However, listening to Michelle Martin’s interview of Alfre Woodard on NPR, I was left wondering: How is it possible to interview and actor about an issue-oriented film and not mention the issue?

The issue in American Violet is not African American’s “ongoing distrust of the criminal justice system” (as though African Americans are the ones with the problem). Nor is the movie about the “stereotype of the black woman going off…” And Tulia, Texas and the fake drug scandal in Dallas, Texas should dispel any notion that this film is about an isolated incident. In those cases and in this movie the issue is: a Criminal Justice System that is not just; a system that, in far too many cases, targets not only “the powerless”, but one that intentionally targets (as Michelle so carefully avoided saying) African Americans and Hispanics. How else could one explain that despite the fact that whites and blacks share precisely the same rate of illegal drug usage, 75% of those incarcerated for drug-related offenses are black??

When Michelle asked, “There are so many other issues that you could be involved in; why does this particular issue move you so much? The question that came to my mind was: Why wouldn’t an African American–or anyone else who claims to care about justice, civil liberties, or the wanton destruction of innocent people’s lives–be moved by this issue?

Alfre Woodard is a first-rate, award winning actress who is not only attractive, and talented, but also grounded. To her credit, she managed extremely relevant and insightful comments despite the nearly irrelevant questions.

Go to http://www.americanviolet.com for theaters and times in your city.

Here’s the link to the interview. Copy and paste in your browser.
http://www.npr.org/aover.php?original_story_page=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.npr.org%2Ftemplates%2Fstory%2Fstory.php%3FstoryId%3D103274904&id=3370135&code=9b609a4eafb9879995907b4b70c769de

Celebrity status, or even being close to someone that is often shows the lie that we are a classless society.

Links to my original article and Mr. Capra’s rebuttal, and the response below have also been published at http://mccoolportraits.com/mccoolcomments.htm#MATV

LEGALIZING POT IN NO WAY MAKES US SAFER—A REBUTTAL
By Joy Strickland
CEO, Mothers Against Teen Violence

James L. Capra, a Dallas Drug Enforcement Agent, asserted in his article last week, “The United States has had tremendous success in our fight against drug use and abuse.” Anyone vaguely familiar with the war on drugs will concede that Mr. Capra holds what is arguably a fantastic notion of success. His agency’s outdated arguments and misleading statistics are self-serving at best. Indeed, a DEA agent promoting the drug war is perhaps less remarkable than a ringmaster promoting the circus. Still, Mr. Capra’s arguments warrant a rebuttal.

Firstly, Mr. Capra refers to the specter of prisons filled with drug users as an “illusion”. Although an entire communtiy of African American men in Tulia, Texas and the Hispanic men victimized by the fake drug scandal here in Dallas could liken their experience to a bad dream, sadly these shameful stories are very real. The FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) reveal that drug law violations skyrocketed to nearly 2 million in 2006, of which: 82.5% were for possession of a controlled substance; only 17.5% were for the sale or manufacture of a drug; 43.9 per cent were for marijuana; and 39% were for marijuana possession alone, shattering the myth that the drug war primarily targets drug smugglers and king pins. We cannot separate the rise of the prison industrial complex from our outdated an irrational drug laws.

Secondly, Mr. Capra inferred that favoring decriminalization and control could be construed as favoring underage use. Nothing in the original article warrants this disturbing inference. Perhaps the point that Mr. Capra missed can be clarified by posing the following questions: If a youth should exercise poor judgment by using a controlled substance, should he be barred from obtaining a federal loan for college? Should he be incarcerated? If he has a life-threatening reaction, should his friends risk letting him die because they fail to seek medical attention, fearing their own arrest? It must not be that the cure is worse than the ailment.

There is no accounting for those “studies” showing the harmful effects of marijuana on the body, since Mr. Capra cited no sources. There is ample evidence, however, that marijuana is less dangerous (to adults) in many respects than nicotine. In 2006 the largest case-controlled study ever conducted concluded that smoking marijuana, even regularly and heavily, does not lead to lung cancer. Donald Tashkin, a pulmonologist at the University of California at Los Angeles has studied marijuana for 30 years. FDA officials have widely used his previous work on marijuana to make the case that the drug is dangerous. Tashkin had hypothesized that there would be a positive association between marijuana use and lung cancer, and that the association would be more positive with heavier use. “What we found instead was no association at all, and even a suggestion of some protective effect,” says Tashkin.

