likely to use and less likely to sell drugs.

46. • DID THE CIA FLOOD BLACK NEIGHBORHOODS
WITH DRUGS IN THE 80s?
• HuffPost
• Key Figures In CIA-Crack Cocaine Scandal
Begin To Come Forward
• By Ryan Grim, Matt Sledge, and Matt Ferner

47. • LOS ANGELES — With the public in the U.S. and Latin America
becoming increasingly skeptical of the war on drugs, key figures in a
scandal that once rocked the Central Intelligence Agency are
coming forward to tell their stories in a new documentary and in a
series of interviews with The Huffington Post. More than 18 years
have passed since Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Gary Webb
stunned the world with his “Dark Alliance” newspaper series
investigating the connections between the CIA, a crack cocaine
explosion in the predominantly African-American neighborhoods of
South Los Angeles, and the Nicaraguan Contra fighters —
scandalous implications that outraged LA’s black community,
severely damaged the intelligence agency’s reputation and
launched a number of federal investigations.

48. • It did not end well for Webb, however. Major media, led by The New York
Times, Washington Post and Los Angeles Times, worked to discredit his
story. Under intense pressure, Webb’s top editor abandoned him. Webb
was drummed out of journalism. One LA Times reporter recently
apologized for his leading role in the assault on Webb, but it came too
late. Webb died in 2004 from an apparent suicide. Obituaries referred to
his investigation as “discredited.” Now, Webb’s bombshell expose is being
explored anew in a documentary, “Freeway: Crack in the System,” directed
by Marc Levin, which tells the story of “Freeway” Rick Ross, who created a
crack empire in LA during the 1980s and is a key figure in Webb’s “Dark
Alliance” narrative. The documentary is being released after the major
motion picture “Kill The Messenger,” which features Jeremy Renner in the
role of Webb and hits theaters on Friday. Webb’s investigation was
published in the summer of 1996 in the San Jose Mercury News. In it, he
reported that a drug ring that sold millions of dollars worth of cocaine in
Los Angeles was funneling its profits to the CIA’s army in Nicaragua, known
as the Contras.

49. • Webb’s original anonymous source for his series was Coral Baca, a
confidante of Nicaraguan dealer Rafael Cornejo. Baca, Ross and members
of his “Freeway boys” crew; cocaine importer and distributor Danilo
Blandon; and LA Sheriff’s Deputy Robert Juarez all were interviewed for
Levin’s film. The dual release of the feature film and the documentary,
along with the willingness of long-hesitant sources to come forward,
suggests that Webb may have the last word after all. Webb’s entry point
into the sordid tale of corruption was through Baca, a ghostlike figure in
the Contra-cocaine narrative who has given precious few interviews over
the decades. Her name was revealed in Webb’s 1998 book on the scandal,
but was removed at her request in the paperback edition. Levin connected
HuffPost with Baca and she agreed to an interview at a cafe in San
Francisco. She said that she and Webb didn’t speak for years after he
revealed her name, in betrayal of the conditions under which they spoke.
He eventually apologized, said Baca, who is played by Paz Vega in “Kill The
Messenger.”

50. • The major media that worked to undermine Webb’s investigation
acknowledged that Blandon was a major drug-runner as well as a
Contra supporter, and that Ross was a leading distributor. But those
reports questioned how much drug money Blandon and his boss
Norwin Meneses turned over to the Contras, and whether the
Contras were aware of the source of the funds. During her
interview with HuffPost, Baca recounted meeting Contra leader
Adolfo Calero multiple times in the 1980s at Contra fundraisers in
the San Francisco Bay Area. He would personally pick up duffel bags
full of drug money, she said, which it was her job to count for
Cornejo. There was no question, she said, that Calero knew
precisely how the money had been earned. Meneses’ nickname,
after all, was El Rey De Las Drogas — The King of Drugs.

