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1 of 3 Premium Clicks used this month SUBSCRIBE Print + Online Subscriber Activation | Register x Forgot Password | Need an Account? subscribe | newsletter | deals Classifieds Jobs Autos Real Estate FEATURED » NEWS NOW Shakespeare Books owner buys antique store ... Free 'Era of Megafires' presentation Monday at SOU ... Charcoal briquettes dumped in trash can likely cause of Talent house fire ... Shakespeare Books owner buys antique store ... Free 'Era of Megafires' presentation Monday at SOU ... Charcoal briquettes dumped in trash can likely cause of Talent house fire ... RELOCATIONS Herb Rothschild Jr.: Time to end the war Comment DailyTidings.com Writer Posted Sep. 10, 2016 at 12:01 AM Posted Sep. 10, 2016 at 12:01 AM » Social News Early last year I published a column about the war on drugs. In its original version I asserted that the seemingly failed war hasn’t ended because the real motives behind it were to furnish pretexts for continued U.S. meddling in the internal affairs of Latin American nations and for jailing large numbers of black males. My editor suggested that I had overstated my case and I agreed. So I softened my assertion in the final version. In the April 2016 issue of Harper’s magazine, however, journalist Dan Baum recalled that when he interviewed John Ehrlichman in 1994 for a book about drug prohibition, Ehrlichman told him that the Nixon administration had a hidden agenda for the war on drugs it launched in 1971. Baum quoted Ehrlichman: “You want to know what this was really all about? ... The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. ... 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. ... Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.” Baum gave a limp explanation of why he hadn’t included that portion of the 1994 interview in his book, and Ehrlichman isn’t alive to confirm or deny. But whether or not he said that, who and how many people we imprison factor heavily into current drug policy debates. The biggest push for relaxing drug prohibitions and penalties comes from those upset by the mass incarceration of peoples of color. The 2010 publication of Michelle Alexander’s book, “The New Jim Crow,” gave major impetus to reform. Since then, at the federal level there have been hopeful developments, including revision of sentencing guidelines and commutation of sentences. At the state level, another impetus for policy change is the burden a huge prison population places on state budgets. That burden became unbearable when the economic bust of 2008 reduced revenues in every state. The politically safest way to lower prison populations is to release nonviolent offenders or divert them to drug courts. Most nonviolent offenders are in the system for drug violations. The public’s changing attitude toward marijuana has dovetailed with the drive to reduce prison populations. Twenty-five states plus the District of Columbia have legalized marijuana in some form or amounts. Four of those plus the District have legalized recreational pot, and more will follow. But there are powerful opponents. Among them are private prison companies, prison guard unions, and police forces. For them it’s all about money. Roughly half the funds raised to oppose this year’s ballot measure to legalize recreational marijuana in California has come from police and prison guard organizations. We’re making progress, but we have so much farther to go. Here’s the vision statement of a very different organization, Law Enforcement Against Prohibition: “LEAP envisions a world in which drug policies work for the benefit of society and keep our communities safer. A system of legalization and regulation will end the violence, better protect human rights, safeguard our children, reduce crime and disease, treat drug abusers as patients, reduce addiction, use tax dollars more efficiently, and restore the public’s respect and trust in law enforcement.” — Herb Rothschild's column appears in the Tidings every Saturday. 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