[merinowool]

Given that:

Nixon advisor John Ehrlichman told a journalist that the main purpose of the War on Drugs was to attack Nixon's "enemies" and that they knew the WOD was based on lies about drugs: > "You want to know what this was really all about? The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar Left, and black people. You understand what I'm saying? We knew we couldn't make it illegal to be either against the war or black. But by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did."

http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/03/the-war-on...

I think those people should not only be exonerated, but also treated as victims of Nixon corrupt politics and given hefty compensation.

Advocating for the War on drugs should be a criminal offence.

[RaceWon]

90% of the world's heroin supply is from the Poppy fields in Afghanistan, and everyone knows where those fields are. Do we (the USA) destroy those plants in our Drug War efforts... nah. Some reports say US troops even guard them.

[acct1771]

Many reports.

[RaceWon]

I believe it was in the book "Everything We Had" (although I am not certain of the source, because I read about it a while ago) that the only reason we were in Nam, was so the CIA could protect the Poppy plants which they needed to fund their Black Ops.

[nyolfen]

you need to read better books

[RaceWon]

You're a clever bastid

[RaceWon]

Sorry, did I say that out loud??

[RaceWon]

It seems it was not in the aforementioned book after all, which btw was a good read.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_CIA_drug_traf...

[dang]

Could you please stop posting unsubstantive comments to Hacker News?

[opo]

This point is controversial, in, as far as I know, we have to take someone's word that Ehrlichman made this quote.

While Nixon is remembered for "war on drugs", the actual substance of his policies seems to be different than what people think it was:

>...Their consensus is that because he was dramatically expanding the U.S. treatment system (by 350% in just 18 months!) and cutting criminal penalties, he had to reassure his right wing that he hadn’t gone soft. So he laid on some of the toughest anti-drug rhetoric in history, including making a White House speech declaring a “war on drugs” and calling drugs “public enemy number one”. It worked so well as cover that many people remember that “tough” press event and forget that what Nixon did at it was introduce not a general or a cop or a preacher to be his drug policy chief but…a medical doctor (Jerry Jaffe, a sweet, bookish man who had longish hair and sideburns and often wore the Mickey Mouse tie his kids had given him).

http://www.samefacts.com/2011/06/drug-policy/who-started-the...