51. • “If he was stupid and had a lobotomy,” he might not have known it was
drug money, Baca said. “He knew exactly what it was. He didn’t care. He
was there to fund the Contras, period.” (Baca made a similar charge
confidentially to the Department of Justice for its 1997 review of Webb’s
allegations, as well as further allegations the investigators rejected.)
Indeed, though the mainstream media at the time worked to poke holes in
Webb’s findings, believing that the Contra operation was not involved with
drug-running takes an enormous suspension of disbelief. Even before
Webb’s series was published, numerous government investigations and
news reports had linked America’s support for the Nicaraguan rebels with
drug trafficking. After The Associated Press reported on these connections
in 1985, for example, more than a decade before Webb, then-Sen. John
Kerry (D-Mass.) launched a congressional investigation. In 1989, Kerry
released a detailed report claiming that not only was there “considerable
evidence” linking the Contra effort to trafficking of drugs and weapons,
but that the U.S. government knew about it.

52. • According to the report, many of the pilots ferrying weapons and supplies
south for the CIA were known to have backgrounds in drug trafficking.
Kerry’s investigation cited SETCO Aviation, the company the U.S. had
contracted to handle many of the flights, as an example of CIA complicity
in the drug trade. According to a 1983 Customs Service report, SETCO was
“headed by Juan Ramon Matta Ballesteros, a class I DEA violator.” Two
years before the Iran-Contra scandal would begin to bubble up in the
Reagan White House, pilot William Robert “Tosh” Plumlee revealed to
then-Sen. Gary Hart (D-Colo.) that planes would routinely transport
cocaine back to the U.S. after dropping off arms for the Nicaraguan rebels.
Plumlee has since spoken in detail about the flights in media interviews.
“In March, 1983, Plumlee contacted my Denver Senate Office and … raised
several issues including that covert U.S. intelligence agencies were directly
involved in the smuggling and distribution of drugs to raise funds for
covert military operations against the government of Nicaragua,” a copy of
a 1991 letter from Hart to Kerry reads. (Hart told HuffPost he recalls
receiving Plumlee’s letter and finding his allegations worthy of follow-up.)

53. • Plumlee flew weapons into Latin America for decades for the CIA. When
the Contra revolution took off in the 1980s, Plumlee says he continued to
transport arms south for the spy agency and bring cocaine back with him,
with the blessing of the U.S. government. The Calero transactions Baca
says she witnessed would have been no surprise to the Reagan White
House. On April 15, 1985, around the time Baca says she saw Calero
accepting bags of cash, Oliver North, the White House National Security
Counsel official in charge of the Contra operation, was notified in a memo
that Calero’s deputies were involved in the drug business. Robert Owen,
North’s top staffer in Central America, warned that Jose Robelo had
“potential involvement with drug-running and the sale of goods provided
by the [U.S. government]” and that Sebastian Gonzalez was “now involved
in drug-running out of Panama.”
North’s own diary, originally uncovered by the National Security Archive, is
a rich source of evidence as well. “Honduran DC-6 which is being used for
runs out of New Orleans is probably being used for drug runs into the
U.S.,” reads an entry for Aug. 9, 1985, reflecting a conversation North had
with Owen about Mario Calero, Adolfo’s brother.

54. • An entry from July 12, 1985 relates that “14 million to finance [an arms
depot] came from drugs” and another references a trip to Bolivia to pick
up “paste.” (Paste is slang term for a crude cocaine derivative product
comprised of coca leaves grown in the Andes as well as processing
chemicals used during the cocaine manufacturing process.) Celerino
Castillo, a top DEA agent in El Salvador, investigated the Contras’ drug-
running in the 1980s and repeatedly warned superiors, according to a
Justice Department investigation into the matter. Castillo “believes that
North and the Contras’ resupply operation at Ilopango were running drugs
for the Contras,” Mike Foster, an FBI agent who worked for the Iran-Contra
independent counsel Lawrence Walsh, reported in 1991 after meeting
with Castillo, who later wrote the book Powderburns about his efforts to
expose the drug-running. Webb’s investigation sent the CIA into a panic. A
recently declassified article titled “Managing A Nightmare: CIA Public
Affairs and the Drug Conspiracy Story,” from the agency’s internal journal,
“Studies In Intelligence,” shows that the spy agency was reeling in the
weeks that followed.

