6 Days ago I sat in the US Court of the Southern District of New York as my friends from the Cannabis Cultural Association and Hiller PC brought a powerful case against Attorney General Jeff Sessions that underscores the needed justice that millions of Americans have spent decades fighting for. (It made the NY Times last week for a reason.) The purpose of the lawsuit was to request that cannabis is fully legalized and descheduled so that people can use it medically, recreationally and however they please without criminal consequence because the laws we have now aren’t working and are hurting our communities.
How so?
Bushwick was a ghetto with a 1 in 100 homicide rate. My Mom came here in the early 1970s from the Dominican Republic.
I’m from Bushwick, Brooklyn. Today it is known as a cool and hip place but the past few decades it was one of the most dangerous cities in America, crime was rampant. Our neighborhood was primarily black people, Dominicans, and Puerto Ricans; all people who were positioned to not only have very little to no job opportunities throughout the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s and 2000s but also more likely to be targeted by police as they are the #1 targets in the war on “drugs”. The translation of War on Drugs is War on Hippies and Colored People. Nixon’s cabinet was proven to have started the War on Drugs for the reason of neutralizing the anti-war hippie movements and colored communities. Unfortunately, a lot of it worked, the hippy movement collapsed and millions of colored people were imprisoned for drug possession or what was perceived to be an intent to distribute. Being colored means you automatically are more suspect in a white man’s nation due to the dynamics of systematic racism as a means for control.
Jeff Sessions & Trump want to “Make America Great Again” which literally means to make it all White, Christian and Racist again. Because that’s what it was when they were young.
I never grew up thinking like this because I spent the age of 6 to 16 mostly sheltered in the much more diverse, safe and peaceful Long Island. However, as a man who was born in Brooklyn always spent a lot of my weekends/summers here and has lived here for years, I can tell you that systematic racism is dangerous in the sense that it can operate in pockets of secrecy. It can be disguised under clever scapegoats or terms so the agenda can keep operating. Everyone knows alcohol is a drug, caffeine is a drug and Xanax is a drug. All 3 are legal and all 3 are much more deadly and addictive than marijuana, LS, and peyote but the government chose these substances to target based on the groups that mostly used them not on public safety. In the early 1900s, Mexican immigrants called cannabis “Marijuana” and so the campaign to brainwash children that bad Mexicans and blacks will rape white women when they smoke the deadly “Marijuana” began. If you think I’m joking, here is a link to one of the most popular propaganda movies of that time and another older one that broke box office records and led up to these types of mass ideologies in America. This High Times article hilariously breaks down how ridiculous and racist the propaganda film “Reefer Madness” is. Being observant of these realities has changed my political views, which I share in this post.
Michael Hiller did an excellent job of pointing out the injustices of the war on drugs as it pertains to cannabis. He also defended Alexis Bortell, a 12-year-old girl who uses cannabis to treat her dangerous seizures. During the start of the hearing, Federal Judge Alvin Hellerstein didn’t seem very sympathetic or open to Hiller PC’s case but as the hearing went on he began to realize how unjust it was for the Federal Government to have cannabis as a schedule 1 narcotic when they have been distributing it to citizens via federal programs for over 40 years while they arrested millions of minorities over possession. Near the end of the case, the Judge began passionately defending cannabis and he ended it by saying he would review the case seriously to see if we should take this to the Supreme Court. At that very moment, the joy in the air was palpable because, for the first time in over 40 years, there is a real chance this may lead to the end of the cannabis prohibition.
There are 3 traits a drug must have to be considered Schedule 1; the drug or other substance has a high potential for abuse, the drug or other substance has no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States, there is a lack of accepted safety for use of the drug or other substance under medical supervision. If one were to believe that cannabis has medicinal value and is hard to get addicted to, as research and many people attest, then clearly cannabis should not be schedule 1. For now, we can only hope that justice will be served and this can lead to the end of a war on innocent people who possess or simply use drugs without hurting anyone. Our policies need serious reform so we can get drug addicts medical help instead of throwing them in jail and so we can put an end to the drug black market here since drugs illegal status is exactly what empowers criminals to make money off of them. Jeff Sessions probably knows this deep down inside but he won’t admit it because the truth is hideous and racist.
The war on drugs was always primarily based on racism, not public safety.
You may have certain feelings after reading this. Maybe you feel that decriminalizing all drugs is dangerous even though Americans drink caffeine and alcohol dangerous levels daily leading to over 90,000+ American deaths per year. Or maybe, you can take a moment to objectively look at reality and realize the drug laws we have in place are not only unethical but they waste over $100 billion a year of taxpayer money and put our lives at risk. Together we can end this, become active in your stance so we can transform this nation. I choose to be inspired and take action, I hope you decide to make the same choice. You can donate to the Cannabis Cultural Association here. They helped facilitate this hearing along with Hiller PC.
Question of The Week: Do you think drugs should be decriminalized? Why?