{"id":56041,"date":"2022-10-07T19:22:01","date_gmt":"2022-10-07T19:22:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/merryjane.com\/dea-opens-up-about-the-racist-origins-of-the-drug-war-on-its-youtube-channel\/"},"modified":"2022-10-07T19:22:01","modified_gmt":"2022-10-07T19:22:01","slug":"dea-opens-up-about-the-racist-origins-of-the-drug-war-on-its-youtube-channel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/merryjane.com\/news\/dea-opens-up-about-the-racist-origins-of-the-drug-war-on-its-youtube-channel\/","title":{"rendered":"DEA Opens Up About the Racist Origins of the Drug War on Its YouTube Channel"},"content":{"rendered":"

Image <\/em>via<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

The same week President Biden announced wide-sweeping pardons<\/u><\/a> for simple cannabis possession, another US governmental entity is reconsidering its relationship with the racially-motivated War on Drugs: The DEA. And the Agency is officially admitting that its founding was based on prejudice in a clip<\/u><\/a> released on Monday. <\/p>\n

This video is part of a series hosted on the DEA’s YouTube channel that uses artifacts from the Arlington, Virginia, DEA Museum to illustrate chapters from the Agency\u2019s long history of wasting taxpayer money on a quixotic fight against \u201cdrugs.\u201d In the clip, a DEA historian named \u201cKasey\u201d says the 1919 National Prohibition Act (aka the Volstead Act<\/u><\/a>) changed the view of addiction. “[It] increased non-medical use, as well as racial, ethnic, and class prejudice [which] affected public opinion. What had been a medical condition became deviant, criminal. This shift led to a wave of laws against heroin, marijuana, and cocaine. In 1930, Congress authorized a new federal drug law enforcement agency\u2026 the agency is a predecessor of DEA.\u201d<\/p>\n