Arianna Huffington Quotes
It's not just the over $8 billion that we would be saving in law enforcement; it's also the over $8 billion that we would be making by taxing marijuana... We are filling our jails with nonviolent drug offenders -- predominantly young, predominantly African American... It's a great beyond left and right issue. It has support across the political spectrum and also the support of the majority of the American people.
Arianna Huffington, Political Columnist, Quoted on Marijuana Majority Website, http://www.marijuanamajority.com/?id=459
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
Two decades earlier leading Black politicians, observing the differential deleterious effects of drug use on Blacks called for a massive Federal effort to diminish substance abuse. The War on Drugs responded and reduced the drug use in America somewhat. However, the unintended consequences—especially for Blacks—caused many Black politicians to call for an end or serious curtailing to the War on Drugs. The differential effect on Black males was dramatic. White drug dealing tended to occur in private offices and homes where black dealing takes place to a greater extent on the streets where the lower level dealers are much more likely to be caught. The differential penal;ties for possession or selling of powdered cocaine (preferred by whites) and crack cocaine (preferred by Blacks) caused many more Blacks to be jailed. With less access to the better attornies, the Bplacks tend to get longer sentences, even for the same crime. In addition, the drug of choice for most whites is alcohol which was made legal while the drugs of choice for Blacks are illegal. In many Black urban neighborhoods like Newark, the majority of young Black men arwere in jail for ddrug law violations. See {624056} for a concurring opinion.
The vast majority of the million Blacks in prison have been sentenced for using or selling drugs.
This quotation is an example of a phenomenon that occurs with many foreign leaders who do not understand America or democracy. Because the world was able to see people on American television claim that racial discrimination was a factor in the Federal government’s terrible performance with Hurricane Katrina, Khamenei and others assume that the accusation is true. Their view is through a very warped prism of Islamic Fascist Fundamentalism. So when they see the American government being so heavily criticized, they assume that this is in spite of government efforts to silence the critics. Therefore the notion that the administration Iranian policy is a ploy to deflect domestic pressure away from Katrina becomes creditable as does the fact that the media carry some American support for this “wag the dog” theory. For us the domestic debate is too important to our democracy to try and adjust domestic political debate to avoid misinterpretation those who do not understand democracy.
The interesting thing about this quotation is that he himself was a drug addict who illegally used drugs. However, when he finally got caught, the judge didn’t follow is “law and order” ranting. He got off without serving any jail time.
She was commenting on the incident when in 2013, Congress awarded its highest honor to the 4 young Black girls who were murdered in Birmingham, Alabama at the height of the Civil Rights Movement by the KKK who set off a bomb in the 16th Street Baptist Church. The sister of Addie Mae Collins, one of the murdered girls, who herself was wounded in the bombing, refused the medal on behalf of her dead sister. She resented the fact that it had taken all these years for Congress to make this gesture and then would not do anything that might cost money such as monetary restitution. When the Muslim terrorists murdered people in the 9-11 World Trade Center attacks, Congress swiftly arranged for restitution payments to go to the relatives of the murdered victims and to those wounded. However to many people, when white terrorists murder black victims no restitution many comes forth—only a medal. See {634035} for the sister’s statement.
Arianna Stassinopoulos Huffington is a Greek-American author, syndicated columnist, and businesswoman. She is a co-founder of The Huffington Post, the founder and CEO of Thrive Global, and the author of fifteen books. She has been named to Time Magazine's list of the world’s 100 most influential people and the Forbes Most Powerful Women list.
