Billie Holiday and the Federal Bureau of Narcotics’ Early Fight for Survival

[striking]

I have never read a more shocking indictment of "The war on drugs" and I can only hope that this book gets its message across to everyone willing to listen.

I can't believe I live in a country with the gall to do this. My biggest question is, how can I help change this? Can I change it?

It's just sad. I can only hope that someday, some country will create opportunities and futures like those of the United States. I hope there will be someplace for people to move where they don't have to worry about something as atrocious as this. Because this sickens me.

[rizumu]

There is such a place already, Europe. With Portugal paving the way: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_policy_of_Portugal

[gojomo]

Compelling story. Would be a lot easier to follow if author were clearer on relative dates. (How long after the 1939 threat was the first bust? The later SF bust? The final hospitalization?)

Note the author, Johann Hari, has had some issues with accuracy and attribution in the past, and some argue that even his recent work is sloppy with quotes for dramatic purposes (http://www.jeremy-duns.com/blog/2014/9/7/kdgwxcbsned1rknh0h3...).

[refurb]

Thanks for posting that. The story is compelling, but without sources for quotes and more details, I'm left wondering how much of it was "artist embellishment".

There are enough factual stories about the war on drugs that will make your stomach turn. There is no need to "spice up" the story.

[j_m_b]

The "war on drugs" is steeped in racism and plays a large part in the state repression of people to this day. I have hoped for years that people would start realizing this connection. Sadly, the racial witch hunters of the day prefer to focus their energy on symptomatic outliers (e.g. Ferguson) instead of the root source of legal injustice. The powers granted to the state through the drug war and all the side effects thereof are crippling generations.

[GigabyteCoin]

Keep speaking and people will eventually hear what you have to say.

[fnordfnordfnord]

If there is anyone with anything good to say about Anslinger, I've never heard of them. Police in the US need to stop lionizing people like Anslinger and J. Edgar Hoover.

Erowid has a list of links of Anslinger's congressional testimony and a couple other references. https://www.erowid.org/culture/characters/anslinger_harry/an...

[rntz]

How can you simultaneously claim that nobody speaks well of Anslinger, and that he is lionized? That seems flatly contradictory.

[afarrell]

I've never heard anybody at all lionize JEH

[penrod]

I wonder how many people would cite the War on Drugs as the primary reason they identify as Libertarian.