55. • “The charges could hardly be worse,” the article opens. “A
widely read newspaper series leads many Americans to
believe CIA is guilty of at least complicity, if not conspiracy,
in the outbreak of crack cocaine in America’s inner cities. In
more extreme versions of the story circulating on talk radio
and the Internet, the Agency was the instrument of a
consistent strategy by the US Government to destroy the
black community and to keep black Americans from
advancing. Denunciations of CIA — reminiscent of the
1970s — abound. investigations are demanded and
initiated. The Congress gets involved.” The emergence of
Webb’s story “posed a genuine public relations crisis for the
Agency,” writes the CIA Directorate of Intelligence staffer,
whose name is redacted.

56. • In December 1997, CIA sources helped advance that narrative, telling reporters
that an internal inspector general report sparked by Webb’s investigation had
exonerated the agency. Yet the report itself, quietly released several weeks later,
was actually deeply damaging to the CIA. “In 1984, CIA received allegations that
five individuals associated with the Democratic Revolutionary Alliance
(ARDE)/Sandino Revolutionary Front (FRS) were engaged in a drug trafficking
conspiracy with a known narcotics trafficker, Jorge Morales,” the report found.
“CIA broke off contact with ARDE in October 1984, but continued to have contact
through 1986-87 with four of the individuals involved with Morales.” It also found
that in October 1982, an immigration officer reported that, according to an
informant in the Nicaraguan exile community in the Bay Area, “there are
indications of links between [a specific U.S.-based religious organization] and two
Nicaraguan counter-revolutionary groups. These links involve an exchange in [the
United States] of narcotics for arms, which then are shipped to Nicaragua. A
meeting on this matter is scheduled to be held in Costa Rica ‘within one month.’
Two names the informant has associated with this matter are Bergman Arguello, a
UDN member and exile living in San Francisco, and Chicano Cardenal, resident of
Nicaragua.”

57. • The inspector general is clear that in some cases “CIA knowledge of
allegations or information indicating that organizations or
individuals had been involved in drug trafficking did not deter their
use by CIA.” In other cases, “CIA did not act to verify drug trafficking
allegations or information even when it had the opportunity to do
so.” “Let me be frank about what we are finding,” the CIA’s
inspector general, Frederick Hitz, said in congressional testimony in
March 1998. “There are instances where CIA did not, in an
expeditious or consistent fashion, cut off relationships with
individuals supporting the Contra program who were alleged to
have engaged in drug trafficking activity or take action to resolve
the allegations.” One of the keys to Webb’s story was testimony
from Danilo Blandon, who the Department of Justice once
described as one of the most significant Nicaraguan drug importers
in the 1980s.

58. • “You were running the LA operation, is that correct?”
Blandon, who was serving as a government witness in
the 1990s, was asked by Alan Fenster, attorney
representing Rick Ross, in 1996. “Yes. But remember,
we were running, just — whatever we were running in
LA, it goes, the profit, it was going to the Contra
revolution,” Blandon said. Levin, the documentary
filmmaker, tracked down Blandon in Managua. “Gary
Webb tried to find me, Congresswoman Maxine Waters
tried to find me, Oliver Stone tried to find me. You
found me,” Blandon told Levin, according to notes from
the interview the director provided to HuffPost.

59. • Waters, a congresswoman from Los Angeles, had followed Webb’s
investigation with one of her own. In the interview notes with
filmmaker Levin, Blandon confirms his support of the Contras and
his role in drug trafficking, but downplays his significance. “The big
lie is that we started it all — the crack epidemic — we were just a
small part. There were the Torres [brothers], the Colombians, and
others,” he says. “We were a little marble, pebble, rock and [people
are] acting like we’re big boulder.” Webb’s series connected the
Contras’ drug-running directly to the growth of crack in the U.S.,
and it was this connection that faced the most pushback from
critics. While Blandon may have been operating on behalf of the
Contras early in his career, they charged, he later broke off on his
own. But an October 1986 arrest warrant for Blandon indicates that
the LA County Sheriff’s Department at the time had other
information.

