W.E. Messamore wrote for caivn.org 18 June 2011, Internet activists crash White House phone lines calling for an end to the War on Drugs:

On Friday June 17th, exactly 40 years after President Richard Nixon declared a “War on Drugs,” Internet activists organizing from the social news and activism website, Reddit.com, called the White House en masse to demand an end to the War on Drugs, calling it a “trillion dollar incarceration machine” with a measurable failure to reduce drug use, or harm from drug use.

The original post included this:

This is also the last vestige of Nixon’s fight against the civil rights and anti-war movements: And if you look at US incarceration rates, it’s been incredibly effective. . .

• 4,919 Black males per 100,000 population
• 1,717 Latino males per 100,000 of population
• 717 White males per 100,000 of population.
• South Africa under Apartheid (1993) – 851 Black males per 100,000

That’s right, almost six times as many black males per capita get locked up in the U.S. than in South Africa under apartheid. The numbers are even worse for young people and especially young black males, leading to this summary:

This isn’t a War on Drugs: It’s a Race War; It’s a War on the youth, likely to protest controversial policies (a war that conveniently takes away those groups voting rights). It’s a war on the American People, paid for by the American people, for the American people’s own good.

Yep. Except a majority of the American people don’t want the “war on drugs” any more. It’s time for the laws to change.

Back to the main article: Continue reading →