Comments on: A confession on the beginning of the War On Drugs: https://habitablezone.com/2016/03/22/a-confession-on-the-beginning-of-the-war-on-drugs/ Tue, 07 Apr 2026 19:18:10 -0700 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: ER https://habitablezone.com/2016/03/22/a-confession-on-the-beginning-of-the-war-on-drugs/#comment-36047 ER Wed, 23 Mar 2016 00:30:20 +0000 https://www.habitablezone.com/?p=56557#comment-36047 In spite of the explosion in the use of psychedelics by the Bohemian anti-war Left (the hippies and college students), and the subsequent purely political anti-drug hysteria you point out, Attorney General John Mitchell stopped short of equally persuing the users of synthetic tranquilizers then coming on the market in vast numbers, and amounts, with equal vigor. Unlike pot, acid, psilocybin and mescaline, which led to a mind-expanding high but no habit or addiction, the pills were highly addictive, devastated whole communities and wasted many young lives, especially when combined with alcohol. I suppose the pharmaceutical industry, which was getting rich marketing these toxins to bored housewives and overstressed business executives, had no objections to this lucrative new secondary market either. In spite of all the anti-pot hysteria, no special efforts or programs or legislation was ever implemented to counter these prescription poisons. We suspected if they couldn't arrest the demonstrators, they were doing their best to anesthetize them. They did something very similar by highly criminalizing crack cocaine (a drug popular in the ghetto), while being relatively lenient with powder coke (favored by white yuppies and young Republicans). And of course, now that the heroin and crystal meth epidemics are affecting rural white communities, the Republicans are lining up with programs to combat this menace. Yeah, Bowser. Completely Nixonian. In spite of the explosion in the use of psychedelics by the Bohemian anti-war Left (the hippies and college students), and the subsequent purely political anti-drug hysteria you point out, Attorney General John Mitchell stopped short of equally persuing the users of synthetic tranquilizers then coming on the market in vast numbers, and amounts, with equal vigor.

Unlike pot, acid, psilocybin and mescaline, which led to a mind-expanding high but no habit or addiction, the pills were highly addictive, devastated whole communities and wasted many young lives, especially when combined with alcohol. I suppose the pharmaceutical industry, which was getting rich marketing these toxins to bored housewives and overstressed business executives, had no objections to this lucrative new secondary market either. In spite of all the anti-pot hysteria, no special efforts or programs or legislation was ever implemented to counter these prescription poisons.

We suspected if they couldn’t arrest the demonstrators, they were doing their best to anesthetize them.

They did something very similar by highly criminalizing crack cocaine (a drug popular in the ghetto), while being relatively lenient with powder coke (favored by white yuppies and young Republicans). And of course, now that the heroin and crystal meth epidemics are affecting rural white communities, the Republicans are lining up with programs to combat this menace.

Yeah, Bowser. Completely Nixonian.

]]> By: bowser https://habitablezone.com/2016/03/22/a-confession-on-the-beginning-of-the-war-on-drugs/#comment-36046 bowser Wed, 23 Mar 2016 00:07:50 +0000 https://www.habitablezone.com/?p=56557#comment-36046 Good Lord!!! Completely Nixonian, absolutely credible. Good Lord!!! Completely Nixonian, absolutely credible.

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