60. • “Blandon is in charge of a sophisticated cocaine smuggling and distribution
organization operating in southern California,” the warrant reads,
according to Webb’s orginal report. “The monies gained through the sales
of cocaine are transported to Florida and laundered through Orlando
Murillo who is a high-ranking officer in a chain of banks in Florida. … From
this bank the monies are filtered to the Contra rebels to buy arms in the
war in Nicaragua.” Blandon’s number-one client was “Freeway” Rick Ross,
whose name has since been usurped by the rapper William Leonard
Roberts, better known by his stage name “Rick Ross” (an indignity that
plays a major role in the film). The original Ross, who was arrested in 1995
and freed from prison in 2009, told Webb in “Dark Alliance” that the
prices and quantity Blandon was offering transformed him from a small-
time dealer into what prosecutors would later describe as the most
significant crack cocaine merchant in Los Angeles, if not the country. His
empire — once dubbed the “Walmart” of crack cocaine — expanded east
from LA to major cities throughout the Midwest before he was eventually
taken down during a DEA sting his old supplier and friend Blandon helped
set up.

61. • Levin’s film not only explores the corrupt foundations of the drug war
itself, but also calls into question the draconian jail sentences the U.S.
justice system meted out to a mostly minority population, while the
country’s own foreign policy abetted the drug trade. “I knew that these
laws were a mistake when we were writing them,” says Eric Sterling, who
was counsel to the U.S. House Judiciary Committee in the 1980s and a key
contributor to the passage of mandatory-minimum sentencing laws, in the
documentary. In 1980, there were roughly 40,000 drug offenders in U.S.
prisons, according to research from The Sentencing Project, a prison
sentencing reform group. By 2011, the number of drug offenders serving
prison sentences ballooned to more than 500,000 — most of whom are
not high-level operators and are without prior criminal records. “There is
no question that there are tens of thousands of black people in prison
serving sentences that are decades excessive,” Sterling says. “Their
families have been destroyed because of laws I played a central role in
writing.”

62. • The height of the drug war in the 1980s also saw the beginning of
the militarization of local law enforcement, the tentacles of which
are seen to this day, most recently in Ferguson, Missouri. In an
interview with The Huffington Post, former LA County Sheriff’s
Deputy Robert Juarez, who served with the department from 1976
to 1991 and was later convicted along with several other deputies
in 1992 during a federal investigation of sheriff officers stealing
seized drug money, described a drug war culture that frequently
put law enforcement officers into morally questionable situations
that were difficult to navigate. “We all started getting weapons,”
said Juarez, who served five years in prison for skimming drug-bust
money. “We were hitting houses coming up with Uzis, AK-47s, and
we’re walking in with a six-shooter and a shotgun. So guys started
saying, ‘I’m going to get me a semi-automatic and the crooks are
paying for it.’ So that’s how it started.”

63. • But Juarez, who served in the LA County Sheriff’s narcotics
division for nearly a decade, explained that what started as
a way for some officers to pay for extra weapons and
informants to aid in investigations quickly devolved into
greed. Since asset forfeiture laws at the time allowed the
county to keep all cash seized during a drug bust, Juarez
says tactics changed. “It got to where we were more tax
collectors than we were dope cops,” Juarez recalled.
“Everything seized was coming right back to the county. We
turned into the same kind of crooks we’d been following
around ... moving evidence around to make sure the
asshole goes to jail; backing up other deputies regardless of
what it was. Everyone, to use a drug dealer’s term,
everyone was taking a taste.”

64. • Between 1982 and 1984, Congress restricted funding for the Contras, and
by 1985 cut it off entirely. The Reagan administration, undeterred,
conspired to sell arms to Iran in exchange for hostages (of the Iran
Embassy takeover), using some of the proceeds to illegally fund the
Contras. The scandal became known as Iran-Contra. Drug trafficking was a
much less convoluted method of skirting the congressional ban on funding
the Contras, and the CIA’s inspector general found that in the early years
after Congress cut off Contra funding, the CIA had alerted Congress about
the allegations of drug trafficking. But while the ban was in effect, the CIA
went largely silent on the issue. “CIA did not inform Congress of all
allegations or information it received indicating that Contra-related
organizations or individuals were involved in drug trafficking,” the
inspector general’s report found. “During the period in which the FY 1987
statutory prohibition was in effect, for example, no information has been
found to indicate that CIA informed Congress of eight of the ten Contra-
related individuals concerning whom CIA had received drug trafficking
allegations or information.”

