Donald Trump’s administration, who it seems are doing everything in their power to cause us collectively as a nation to have a synchronized heart attack, recently announced that quickly climbing their target list was the marijuana industry. Which seems insane, seeing as not only do 1 in 8 adults smoke weed, but the medical industry has proven time and time again the effectiveness of cannabis.
Whether it be to reduce seizures, stop nausea caused by harsh treatments like chemotherapy, or being a non-addictive substitute to pain medications. Pain medications should be noted, along with other opioids, as the number one killer of middle-aged white people in America. So why would Trump want to stop an industry that has made states like Colorado, where weed is legal $1 billion in only a year?
The simple answer? Money and racism.
Photo: CBS
Or to be clearer, the amount of money that can be made off of racism.
The war on drugs has been referred to as the New Jim Crow time and time again. By criminalizing petty drug use, the government has been able to make money off of private prisons and do what it hadn’t been allowed to do since slavery — legally lock up black folks at staggering rates and force them to work for little or nothing; but if you’ve been paying attention you probably know that already. While Obama was president, he made strides to end privatized prisons. In August of 2016, Obama made a promise that his administration would begin to phase them out. Trump’s administration quickly steamrolled over Obama’s plan and gleefully reinstated the war on drugs.
Sessions: “I realize this may be an unfashionable belief in a time of growing tolerance of drug use, but too many lives are at stake to worry about being fashionable. I reject the idea that America will be a better place if marijuana is sold in every corner store. And I am astonished to hear people suggest that we can solve our heroin crisis by legalizing marijuana—so people can trade one life-wrecking dependency for another that’s only slightly less awful. Our nation needs to say clearly once again that using drugs will destroy your life.”
Which really just sounds like the 2017 version of what one of Nixon’s aides said in 1968.
"You want to know what this war on drugs was really all about? The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that had two enemies: the anti-war 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."
This was just the updated version of what the first director of the Bureau of Narcotics said while speaking to Congress in 1937:
“There are 100,000 total marijuana smokers in the U.S., and most are Negroes, Hispanics, Filipinos and entertainers. Their Satanic music, jazz and swing result from marijuana use. This marijuana causes white women to seek sexual relations with Negroes, entertainers and any others.”
“Reefer makes darkies think they’re as good as white men.”
Today, there are more black men incarcerated than there were slaves in 1820. While white folks smoke just as much as black folks do, we are more likely to end up in jail. From the ACLU: Blacks are 3.73 times more likely than whites to be arrested for marijuana. Private prison stocks have surged since Trump was inaugurated.
So if we legalized weed, while also shutting down private prisons, how would the rich continue to profit off of black bodies?
There is, of course, another massive industry that doesn’t want marijuana to become legal. And it is just as racist as the government.
Tobacco.
Photo: Disney Channel
Tobacco has been a part of this country's foundation since Christopher Columbus sailed his racist ass over. Tobacco farming which began in the 1600s, became Virginia's most successful cash crop, with more than 145,000 slaves working on tobacco plantations by 1750. Once James Bonsack invented the cigarette rolling machine in 1881 mainstream America had a new trend. The cigarette industry has put exhaustive time and money behind their product, and it’s paid off. Well, it did. Just 15 percent of adults smoked cigarettes in 2015, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — which is down almost 10 percent since 1997. As of 2016, a Gallup poll found that the number of adults smoking weed was 13 percent, up from 7 percent in 2013.
Smoking kills. It kills at epidemic-like rates, and yet our government doesn’t seem to spend much time condemning its use. The TRUTH campaign, which is devoted to ensuring that younger generations are not swayed by Big Tobacco’s advertising and never start smoking in the first place, found that cigarette companies spend 10 times more on advertising in predominantly black neighborhoods. They even go as far as to call black people a “market priority."
So, to recap, Big Tobacco has African slaves to thank for its place in the American economy and cultural zeitgeist. And since it can’t enslave blacks in 2017 to do labor, instead makes sure that its incredibly addictive product makes its way into their hands and therefore making them slaves to capitalism once again.
Our government has always needed black people in order to succeed against a global economy, but it never wanted us to succeed alongside whiteness. It wanted us to exist as the working support that enabled white superiority and wealth, and if that means halting the legalization of a plant that does worlds more good than alcohol or cigarettes, then so be it. The white men that hold the keys to America
The most sacred and valuable key that the white man holds in his preverbal hand is the one that he can continue to use to control blacks. It is the master key. The Master’s key, and no matter what black folks do to attempt to change the lock, he manages to always get in.
