“Even if nonpolluting power were feasible and abundant, the use of energy on a massive scale acts on society like a drug that is physically harmless but psychically enslaving. A community can choose between Methadone and "cold turkey"-between maintaining its addiction to alien energy and kicking it in painful cramps-but no society can have a population that is hooked on progressively larger numbers of energy slaves and whose members are also autonomously active.” IfsUseEnergyCommunityNumbersColdDrugMembersSlaveAddictionPopulationPainfulActiveScalesAliensAlternativesMassiveTurkeysMaintainingKickingHookedCrampsKicking ItCold TurkeyMethadone Author:Ivan Illich
“Most drugs work on only about a third of the population, they do no damage to another third, and the final third can have negative consequences.” PainDrugConsequenceNegativeThirdsFinalsPopulationTherapyDamageInjuryNegative Consequences Author:Craig Venter
“By creating false environment of a war on drugs, and cruel and unusual punishment with these crimes, 50% of our U.S. population is in jail without having hurt anybody, mostly for drugs.” WarHurtEnvironmentCrimeDrugCreatingPopulationPunishmentJailUnusualWar On DrugsCruel And Unusual Punishment Author:Oliver Stone
“So long as the great majority of the poor in any country are inert and are laboring without any hope in this world, the whole associated life of that community rests on an equivocal foundation. Its moral and social order is tied to an economic system which starves and mutilates the great majority of the population, and under such conditions its religion necessarily becomes a spiritual drug, administered for the purpose of subduing the popular discontent and relieving the popular misery.” WorldLongCountryWholeSpiritualPurposeOrderSocialCommunityPoorMoralEconomicConditionsThis WorldDrugFoundationMajorityMiseryPopulationTiedDiscontentEconomic SystemsSocial Order Author:Herbert Croly
“When President Nixon declared war on drugs on June 17, 1971, about 110 people per 100,000 in the population were incarcerated. Today, we have 2-3 million prisoners: 743 people per 100,000 in the population. The U.S. has 5% of the world's population, but 25% of its prisoners. As Senator Jim Webb once put it, Either we are home to the most evil people on earth or we are doing something different and vastly counterproductive.” PeopleWorldDifferentWarHomeTodayEarthEvilPresidentMillionsDrugPopulationPrisonerSenatorsJuneWar On DrugsEvil PeopleCounterproductivePresident Nixon Author:Maia Szalavitz
“Take crack cocaine. Particularly in the early days of the policy, ninety percent of the people being arrested were black, even though they didn't use the drug at higher rates and even though their numbers in the general population are so low. How could that be? The thing is, you place all your resources in communities of color. And if you do that, you're going to arrest black people.” PeopleIfsUseBlackCommunityNumbersPolicyColorHigherDrugLowsPercentResourcesRatePopulationCracksBlack PeopleNinetyArrestedCocaine Author:Carl Hart
“I meant that people will take anything that gives them a lift, whether it's alcohol or cocaine or the consciousness-expanding drugs or opiates. In Iran, until recently, they sold opium in shops legally, and they had 3,000,000 addicts in a population of 15,000,000. I don't believe that all those people were escaping from "complexes" or anything of the sort. They were simply exposed to it.” PeopleGivingBelieveConsciousnessDrugComplexesDon't BelievePopulationAlcoholLiftsShopsIranExposedAddictExpandingCocaineEscapingOpiumOpiatesConsciousness Expanding Author:William S. Burroughs
“The war on drugs has been the engine of mass incarceration. Drug convictions alone constituted about two-thirds of the increase in the federal prison population and more than half of the increase in the state prison population between 1985 and 2000, the period of our prison system's most dramatic expansion.” Has BeensTwoWarStatesHalfPeriodsDrugMassThirdsIncreasePrisonPopulationConvictionDramaticEnginesExpansionWar On DrugsIncarcerationMass IncarcerationPrison SystemPrison Population Author:Michelle Alexander
“The general population still thinks HIV is something that came in the 80s and went away, or that it only affects the gay population or intravenous drug users.” ThinkingStillsGayDrugPopulationUsers80sHiv Author:Annie Lennox