65. • This complicity of the CIA in drug trafficking is at
the heart of Webb’s explosive expose — a point
Webb makes himself in archival interview
footage that appears in Levin’s documentary.
“It’s not a situation where the government or
the CIA sat down and said, ‘Okay, let’s invent
crack, let’s sell it in black neighborhoods, let’s
decimate black America,’” Webb says. “It was a
situation where, ‘We need money for a covert
operation, the quickest way to raise it is sell
cocaine, you guys go sell it somewhere, we don’t
want to know anything about it.’”

66. • So to hell with the Niggers! See more about
the antics of the Republican Albino Saint,
Ronald Reagan, in other pages of this site.
Like Donald Trump he was also mentally
challenged (Alzheimer's), and like with
Donald Trump, Albinos ignored or covered up
his mental problems because they liked his
Racism!

67. • The human face of America's opioid addiction:
• By Chris Pleasance for MailOnline - 17 October 2017
• The terrifying effects of prescription pills as seen in the blisters,
blotches and flaky skin of addicts.
• The Daily Mail, UK.
•
Mugshots reveal the effects of years of drug abuse on peoples'
looks At least half of those featured were found in possession of
prescription medicine An estimated two million Americans are
currently hooked on prescriptions, with drug overdose being the
biggest cause of death in the under 50s. Opioid addiction has also
driven a rise in heroin use as people get their fix.

68. • Huffington Post - By Saki Knafo
• Updated Sep 18, 2013
• When It Comes To Illegal Drug Use, White
America Does The Crime,
• Black America Gets The Time!

69. • White Americans are more likely than black Americans to have
used most kinds of illegal drugs, including cocaine, marijuana and
LSD. Yet blacks are far more likely to go to prison for drug
offenses. This discrepancy forms the backdrop of a new legislative
proposal in California, which aims to reduce the disproportionate
incarceration of black people in the state. Supporters of the bill, SB
649, point to some striking national data. Nearly 20 percent of
whites have used cocaine, compared with 10 percent of blacks
and Latinos, according to a 2011 survey from the Substance Abuse
and Mental Health Services Administration — the most recent data
available. Higher percentages of whites have also tried
hallucinogens, marijuana, pain relievers like OxyContin, and
stimulants like methamphetamine, according to the survey. Crack
is more popular among blacks than whites, but not by much.

70. • Still, blacks are arrested for drug possession more than three
times as often as whites, according to a 2009 report from the
advocacy group Human Rights Watch. Of the 225,242 people who
were serving time in state prisons for drug offenses in 2011, blacks
made up 45 percent and whites comprised just 30 percent,
according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics. Jamie Fellner, author of
the Human Rights Watch report, offered an explanation for this
discrepancy. “The race issue isn’t just that the judge is going, ‘Oh,
black man, I’m gonna sentence you higher,’” she said. “The police
go into low-income minority neighborhoods and that’s where they
make most of their drug arrests. If they arrest you, now you have
a ‘prior,’ so if you plead or get arrested again, you’re gonna have a
higher sentence. There’s a kind of cumulative effect.”

71. • Lawmakers in California hope to blunt that effect. Last week, both
houses of the state legislature passed SB 649, which would give
judges and prosecutors the option of charging people convicted of
drug offenses with misdemeanors instead of felonies. Those
offenders could then be sent to substance abuse treatment centers
instead of prison or jail. Supporters of the bill, including its author,
state Sen. Mark Leno (D-San Francisco), note that black adults
represent one-quarter of all felony drug arrests in California,
despite comprising just 5 percent of the state population. “One can
take it to conspiratorial or racist theories or not,” Leno told
HuffPost. “The motivation I don’t think needs to be determined.
The results are the same: Our policy and lawmaking perpetuate a
chronic underclass of citizens.” Former prisoners who were
convicted of felonies often face steep official barriers to “the very
things that are needed to keep one successful in recovery,” he
added — namely, education, housing and employment.