Finally, Mr. Capra alluded to the Netherlands as evidence that liberalized drug policies increase rather than reduce crime. A better informed DEA agent would know that marijuana remains illegal in the Netherlands. Large-scale dealing, production, import and export of all illegal substances are prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. The fact that Dutch policymakers make a distinction between hard drugs and soft drugs is a step in the right direction. This distinction has led to dispensing marijuana in coffee shops because a policy of non-enforcement has become common. The problem is that there is no way for coffee shops to access a legal supply of marijuana. By pursuing a schizophrenic policy coupling non-enforcement with the failure to control cultivation and distribution, the Netherlands has allowed illegal drug trafficking to remain a profitable venture—and that is the source of the criminal activity.

In the information age, drug war opponents and advocants alike could benefit from a public debate based on facts instead of fiction or scare tactics. Anything less is a disservice to the DEA and the citizens it purports to serve and protect.

I know that everyone is entitled to their opinions, but if you have never tried it then how can you really know the effects of what drugs will do to people lives by making it legal. Drug addiction is just the symptom we need to get to the root cause of why people turn to drugs. And trust me there is always a root cause. I teach a class called Overcomer’s. It is a bible based program that teaches user’s how to live life and overcome the things that keep them bound and in bondage to their drug of choice.

Legalizing drugs would be one of the gravest injustice in my opinion that has ever taken place in the history of mankind. If there is any doubt look at what happened when we legalized alcohol.
S. Poe

The ideas that motivated them are expressed in these quotes:

“Inability of the prohibition law to enforce prohibition is causing an increase in the number of young boys and girls who become intoxicated,” declared Judge H. C. Spicer of the juvenile court at Akron, Ohio, a short time ago when two boys, aged 15 and 16 years, respectively, were arraigned before him. “During the past two years,” he added ” there have been more intoxicated children brought into court than ever before.”
“Statement by Hon. William Cabell Bruce, The National Prohibition Law, Hearings before the Subcommittee of the Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, Sixty-Ninth Congress, April 5 to 24, 1926″

Pauline Sabin’s concern over prohibition grew slowly. Initially she favored the Eighteenth Amendment, explaining later, “I felt I should approve of it because it would help my two sons. The word-pictures of the agitators carried me away. I thought a world without liquor would be a beautiful world.”"

Gradually, however, intertwined motherly and political concerns caused her to change her mind. Her first cautious public criticism of prohibition came in 1926 when she defended Wadsworth’s opposition to the law. By 1928 she had become more outspoken. The hypocrisy of politicians who would support resolutions for stricter enforcement and half an hour later be drinking cocktails disturbed her. The ineffectiveness of the law, the apparent decline of temperate drinking, and the growing prestige of bootleggers troubled her even more. Mothers, she explained, had believed that prohibition would eliminate the temptation of drinking from their children’s lives, but found instead that “children are growing up with a total lack of respect for the Constitution and for the law.”"

In later statements, she elaborated further on her objections to prohibition. With settlement workers reporting increasing drunkenness, she worried, “The young see the law broken at home and upon the street. Can we expect them to be lawful?”" Mrs. Sabin complained to the House Judiciary Committee: “In preprohibition days, mothers had little fear in regard to the saloon as far as their children were concerned. A saloon-keeper’s license was revoked if he were caught selling liquor to minors. Today in any speakeasy in the United States you can find boys and girls in their teens drinking liquor, and this situation has become so acute that the mothers of the country feel something must be done to protect their children.”"

******

It’s worth mentioning that The United States had the worst outbreak of teen alcoholism during Alcohol Prohibition in the entire history of the nation.

After mothers began opposing Alcohol Prohibition the policy was effectively DEAD. Within 7 years complete repeal was accomplished.

One of our missions must be to convince mothers that drug crusade is endangering their children. Once that is done, the drug warriors will have a losing battle on their hands.

[Ms. Strickland's article] is a very good start.
R Givens