White Americans in throes of drug abuse "epidemic"...

...Whilst Black Americans continue to be imprisoned in record numbers on drug offenses. What is wrong with this picture? GI

Special panel says state in midst of ‘epidemic’ of OxyContin and heroin use

By John R. Ellement, Globe Staff

Abuse of OxyContin and heroin in Massachusetts has reached epidemic levels and must be attacked with the same fervor now being directed toward controlling the H1N1 flu virus, a special state commission reported today.

(Globe File Photo)

“The Commonwealth is in the midst of a serious and dangerous epidemic,’’ the panel, known formally as the Massachusetts OxyContin and Heroin Commission, said in a 71-page report released at the State House.

The report drew a parallel between the number of US troops from Massachusetts who have lost their lives in two wars – and the number of people who died from overdosing on one or both of the drugs between 2002 and 2007.

During those five years, 78 servicemembers from the state lost their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan while 3,265 died from drug-related causes, the panel said.

“The Commonwealth is losing men and women on its streets at a rate of 42 to 1 compared to what the state is losing in two wars overseas,’’ the panel said in its executive summary. “Addiction is a medical disorder, and we have a public health epidemic on our hands that is larger than the flu pandemic.’’

Read entire story @ Boston Globe.

tags: drugs, health, massachusetts, stereotypes, prison industrial complex

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The Fake Drug War: "Opium, the CIA and the Karzai Administration"

Our nation is a global drug dealer. Every American citizen who is in prison on drug charges is a political prisoner. The prison industrial complex is not designed to punish criminals, it is designed to control black men. GI

"On one hand, you're saying the United States government is spending millions of dollars to eliminate the flow of drugs onto our streets. At the same time, we are doing business with the very same goverment that is flooding our streets with cocaine." Immortal Technique


Click on Peruvian Cocaine video below or here.





From History News Network:
Alfred McCoy's importantnew article for TomDispatch (March 30, 2010) deserves to mobilize Congress for a serious revaluation of America's ill-considered military venture in Afghanistan.  The answer to the question he poses in his title – "Can Anyone Pacify the World's Number One Narco-State?" – is amply shown by his impressive essay to be a resounding "No!" . . . not until there is fundamental change in the goals and strategies both of Washington and of Kabul.

He amply documents that

• the Afghan state of Hamid Karzai is a corrupt narco-state, to which Afghans are forced to pay bribes each year $2.5 billion, a quarter of the nation's economy;

• the Afghan economy is a narco-economy:  in 2007 Afghanistan produced 8,200 tons of opium, a remarkable 53% of the country's GDP and 93% of global heroin supply.

• military options for dealing with the problem are at best ineffective and at worst counterproductive:  McCoy argues that the best hope lies in reconstructing the Afghan countryside until food crops become a viable alternative to opium, a process that could take ten or fifteen years, or longer.  (I shall argue later for an interim solution: licensing Afghanistan with the International Narcotics Board to sell its opium legally.)

Perhaps McCoy's most telling argument is that in Colombia cocaine at its peak represented only about 3 percent of the national economy, yet both the FARC guerillas and the right-wing death squads, both amply funded by drugs, still continue to flourish in that country.  To simply eradicate drugs, without first preparing for a substitute Afghan agriculture, would impose intolerable strains on an already ravaged rural society whose only significant income flow at this time derives from opium.  One has only to look at the collapse of the Taliban in 2001, after a draconian Taliban-led reduction in Afghan drug production (from 4600 tons to 185 tons) left the country a hollow shell.

On its face, McCoy's arguments would appear to be incontrovertible, and should, in a rational society, lead to a serious debate followed by a major change in America's current military policy.  McCoy has presented his case with considerable tact and diplomacy, to facilitate such a result.

The CIA's Historic Responsibility for Global Drug Trafficking

Unfortunately, there are important reasons why such a positive outcome is unlikely any time soon.  There are many reasons for this, but among them are some unpleasant realities which McCoy has either avoided or downplayed in his otherwise brilliant essay, and which have to be confronted if we will ever begin to implement sensible strategies in Afghanistan.