72. • The federal government can deny public housing assistance to
anyone who has been convicted of a felony drug offense. Students
who have been convicted of drug possession are barred from
receiving federal financial aid and substantial education tax credits.
And employers often require applicants to disclose their criminal
histories, despite a growing nationwide movement to ban that
practice. Not all drug offenses in California automatically result in
felony charges. Methamphetamine, LSD and certain other drugs are
known as “wobblers,” meaning that possession of those drugs can
be charged as a felony or a misdemeanor. The new bill would
basically extend this “wobbler” approach to heroin, cocaine and
most other drugs. Blacks use heroin and cocaine more than they
use meth and LSD, which are primarily used by whites.

73. • In recent years, states from New York to Texas have adopted reforms that resemble
SB 649, and leaders across the political spectrum have pushed for changes to the
country’s drug sentencing policies. In August, Attorney General Eric Holder
announced that the Justice Department would no longer pursue mandatory
minimum sentences for certain low-level drug offenders, citing “shameful” racial
disparities in the criminal justice system. Yet some drug reform advocates worry
that Gov. Jerry Brown (D) might not sign the California measure, noting that he has
often seemed reluctant to embrace progressive criminal justice policies. Like other
reforms aimed at reducing California’s prison population, SB 649 could help relieve
the state’s budgetary woes, supporters say. Drug sentencing policies are widely
blamed for the enormous size and costs of the country’s prison systems. And few
prison systems are bigger or more expensive than California’s. At the height of
America’s war on drugs, from the 1980s through the mid-2000s, more than 20
prisons opened in California, compared with just 12 between 1852 and 1984.
California’s prison population increased more than fivefold in the later decades,
and prisons now cost the state’s taxpayers close to $10 billion a year.

74. •
• BUT THERE IS MORE!
• Headline: Meth Use Rates are Rising All Over
America
• May 23, 2017

75. • The overdose death outbreak across America is most
notably in connection to the opioid epidemic. Law
enforcement and health officials all over the country
continue to combat the impact of heroin addiction and
prescription opioid abuse, and this issue is a consistent
talking point. But opioids aren’t the only drugs that
authorities are noticing for an increase with rates of
use and overdose. Several state agencies in the U.S.
have recently reported a spike in overdose deaths
related to methamphetamine. Meth as an illicit
recreational drug that goes by several street names,
such as: Crank, Chalk, Speed, Tweak.

76. • This substance usually comes in the form of a
crystalline white powder, although other colors have
been observed including brown, yellow-gray, even pink
or blue. It is often described as odorless and bitter-
tasting. Crystal Meth is a version of methamphetamine
that can be made with simple ingredients from drug
stores. It comes in clear crystals or chunks resembling
ice and is most commonly smoked. Both forms of
methamphetamine, and even amphetamine
prescription stimulant drugs, are incredibly addictive
and extremely dangerous substances.

77. New Crystal Meth Stats
• The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released new statistics from
2015 (the most recent year for which federal data is available) that show: In 2014
there were 3,700 deaths from methamphetamine overdoses. More than 4,500
individuals died in 2015 from methamphetamine. That is an increase of 30%.
According to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration
(SAMHSA), methamphetamine use jumped from 3% in 2010 to 4% in 2015. That
may not seem like much, but consider that in comparison to heroin use, which
only rose from 1% to 2% during this same time period. Meth has become rampant
in significant portions of the Midwest and in the South. For example, in Oklahoma:
Methamphetamine was involved in more than 300 overdose deaths in 2016, It
surpassed death rates for both Oxycodone and Hydrocodone… COMBINED! This
huge upsurge in meth use has also prompted more people to seek treatment for
meth addiction. For example, in the year 2015 more than 11,000 patients were
admitted for treatment in Minnesota, which is nearly twice as many who sought
help for meth addiction 10 years before. Other areas that had no previous history
with serious meth use rates have also seen a spike in people seeking treatment for
meth addiction.

78. • At the end of the day, whether it is legal
amphetamine or illicit methamphetamine, these
chemicals are known to be dangerous and
addictive. Even prescription drugs containing
amphetamines are a risk factor. Depending on
how the drug is used, issues related to these
powerful stimulants may vary. Amphetamines
that are crushed or injected will present different
complications. The psychological and emotional
effects are said to be the most difficult to
overcome, while the cravings for the drug are
exceptionally strong.

79. • Moral of the Story?
•
It seems that every time White America tries
to screw Blacks,
• the same thing comes back on White America
even HARDER!
•