Pete and Re-Pete?
I forget the source, but I remember another interview with a former gov’t official who talked about how much of the drug activity was found among the upper-middle class and upper class, but it was too much of a political problem to go after the powerful. “Do you know how much backlash we’re going to get if we start arresting the children of judges, congressmen, and CEO’s?”
So they focused on the poor and powerless. It’s not because that’s where drug sales or drug use were highest. It’s just that’s who they could arrest and imprison without causing trouble for themselves. And since class and race are pretty correlated, it basically meant that inner city black kids battled police and went to jail for things suburban white kids did with little consequence. Drugs and black people = The Wire. Drugs and white kids = That 70’s Show. Sure, it was meant as a way to go after black people and hippies, but even the hippies ended up avoiding most of the hassle.
And compare the stereotype of the inner-city crack addict to the suburban mom addicted to oxy. If they end up on some reality show, for the first, it’ll be Cops, for the second, it’ll be Intervention or Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew. One is supposed to elicit fear, the other, compassion.
And now that pot is legal, some of those former “criminals” have skills that translate into legitimate businesses. Granted, only for those who were never arrested or convicted during their years as criminals. Two groups doing similar things, one is jailed, one gets off the hook. Now the jailed one lives as a felon, with all the negative social consequences that come with that, and the other gets to run a business!
no one uses the frontpage, not even BB editors. and it is easy to miss a thread in the BBS.
my favorite formulation is boingboing.net/blog
Not this one?
Can’t be a repeat because this has no war on hippies
@frauenfelder nice pic of Tricky Dick, perfect for the Nixon 2016 stickers I’m printing
Ehrlichman’s first rule of the war on hippies is don’t talk about the war on hippies.
Unlike some here I like talking about the war on hippies
@daneel, you are an evil evil (happy) mutant. i wuz rolled. 
whenever i see the current republican lineup i truly think: “nixon. now more than ever.”
As an overseas voter I won’t have the option to write in Nixon this time
This topic was automatically closed after 5 days. New replies are no longer allowed.
