Friday, April 24, 2009

Doubly astonishing column in TFP

As noted here before, Leonard Pitts, Jr., is a left-wing racist columnist, but who must get at least partial credit for his column in the TFP Sunday, 12 April.
The headline is "Let's at least begin talking about leglizing" (sic) "drugs in U.S."
Obviously no one read the headline before sending the page to press, and there is probably a good chance no one read the column either since it almost makes sense, especially considering the source.
Naturally, being from Pitts, there is a racial element. Pitts blames the whole "War on Drugs" (also known as "The Insane War on Drugs" and as "The War on Some Drugs") as coming "into being under President Nixon, whose chief of staff, H.R. Haldeman, once quoted the president as saying, 'You have to face the fact that the whole problem is really the blacks. The key is to devise a system that recognizes this all while not appearing to.'"
Pitts' silly and/or paranoid belief is just one among many, including the belief that William R. Hearst started the anti-marijuana war in order to make sure his forests in Canada would continue to be the prime source of wood pulp.
Another was that, when Prohibition ended, Harry Anslinger wanted to keep some kind of government job so the Federal Bureau of Narcotics was formed to help him.
Regardless of the nonsense from Pitts and the TFP, it really is way past time to do more than talk about "leglizing" drugs.
Look at the thousands of deaths just in Mexico because of the drug war -- NOT because of drugs, but because their illegality makes them so profitable. Even Pitts is able to see the comparison to the era of Prohibition and the resultant rise of organized crime in the United States. (But at least we got Las Vegas.)
My guess is very few people bother to read Pitts' columns any more, but this time he really has said something needing saying.

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