Both were actually pretty problematic.
The drugs and the racism.
But not the immigrant’s drugs, or the immigrant’s racism!
I’m talking the good ol’ American versions… Tobacco, whiskey. speed, heroin, and racism… Way more American than Apple Pie.
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Are the statistics for the AA folks comparable to folks who go through treatment otherwise?
AA is by its nature hard to estimate. That’s a design choice. 
I see them addressing alcoholism in a very holistic way. It kinda gives me hope. That people can come together and solve problems. Also that it’s ubiquitous.
I just hope it works for them.
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All of the ‘group therapy’ types performed similarly. It was actually slightly better when it was associated with a clinical setting of some sort, but the stickiness there was really close to what we normally see when somebody has an investment so that could easily have been a factor.
Of course there’s a selection bias there (introverts self-select out of group therapy for example), but in this case that’s a positive thing. We WANT people to gravitate towards aid that works best for them as individuals, even if it makes my precious data a little smushy. 
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many people want to pshaw the vast right wing conspiracy idea but at 65 years old the well financed and deep reactionary efforts have always been evident from joe mcarthy, barry goldwater, the john birch society, KKK of the past to the today’s more PR conscious yet even more dangerous groups and individuals today. just listen to trump and cruz, one a raging demagogue, the other a theofascist even worse.
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They actually tried that once.
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So. The problem with the conspiracy theories aren’t what they include. It’s what they exclude. Perspective, other factors. Context.
It’s a comparatively simple answer to how the world works.
And it’s misleading because you look at x or y… And try to explain them in terms of a few facts… And a few events. Read between the lines. Etc.
I can give you a vast conspiracy theory about how everything in the world we experience is just a battle between carbon and hydrogen for superiority.
I’d point to the chemical reactions between carbon and hydrogen all around us.
It’s a war I tell you. And it’s all around us. In our bodies (carbon fortresses. The new army… It’s why we want to INCREASE our carbon footprint…)
And the forces of hydrogen. Hippies and fish. Do you know what drugs REALLY do? Replace carbon with hydrogen!
Wake up sheeple!!!
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I prefer to think of that period as… The US military discovers the existence of woo woo…
And tries to militarize it.
Sadly all our CIAs attempts to swap someone’s homeopathic treatment for the wrong one have failed to kill our targets. Go figure.
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Rat park!!!
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I didn’t include that because I thought the comparison to rats might muddy from my “respecting people” message, but yes. (Although, I also respect the choice of the rats in small cages to take morphine. I mean, given their lives, fuck it)
I also love how Rat Park happened in the 1970s, I found out about it only a decade ago, and those who treat addiction are starting to come around to noticing that “addiction” is about despair and not about “chemical hooks” just in the last couple of years.
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Yes. I conceed!
Mercifully yes.
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Patchouli?
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It is hard to imagine any other substance that has been subjected to the same level of biased scrutiny as cannabis, and yet very few serious risks can legitimately be associated with it’s use.
I take your point that it should probably not be described as “totally harmless”, but given the monumental government supported efforts to demonise the stuff, I’m prepared to endure a little lack of rigour in this regard.
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I read that book recently, liked it but ended up wanting more out of it.
I was wondering how long it was going to take for someone to point that out. The wars on cannabis and opium have been nakedly racist endeavors since their inceptions. The innovation in the 60s and 70s was simply pivoting to crypto-racism.
I won’t quote Lee Atwater’s interview on the Southern Strategy directly here but here’s a link.
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##Gesundheit.
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I completely agree that it’s demonetization is completely out of line.
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An interesting book on the subject of “Drug Cinema” (which I am not sure is still in print) Addicted : The Myth and Menace of Drugs in Cinema brings up the point fairly early. The racism/miscegenation stuff was pretty common to the subject from the silent era through the 1950’s. It even is hinted at in the film Touch of Evil, when Janet Leigh is terrorized by a Mexican gang.
http://www.worldcat.org/title/addicted-an-illustrated-guide-to-drug-cinema/oclc/224085783
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Nah, the War on Drugs is mostly just a money grab for government and those involved int he business of the prison complex. Plus giving a scapegoat to the public and a sense that government is doing something constructive.
The War on Drugs is all about money and deflection from real issues.
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Except the article explains that Nixon explicit said that about a war on African Americans and rebellious youths. It’s not idle speculation, it was their planned policy:
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.
Straight from the horses mouth, there. Or rather, straight from a person who was an insider and worked on Nixon’s campaign/administration.
It’s cost the US taxpayer and government billions of dollars and has not in anyway been helpful economically. Plus the privatization of the prison system seriously lagged behind the rise of the drug war.
So, yes, it was about race.
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Hippies are a race?
Just kidding on that one really.
It sure hasn’t been helpful, not to mention it’s not even really in the power or authority of the Federal government to prohibit substances. Prior they accepted the fact they had no authority to do so and used taxation to deal with marijuana and a Constitutional Amendment to make alcohol illegal. The Constitution really doesn’t give them any footing to even engage in it.
Drug prohibition on a Federal level is about the most UnAmerican thing one can even dream of.
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