Brad Pitt: War on Drugs “Nonsensical, Backwards, Inept”

Lisa Derrick Saturday October 13, 2012 4:19 pm

Brad Pitt said something yesterday night we here at FDL have known for a long time:

I think it’s safe to say that the drug war is nonsensical. It’s a backwards, inept strategy.

The actor surprised audience members at a screening of Eugene Jarecki’s The House I Live In. Jarecki and his groundbreaking film about the United States’ flawed, ineffective drug policy were featured on FDL’s Movie Night last week.

Pitt introduced Jarecki and the film, jokingly using 12-Step lingo as he stepped on stage:

Hi, everybody. I’m Brad Pitt. And I’m a drug addict,

then stating:

Actually, my drug days have long passed, but it’s certainly true that I could land in any city and any state and get you anything you wanted. Just give me 24 hours, and I’ll know where to find it. And yet we still talk about the drug war as if it’s a success.

Before the screening, Pitt and Jarecki discussed the actor’s involvement with The Wrap:

The two men talked about the failures of the war on drugs, and about Jarecki’s contention – which Pitt originally said was “too liberal even for me” – that the criminal approach to drugs was being used to keep poor and minority communities down.

“We talked about those in poverty, and what he thought was the biggest stumbling block and the biggest thing holding them down,” Pitt said. “And certainly I had my own questions about the drug war.”

“There might be something else in play here, like we witnessed with Katrina.”

Exactly. And that something else is sadly racism and loathing for the poor. Pitt asked:

We have biggest penal system in the world, we have the most people incarcerated. And out of that 2.3 million, how many are for non-violent crimes?..Half. Something’s wrong.

Yes it is.

econobuzz | Saturday October 13, 2012 08:02 pm 1

Time to wave the white flag, no?

redpilled | Saturday October 13, 2012 08:14 pm 2

Wars which make profits for so many industries will not be ended unless and until there is such a huge popular uprising against them that it cannot be ignored. Just as the War Profiteers and their lobbyists “encourage” Congress and Presidents to continue the “defense budget” boondoggle to all their respective profits, so Big Pharma and the Prison Industrial Complex and their lobbyists “encourage” Congress and Presidents to continue the “War on Drugs” and oppose de-criminalization and/or legalization, even of marijuana. Follow the greed and the money.

Twonine | Saturday October 13, 2012 08:15 pm 3

http://gizmodo.com/5951344/drugs-addiction-vs-drug-control-spending-more-statistics-graphics-should-be-animated

catch22oy | Saturday October 13, 2012 08:23 pm 4

that the criminal approach to drugs was being used to keep poor and minority communities down.

Im sure you won’t find that rationale in the mission statements of the police/prison industrial complex, but that’s certainly been known to be the effect for decades now.

rich2506 | Saturday October 13, 2012 08:38 pm 5

Yeah, it was a number of years ago, some study was concluded where a class (Might have been a group of classes or a whole school) of students took DARE drug education classes for nine straight years and another, demographically similar group took none. Then both groups were asked to anonymously state whether or not they used drugs. The results were a completely ridiculous 43.2% to 43.7%. The students with all the DARE education did drugs at only 0.5% less than the students with zero education, a result that was well within the margin of error.

RaggMopp | Saturday October 13, 2012 09:07 pm 6

I must disagree with the “inept” part. As for “nonsensical and backward”, they seem to be accurate.

I don’t think drug enforcement is inept. It is however, hopeless. Like shovelling sand against the tide. Ergo it tends to degrade our police forces.

We’ve been here before. Why is it that people who can read cannot grasp the parallel with prohibition. It too was hopeless; from the outset. My favorite: If it hadn’t been for prohibition, you’d never have heard the word Mafia.

malcolmkyle | Sunday October 14, 2012 02:06 am 7

Maybe you believe that it’s immoral to use a certain drug, but if you also wish such acts to become/remain criminalized you also have to accept responsibility for the dire consequences of such un-thought-through folly.

Under our present prohibitionist-regime, these certain plants/concoctions/drugs are sold only by criminals and terrorists; the huge black-market profits are used to bribe and threaten law enforcement officials and commit atrocities against innocent civilians; the availability and usage rates tend to go up, not down; prisons have become filled to capacity with easily replaced users, vendors and smugglers —this list is endless!

Prohibition guarantees to criminals and terrorists the power to threaten communities, and even whole states. Ending drug prohibition won’t be the complete answer to all our drug problems, just as the end of alcohol prohibition didn’t end all the problems associated with alcohol. But it will surely ameliorate the crime and violence on our streets, lessen the huge burden on our judicial system, and shrink the the immense incentives for corruption in public office.

Prohibition is the most destructive, dysfunctional, dishonest and racist social policy in America since Slavery. We must end it NOW!

easyrider1969 | Sunday October 14, 2012 05:26 am 8

There’s not much money in illegal drugs if prohibition ended. In the case of grass, why wouldn’t one grow their own or get a great deal from a grower neighbor. How much did the State of Mexico spend on California TV adds 2 years ago to keep grass illlegal? $500,000 that we know of.

DonS | Sunday October 14, 2012 06:16 am 9

Retired 30-year substance abuse counselor here.

Exactly how many politicians are advocating for penal reform? How many are talking with any sense about failed drug policy?

Too busy feathering their own nests, and groveling for the corporatists and the militarists in all their many forms.

A country rotting from the inside, at least when measured against sane and humanist potential.

RaggMopp | Sunday October 14, 2012 09:21 am 10

In response to easyrider1969 @ 8

Los Estados Unidos Mexicanos spent $LOTS in CA buying political ads to influence a ballot initiative? Are you sure?

That doesn’t sound legal. Maybe Mexican citizens? Mexican drug cartels would surely have. But a foreign nation? That would be troubling; it should have caused quite a stir.

Interests in Nevada spent more to defeat the CA casino gambling initiative in 1976 than was spent on the presidential campaigns of both major party candidates combined! But that was casino, hotel, whorehouse, etc. owners, not the State of Nevada.