Approximately 50% of all drug enforcement money, federal and state, during the last 60 years has been directed toward marijuana!

    Some 70-80% of all persons now in federal and state prisons in America wouldn’t have been there as criminals until just 60 or so years ago. In other words we, in our (Anslinger and Hearst inspired) ignorance and prejudice, have placed approximately 800,000 of the 1.2 million people in American prisons (as of August 4, 1998) 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 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 20 years ago, in 1978, before the "“War on Drugs,” there were only 300,000 persons 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 Bennet. So does Lee Brown. So does General Barry McCaffrey.

    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 of the paper version of this book).

    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.

the authorized on-line version of Jack Herer’s “The Emperor Wears No Clothes”

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