In a few hours, the Trumpster is going to announce the details of his war on opioid addiction.

I’ve been around for a while, I remember the first War on Drugs when the Nixon White House and the John Mitchell Attorney General’s Office started nailing hippie flower-child pot smokers to severe prison sentences, while essentially looking the other way while Big Pharma flooded the market with synthetic tranquilizers and stimulants with jaw-braking chemical names.

You have to admit, it was effective. The political opposition to the Vietnam War was either in jail, or bludgeoned into a drug-induced stupor. The counter culture was crushed as a social movement, for a relatively small price: the rise of organized drug crime brought on by our new Prohibition. (Talk about history repeating itself!)

No one seemed to question that in an age where benign weeds were declared illegal and pursued by the full weight of the courts, a whole new family of psychoactive substances were being profitably marketed. It didn’t take a mental giant to figure out that for every legitimate use of these substances there would be numerous sales in the contraband market. Were legal or policy precautions taken? Were steps taken to control this new contraband?

Then along came King Cocaine. But that was different. Nice white boys and girls in entrepreneurial camouflage on both Wall Street and Main Street were discoing to the New Dope in Town. Of course, on the other side of the tracks, the same exact compound, under the name of “crack” was being vigorously prosecuted by the authorities. But the criminals there were easily identified. They all had black faces, and unless they were dealers, they couldn’t afford lawyers. The jails filled up.

Now comes the War on Opioids. But this time, its not ghetto punks or long-haired college anarchists or yuppie thirtysomethings who are getting hooked. Its Trump Nation itself. Its small town, suburban, working and middle class types: NASCAR Nation, Country Music Fans. White folks. No “zero tolerance” or
“three strikes”, no “throw away the key” for these victims. White folks. Good Conservatives! “Addiction is a disease, not a crime.” They’ll get rehab and antidotes and counseling. No profiling for the Bunkers and Bubbas. They need help.

Sure, the ultimate causes of this epidemic may be the same: unemployment, community and social collapse, the deterioration of families, poverty, and, let’s not forget, pharmaceutical company profits. Remember, Marino, the same guy who successfully lobbied Big Pharma’s bill to remove DEA controls on prescription opiates was Trump’s nominee for Drug Czar until he was outed by some Liberal MSM types.

It’s deja fucking vu all over again.