Why is the ruling class opposed to drugs?

[ManyAntsDefeatSpiders]

Ruling ideas are always those of the ruling class...and have a material basis.

So what is the material basis for bourgeoisie's opposition to drug use?

Some random thoughts which come to mind:


Firstly, not all ruling classes are opposed to drug use - drugs laws change considerably depending on country. Or these may merely be concessions to working class demands. Nevertheless, it shows that the ruling class does not have a unanimous moral opinion on the matter.
Secondly, wouldn't the exploitation of the drug market be a good enough reason to support drug legalisation? A new market to exploit?
Thirdly, perhaps the ruling class does support drugs, personally (you know, the CEO sniffing coke behind the desk). But are opposed to workers using drugs. They oppose workers using drugs because it damages the productiveness of the worker. And, depending on the drug, the worker's health. Yet, then why is alcohol legal?
Fourthly, I think there is a type of alienation in capitalism - don't have sex, watch pornography, don't take drugs - watch people take drugs and feel smugly superior...I can't explain this better but there is an attitude in capitalism which encourages mindlessness and conformity. People who take drugs are less likely to be concerned with their job, but rather want to enjoy life. That can't be good for the boss.
Fifthly, drug use may really be counter-productive to the whole of society - regardless of class - and that it is treated like any other disease in society. Then again, alcohol is by far more damaging...
Lastly, the role of religion should not be underestimated. They oppose drugs because it 'breaks the barrier' between the person and 'their God.'

Thoughts?

[Dimentio]

I think there are cultural reasons as a basis for it, emanating both from "progressives" and reactionaries and underpinning our very society. The basis for prohibition ran deep into the veins of 19th century Swedish socialism for example.

[ManyAntsDefeatSpiders]

I think there are cultural reasons as a basis for it, emanating both from "progressives" and reactionaries and underpinning our very society.

Indeed, but what are the material conditions behind those cultural reasons?

That is what I am trying to figure out.


The basis for prohibition ran deep into the veins of 19th century Swedish socialism for example.

Indeed. A while ago I read an article where a communist argued that alcohol should be attacked because it was the refuge for the oppressed worker - just like religion. Obviously the person ignored the fact that most alcohol consumption is for enjoyable social reasons and if the worker seeks refuge in alcohol the logical target is not alcohol but capitalism.

Anyhow...:P

[Zurdito]

yeah, the root of ideology is material reality, but ideology can live on beyond its material basis. I don't think you can reduce all morality in any society to a directly correlating material interest,that's vulgar materialism.

I would say that the bourgeoisie's position as ruling class instills it with the need to keep the masses in order, and opposing disorder is an instinct for them, as the ruling class - and well, drugs make people unpredictable, disorderly, not prone to work or obey the law, etc. The bourgeoisie have a top down view of society which instills in them the need to create a nice, orderly, hard-working society in their own image (sic).

before anyone points out counter-examples: yes, there are contradictory tendencies, always. countless hedonistic practices are incoprorated by the bourgeoisie and encouraged within a borugeois framework, when the bourgeoisie no longer feel they can keep a check on them altogether.

Likewise, yes, the very nature of capitalism as a chaotic system, forces the borugeoisie to persistently undermine their own quest for "order", as they must also encourage competition betweenw orkers (individualism) and especially finance capital int he modern era must encourage huge amoutns of borrowing, etc., which all leads to a decidedly insecure and disordered society.

Like I said, contradictory :)

[ManyAntsDefeatSpiders]

yeah, the root of ideology is material reality, but ideology can live on beyond its material basis. I don't think you can reduce all morality in any society to a directly correlating material interest,that's vulgar materialism.

I somewhat disagree with this.

Firstly, whilst ideology (or for a better word the 'super-structure' of society) can influence things in its own right, once that material basis is removed the ideology becomes redundant and a fetter; it has no means for existence and, sooner or later, will become redundant. History has continually proven this.

Otherwise, I'm afraid, your approach is an idealistic one.

However, I don't think its a process of saying 'Ah, Jesus said we should honour our mother and father' and then 'here is the material basis for such morality.' Rather, I think it is a much broader approach than that - it is after all, historical materialism, not a matter of mere trivialities perhaps...

What I am trying to say is that historical materialism looks at wide ranging, historical struggles, and it becomes difficult when pinpointing certain moral stances...

