Ethan Nadelmann Challenges NAACP to Oppose the Drug War
Posted in Chronicle Blog by Scott Morgan on Thu, 07/16/2009 - 9:45pm
It's a fascinating speech and I would have liked to see the audience's reaction for myself. It's an unfortunate reality that the case for drug policy reform has yet to be widely embraced in the African-American community and Ethan faced the unique challenge of presenting our argument to NAACP leaders in only 7 minutes.
Bonus: Here's some subsequent discussion from the same event, in which an audience member asks the panelists what they think about marijuana legalization.
It's a fascinating speech and I would have liked to see the audience's reaction for myself. It's an unfortunate reality that the case for drug policy reform has yet to be widely embraced in the African-American community and Ethan faced the unique challenge of presenting our argument to NAACP leaders in only 7 minutes.
Bonus: Here's some subsequent discussion from the same event, in which an audience member asks the panelists what they think about marijuana legalization.
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Cautious Optimism
Comment posted by puregenius on Sat, 07/18/2009 - 7:14amI am glad to see to there were some positive reactions from the crowd. Being one of the few blacks in America who fully supports re-legalization is difficult sometimes. For the last decade I have been trying to get the NAACP to take an official position on the drug war and they never do. Given that support for it in much of the black community remains high, I could view their ambivalence in a positive light but I do not. Sadly it is far more acceptable in our community to be a non-prohibition related murderer than a dealer. It is very difficult to get people who deal with turf wars and open air markets on a daily basis to think in a calm and rational way because it's simply not feasible.
The National African-American Drug Policy Coalition (NAADPC), is trying to move in the right direction, but with a focus primarily on harm reduction and not on systemic legal issues, they are rather misguided. This is especially troubling given that the Coalition is led by the National Bar Association.