The first reality is that the extent of CIA involvement in and responsibility for the global drug traffic is a topic off limits for serious questioning in policy circles, electoral campaigns, and the mainstream media.  Those who have challenged this taboo, like the journalist Gary Webb, have often seen their careers destroyed in consequence.

Read more @ Opium, the CIA and the Karzai Administration

tags: drugs, immortal technique, prison industrial complex

photo: source

With Friends Like These: Barbara Bush Pushing "Precious"

Aight peeps you might wanna sit down for this one. 


I'll wait...


Ok, so yeah, the former First Lady, Barbara Bush (Yep the same Barbara Bush who claimed that Katrina victims were "underprivileged anyway" and better off in makeshift shelters than their ghetto communities.) actually said something that I agree with. But first the backstory. 


Bush recently penned a Newsweek article wherein she praises Precious for "promoting literacy." In the  article she is clearly talking about poor kids (and I am certain she means ghetto kids) when she says:

There are kids like Precious everywhere. Each day we walk by them: young boys and girls whose home lives are dark secrets. They are often abused or neglected, and seldom read to or given homework help. Without the skills they need to lead a productive life, the chances are good they will continue the cycle of poverty and illiteracy.

But something happened between the Newsweek article and the NPR interview. Someone--probably a Black person--pulled her coat about the film's detractors. The first thing out of BB's mouth was that she worries that the film may stereotype Black people. (Actually, if you listen closely, what she says is that Precious is "stereotyped as a Black"(!!!) This is probably closer to what she really believes. But imma let that Freudian shit slide) She stresses her point saying she "hates that because it isn't just Blacks...its an American problem." (yeah, ok BB)


She goes on to mention her alcoholism and her son's, Dubya, penchant for alcohol and (probably) cocaine...


Ok, I made that last sentence up. Full disclosure is not something we would expect from elite white people. But it makes her caveat meaningless. Without full disclosure from Barbara Bush about the white double standard we, Black people, are obligated to question her sincerity and her motives. Without a serious discussion of how the US government has worked against black freedom, justice and equality, her "support" rings hollow as hell.  By her own admission Precious pathologizes and stereotypes Black people. But her son an alcoholic, (probable) cocaine abuser and Harvard reject can become a two-term president...


Black folks should be alarmed at Bush's support of Precious. This is absolutely not about the fear of "airing our dirty laundry." Given the subordinate status of black folks generally, I think it would be foolish of us not to be concerned with how we are portrayed in the mainstream media. You name me the quality of life indicator and I can already predict that Black Americans will be at or near the bottom of that ranking. This is not about "airing our dirty laundry" because this caricature of black life is nothing new. Black folks have been the target of public scorn by White America for centuries. Even the act of running away from a slave plantation was pathologized. Our subordinate status continues to be rationalized and perpetuated by these caricatures. 


The "dirty laundry," as it were, is not about black people at all. It is about the often obscured mechanisms that keep us oppressed, including the myth of black hyper ghetto pathology and its evil twin, the pathology of white normativity (privilege, denial, the psychopathic racial personality, "objectivity," defenders of human rights and the "free" world, etc.)...

The point I took away from Ishmael Reed's scathing review of this abomination of a movie is that the marketers of Precious are targeting a white audience while at the same time strategically muting black discontent with this racist project. Oprah Winfrey and, more recently, Barbara Bush are part of that cynical strategy. What we need,in fact what we must demand, are stronger crtiques of white normativity  and fewer portrayals of stereotypical black hyper ghetto pathology...and one less hypocritical "friend." 


We should push Oprah to bankroll a movie that exposes United States government complicity in funneling massive amounts of cocaine into Black ghettos to fund covert operations in Nicaragua. That laundry has been putrefying for over a decade now. The courageous reporter who exposed the US government's dirty laundry, Gary Webb, committed suicide after years of vicious attacks from the mainstream press. 


I can promise you that you won't find Oprah Winfrey, Tyler Perry and Barbara Bush rushing to hype that story.




You can listen to the interview below.



tags: Barbara Bush, cocaine, crack, drugs, Gary Webb, media, pathology, Precious, race