- Classification: Drug War |
- Category: Drug War Videos
Modern Day Slavery: Racism and the Drug War
Video:
Click to watch“Prohibition... goes beyond the bounds of reason in that it attempts to control mans' appetite through legislation and makes a crime out of things that are not even crimes... A prohibition law strikes a blow at the very principles upon which our Government was founded.”
~ Abraham Lincoln
Slavery is defined as the act of keeping a person as a piece of property. If you ask the average American if slavery still exists in America, their answer is likely to be no. After watching this video, many will change their minds.
As the crack epidemic flooded inner cities across the country, in 1986 Reagan's "Anti-Drug Abuse Act" makes the penalty for crack possession a hundred times harsher than that of powder cocaine. The following year new legislation is passed allowing private corporations to own and operate prisons. Twenty years later over a million non-violent drug offenders are imprisoned while corporate stocks are traded based on how many prisoners are in the cages.
A report released in 2008 by the International Center for Prison Studies at King's College London states that the United States has the highest incarceration rate and most people behind bars per capita in the world. Over 50% of these people are imprisoned for drug crimes.
At the same time, prescription drug companies account for over 50% of Fortune 500 profits. All illegal drugs combined kill approx 11K per year while cigarettes, alcohol and pharmaceutical kill almost a million. What's wrong with this picture?
Footnotes
| Date Published | 04/11/2013 |
|---|---|
| Posting Date | 04/11/2013 |
