Billionaire Richard Branson: War on drugs or War against African-Americans

HGP November 2011 post 

Drug abuse less likely among black, Asian kids, study says:

Black and Asian adolescents are much less likely to abuse or become dependent on drugs and alcohol than white kids, according to a Duke University-led study based on an unusually large sample of kids from all 50 states.

"There is certainly still a myth out there that black kids are more likely to have problems with drugs than white kids, and this documents as clearly as any study we're aware of that the rate of ... substance-related disorders among African-American youths is significantly lower," said Dr. Dan Blazer of Duke's psychiatry department and a senior author of the study.



This study presents the obvious question:

If white youth -- far the majority in this country -- do more drugs than miniorities (blacks in particular) why is the prison population overwhelmingly black and Latino for drug offenses?

Billonaire Richard Branson, a member of Global Commission of Drug Policy, likewise, thinks the USA drug policy is essentially a racist war against black people:

RICHARD BRANSON has slammed America's drugs policy for being "racist" and a "war on black people" in an interview with US freesheet Metro.

“The fundamental difference [in drug policy] in America is that it is a war against black people. 85 percent of people who go to prison for drug use in America are black people. They don't take more drugs, but it's a racist law against black people in America," he said.

“The law should be changed. You’ve got something like 1.5 million people in American jails languishing for taking drugs and that is wrong," said Branson, a member of the Global Commission on Drug Policy (GCDP). "Those people would be much better being out in society, being helped if they have drug problem, getting off the problem.” source 

The Fruits of the War on Drugs?

“I am part of the global commission on drugs, and it consists of 15 ex-presidents from South America, it consists of people like Kofi Annan, Paul Volcker, George Schultz, and ex-presidents from Switzerland and Greece and other places," he told the paper.

"And we just spent two years looking at the war on drugs and it is obvious it failed. Thousands of people in South Africa are killed every year, more and more people are sent to prison and the amount of people using drugs increases year over year.”

Meanwhile the Daily Mail reports that Branson has written an open letter calling on US political parties to back the legalisation of marijuana. "The US currently spends $51 billion - per year - on the war on drugs," he notes.

"That's double what Apple profited last year. It's a horribly depressing number when you think how far even a fraction of that money would have gone if invested in prevention and rehabilitation efforts." read more