That is after all, why I started this thread. :D


I would say that the bourgeoisie's position as ruling class instills it with the need to keep the masses in order, and opposing disorder is an instinct for them, as the ruling class - and well, drugs make people unpredictable, disorderly, not prone to work or obey the law, etc. The bourgeoisie have a top down view of society which instills in them the need to create a nice, orderly, hard-working society in their own image (sic).

Good point. Perhaps their inherent position as the ruling class demands them to 'keep order' and, that of course means fighting drugs.

[ManyAntsDefeatSpiders]

Another thing that came to my mind, the pretext of a 'War on Drugs' is also useful in regards to US foreign policy on Columbia as well as justifying the oppressive role of police in society generally.

[Zurdito]

I somewhat disagree with this.

Firstly, whilst ideology (or for a better word the 'super-structure' of society) can influence things in its own right, once that material basis is removed the ideology becomes redundant and a fetter; it has no means for existence and, sooner or later, will become redundant. History has continually proven this.

Otherwise, I'm afraid, your approach is an idealistic one.

However, I don't think its a process of saying 'Ah, Jesus said we should honour our mother and father' and then 'here is the material basis for such morality.' Rather, I think it is a much broader approach than that - it is after all, historical materialism, not a matter of mere trivialities perhaps...

What I am trying to say is that historical materialism looks at wide ranging, historical struggles, and it becomes difficult when pinpointing certain moral stances...

That is after all, why I started this thread. :D



Good point. Perhaps their inherent position as the ruling class demands them to 'keep order' and, that of course means fighting drugs.

Well yes but we don't need to be determinsitic about it: the ruling class could decide to legalise drugs in a capitlaist country with material conditions being what they are today. The reason they don't is due to their ideology and morality. These have a material basis but you would be hard pressed to show that they can be reduced to imemdiate economic interest. I mean Amsterdam's soft attitude to enforcing certain drug laws makes it a great tourist centre, if a city in the US were to do the same I bet they could profit pretty well from it.

PS I'm not claiming that there are no economic itnerests behind prohibition, there are, obviously.

PPS - the war ond rugs is a good point and it is an improtant pretext for US imperialism in Latin America, but I doubt you could explain the US bourgeosie's attitude to drugs just based on this, all bourgeois states have drug laws for one thing but they aren't part of the war on drugs, and also the US intervenes across the world without needing that excuse.

[ChairmanArt]

I think ruling class opposition to drugs is really situational, and in America the situation calls for the bourgeoisie to use drugs as an oppressive tool, while turning billions in profit for the destructive habits that they not only legalize but subliminally promote every chance they get.
If every drug was legal, then there probably wouldn't be the drug giants in the forms of cigarette and alcohol manufacturers that there are in America today. They're basically the billion dollar industries they are because they're a monopoly on the drug business by virtue of being the only one's legal.
And in terms of illegal drugs, the "war on drugs" started by Nixon in America was actually a war on oppressed peoples and enemies of the state (such as members of the Black Panther Party) that was conducted in a form of tricking the people into lawlessness and then bringing down the law on them. In Latin America, the US government appointed cartel friendly puppet dictators like Florencio Flores (after assassinating the previous one, as in the case of Omar Torrijos) and then turned around and used the drug trade in Latin America to, as Zurdito said, legitimize US imperialism.
They then subversively fostered the trade of illegal drugs by leaking the crack and heroin into minority (and revolutionary) communities and then sending in the pigs to arrest them for possesion (if, that is, they hadn't OD-ed already). So here we repeatedly see the ruling class working hand in hand with thugs and dope pushers to set a trap into which millions fell (and continue to fall into today).

[hekmatista]

One of the interesting things I ran across while living in Mississippi was their county-based blue laws. Digging deeper, however, I found out that for decades (this is no longer the case) State law banned the sale of alcohol and taxed it simultaneously.

