The Emperor Wears No Clothes

by Jack Herer

Wasting Our Tax Money

Approximately 50% of all drug enforcement money, federal and state, during the last 70 years has been directed toward marijuana!

Some 70-80% of all people now in federal and state prisons in America wouldn’t have been there as criminals until just 60 or 70 years ago. In other words we, in our (Anslinger and Hearst inspired) ignorance and prejudice, have placed approximately 1.2 million of the 1.8 million people in American prisons (as of 2005) for crimes that were, at worst, minor habits, up until the Harrison Act, 1914 (whereby the U.S. Supreme Court in 1924 first ruled that drug addicts weren’t merely sick, they were instead vile criminals).

Eighty percent of these government “War on Drugs” victims were not dealing. They have been incarcerated for simple possession. And this does not include the quarter of a million more in county jails.

Remember, just 29 years ago, in 1978, before the “War on Drugs,” there were only 300,000 people in American prisons for all crimes combined.

Some radio and television preachers have added to the hysteria by calling rock music “satanic and voodoo” and associating it with the drug culture. They want to outlaw rock, burn albums and books, and lock up everyone who doesn’t agree with them. So does Carlton Turner. So does Lyndon LaRouche. So does William Bennett. So does General Barry McCaffrey. So does John Walters.

During the last three generations, Hearst’s and Anslinger’s propaganda and lies have been relentlessly jammed down Americans’ throats as unimpeachable gospel truth – resulting in the massive drain on taxpayer’s money to build the government’s anti-drug machine (see “Fighting the Police State” in the Appendix).

And virtually every state is in the midst of the biggest prison expansion ever in America’s and the world’s history, while political vultures, concerned only for growth of their prison-related industries and job security, demand that we build more prisons and expand tax bases to pursue this “law and order” madness against formerly misdemeanor or even non-existent offenses.