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War on Drug Users Keeps Drug Business Profitable.

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The U.S. war on drug users was announced by Richard M. Nixon but it was not until the end of the Reagan presidency that it entered into full swing.

In the U.S., poor drug users and petty pushers are under assault while the rich people who buy the bulk drugs stay free.

The Iran-Contra scandal in the late 80s exposed to the world that the CIA-funded contras were the economic beneficiaries of a large share of cocaine trafficking into America’s cities.

It was Gary Web of the San Jose Mercury News who first broke the news with a series of articles on the dope trafficking that was paying for the mercenary contra band that was based in Honduras.

This was the main funding source for Contra raids into northern Nicaragua after the U.S. Congress had banned funding of this terrorist group in 1984 with passage of the Boland Amendment.

Later, the Senate Sub-Committee on Narcotics would also shed light on the drugs for guns operation that the CIA was running.

Eventually government operatives themselves admitted to the links and to their being part of the National Security Council’s operations.

This was not the first time the CIA was linked to drug trafficking.

It has been a characteristic trait throughout CIA history of working with drug traffickers that goes back since the organizations origins.

The sale of drugs has funded covert operations abroad while serving at home to justif the ongoing police build ups and militarization of poor urban neighborhoods, mostly inhabited by people of color.

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Standard Operating Procedures

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African Americans Pay Price of Drug War

The war on drug users has filled U.S. prisons with African American men in a massively disproportionate manner.

The deeper into the legal process the higher the race disparity gets according to Human Rights Watch, a U.S. based human rights watchdog organization.

A June 2000 report by Human Rights Watch found that 36 of every 100,000 white males are imprisoned for drug related crimes compared to 482 of every 100,000 African American men.

That report, entitled “Punishment and Prejudice”, showed that 62% of the nation’s drug offenders behind bars are black.

Yet blacks only account for 13% of the population.

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Global Leader in Inmate Population

The U.S. continued to be the world’s number one jailer nation in 2007, in large part due to the war on drug users.

Figures released by the Justice Department in 2008 showed that 756 of every 100,000 Americans were in prison, totaling 2.3 million American inmates in 2007.

What kind of society is America when more than 50% of the prison population are jailed for drug related charges.

In all more than 3% of the nation’s population is behind bars or on parole.

“It’s time to turn away from the failed policies that have made the United States the world’s leading jailer…”

-David Fathi, U.S. Programs Director, Human Rights Watch.

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Was Obama Able to Keep His Promises?

Barack Obama, as candidate, promised to put an end to the war on drug users.

Yet powerful industries that fund Democratic ad Republican candidates alike want the policy to remain the same.

Legalized drug firms are big funders of the propaganda component of the war on drugs. It helps them limit competition.

Will the new President have the backbone to stand up to the alcohol, tobacco and pharmaceutical lobbies or will he continue to wage war on America’s poor despite rhetoric to the contrary?

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