
The Hunting of Billie Holiday (2015) - tintinnabula
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/01/drug-war-the-hunting-of-billie-holiday-114298
======
pstuart
People need to understand that the War on Drugs was never about protecting the
populace from hurting themselves with recreational chemicals.

It was always a pretext for control and manipulation, and still is to this
day.

~~~
mbostleman
I don't disagree that the War on Drugs was misguided and generally not a good
idea - practically or morally. But I'm not sure that what it was "about" can
be cleanly defined. We can always find the shadowy figures that had different
intentions, but I think it's safe to say that the popular support which
enabled the effort was pretty solidly motivated by protecting people.

~~~
mturmon
On this point, history has chosen to be stranger than the after-the-fact
musings of rational humanists would typically allow:

"The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two
enemies: the antiwar left and black people. 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. 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."

\-- John Ehrlichman

~~~
opo
This quote is brought up often but it should be taken with some skepticism. As
user GatorD42 pointed out when this was brought up before:

>...Baum claims Ehrlichman said that to him in 1994 while he was researching
for a book he published in 1996 about the drug war. He didn't include the
quote in that book, but instead published it in 2012 and again in 2016, after
Ehrlichman had died (in 1999).

This is a very explosive quote - if Baum had included it in his book in 1996 I
am sure it would have garnered a huge amount of attention for the book.
Instead Baum did not include it in his book, but instead would wait for
decades later when Ehrlichman was no longer around to dispute the quote.

At any rate, if the quote was actually said by Ehrlichman, it isn't a very
accurate description of the drug polices of the Nixon administration. While
Nixon is remembered for "war on drugs" rhetoric, the actual substance of his
policies seem to be different than what people think it was:

>...I have been fortunate over the years to discuss the distorted memory of
Nixon's drug policies with almost all of his key advisors as well as with
historians. Their consensus is that because he was dramatically expanding the
U.S. treatment system (by 350% in just 18 months!) and cutting criminal
penalties, he had to reassure his right wing that he hadn’t gone soft. So he
laid on some of the toughest anti-drug rhetoric in history, including making a
White House speech declaring a “war on drugs” and calling drugs “public enemy
number one”. It worked so well as cover that many people remember that “tough”
press event and forget that what Nixon did at it was introduce not a general
or a cop or a preacher to be his drug policy chief but…a medical doctor (Jerry
Jaffe, a sweet, bookish man who had longish hair and sideburns and often wore
the Mickey Mouse tie his kids had given him).

[https://www.samefacts.com/who-started-the-war-on-
drugs/](https://www.samefacts.com/who-started-the-war-on-drugs/)

>..."Enforcement must be coupled with a rational approach to the reclamation
of the drug user himself," Nixon told Congress in 1971. "We must rehabilitate
the drug user if we are to eliminate drug abuse and all the antisocial
activities that flow from drug abuse." >The numbers back this up. According to
the federal government's budget numbers for anti-drug programs, the "demand"
side of the war on drugs (treatment, education, and prevention) consistently
got more funding during Nixon's time in office (1969 to 1974) than the
"supply" side (law enforcement and interdiction).

>Historically, this is a commitment for treating drugs as a public health
issue that the federal government has not replicated since the 1970s.
(Although President Barack Obama's budget proposal would, for the first time
in decades, put a majority of anti-drug spending on the demand side once
again.) ...

[https://www.vox.com/2016/3/29/11325750/nixon-war-on-
drugs](https://www.vox.com/2016/3/29/11325750/nixon-war-on-drugs)

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danso
The submitted link seems to go to page 3 of an unformatted version of the
story. Here is the full story's canonical link:
[https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/01/drug-war-
the...](https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/01/drug-war-the-hunting-
of-billie-holiday-114298)

~~~
dang
Fixed. Thanks!

