[jdietrich]

It's an incontrovertible historical fact that the prohibition of opium and and cocaine was substantially racially motivated.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrison_Narcotics_Tax_Act

[refurb]

Don’t disagree, but that doesn’t prove racism was Nixon’s reason for the war on drugs.

[pm90]

A simple google search will turn up many credible articles all of which show pretty substantially that Nixon was very much racist, and that many of his policies were... colored... by his racism.

e.g. https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/how-a-historian-uncov..., https://www.cnn.com/2016/03/23/politics/john-ehrlichman-rich...

[save_ferris]

One of Nixon's chief advisers admitted in an interview years later that the war on drugs was explicitly targeted at black people[0]. Criminalizing blacks was a primary objective of this policy.

0: https://qz.com/645990/nixon-advisor-we-created-the-war-on-dr...

[refurb]

This is the same quote as above. Reporter does interview, waits until the guy dies, then says “he said this”, while people who knew him said “I don’t think so”.

[meowface]

It likely was a motive, but it doesn't necessarily make the quote real. I have trouble believing Nixon or his advisors would give a supervillain monologue like that, personally, even if those were their exact intentions.

[tim333]

Well as one of the earlier links said

>Nixon advisor: We created the war on drugs to “criminalize” black people and the anti-war left

so it was more their political enemies in general rather than a race. Not to say it wasn't part racist.

[leetcrew]

read the whole thread man. I don't think anyone here doubts that drug enforcement in America is racially motivated, but you're the third person to cite that very dubious quote.