[Destroy capitalism]

If I choose heroin cocaine hash in preference to valium, prozac, cigarettes and brandy why are some socialists so outraged? (this may or may not be a hypothetical question). A list of the side-effects of vastly profitable psychiatric drugs would shock and horrify and a lot of people are on these on a compulsory basis, don't have any human rights. This is to punish and control people who don't buy into consensual reality or have what Thomas Szasz calls 'problems with living'
At least my local dealer doesn't get 6 security guards to hold me down while he forces his product into me.I'm aware of the de-politicization argument, don't buy it.Basically if you want to be allowed drink alcohol then allow me choose my poison.That said, Irish police have used the pretext of a drug bust to arrest and frame Peter Pringle when they couldn't get a warrant any other way.
PS Here in Ireland we have a CP member involved with Legalize Cannabis Ireland and surprisingly the CP tolerates it, good for them I say. Isn't freedom what we fight for?
If you want to eradicate drug dealers you have to start with tobacco and then the doctors -check out the stats on SSRI and benzo scrips.And that's just the 'normals'.The psych victims/survivors are a whole other scandal.

[mykittyhasaboner]

if all other drugs were legal, i dont think many people would buy alcohol or cigarettes as much, and the various corporations who distribute and make these products would lose a ton of cash. Plus, if the government were to legalize currently illegal drugs,i have a feeling the ruling class would tax the shit out of it,(especially in the US)

[Severian]

Thirdly, perhaps the ruling class does support drugs, personally (you know, the CEO sniffing coke behind the desk). But are opposed to workers using drugs. They oppose workers using drugs because it damages the productiveness of the worker. And, depending on the drug, the worker's health. Yet, then why is alcohol legal?



Bingo. A big part of the "war on drugs" has been privacy-invading drug tests....including, in a number of jobs I've held, blood tests for alcohol. For workers, mostly, especially in transportation, manufacturing, etc.

Alcohol Prohibition in the U.S. probably did have a certain amount to do with bosses feeling that workers' drinking reduced productivity. And over the years, they've done other things to discourage heavy alcohol use, especially on the job. I've seen some amazing historical tidbits on the common, heavy booze drinking in the early U.S.....

Which is all fine, actually, except that the bosses' cure - criminalization - is worse than the disease. The laws are bad enough, and then to enforce them: invasive and humiliating drug tests I've mentioned, the world's largest prison population, the no-knock raids, the seizures of cars and houses without due process, etc etc.

Which are also useful as tools of intimidation and control.

And finally, institutional interests then build up behind continuing massive incarceration of drug users: private prison operators, businesses selling to prisons, employers of prisoners' labor, rural communities economically dependent on nearby prisons, prison guard "unions", etc.

New York State's prison population is actually declining due to a somewhat saner drug enforcement approach (more treatment), and politicians from prison towns have been objecting vehemently to the loss of jobs involved in shutting down prisons....

So it could be something else, and to some degree it is other things, anything that successfully scares other classes of the population and wins support for ruling-class law-and-order.

But if I had to pick one reason the ruling-class actually does care about drugs to some extent, it'd be your #3, work productivity. It's an actual bottom-line reason, and bottom-line stuff will get you in trouble with the bosses faster than culture or ideology or anything else.

[ckaihatsu]

[38:53] "There were places in Canada where they tie people in bed to give them LSD. And, I don't know why they would do that but partly that came about because the early research was done by the American army and their aim was altogether different -- they wanted to use it as a weapon. And when you start from the weapons approach it's the confusion, and the disturbance that you're capitalizing on because they felt that if you give it to a whole population they'd be pretty well immobilized because people wouldn't be able to carry on in their normal fashion and you'd just sort of move them out of the road quietly and move in and take over their function and you have a victory with no trouble whatever. That was the theory -- but it backfired on the Americans. They found out that when they gave it to the soldiers the first thing the soldiers wanted to do was quit the army."

From "Hofmann's Potion" (LSD documentary)


---


http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/254003


Op-Ed: Albert Hofmann, inventor of LSD, dies aged 102


Posted Apr 30, 2008 by Paul Wallis (Wanderlaugh) in Science | 7 comments | 886 views


Hofmann was the first person to take an acid trip. He took the trip, then cycled home. According to legend he was cycling during the most intense part of the experience. That was in 1943, 25 years before his invention fueled the Summer of Love.

Hofmann was considerably ahead of his time. Aldous Huxley’s Doors of Perception and Carlos Castaneda’s Don Juan books were decades later.

Hallucinogens were part of a wider public debate about stimulants and the human mind over the 1940s, 50s, and 60s. (Before mundane mediocrity became so popular/compulsory, it was widely believed there was such a thing as a human mind, and that it was worth developing and talking about as a serious subject.)

The broad base of the debate was that hallucinogens opened up the mind to new thoughts, new ways of putting information together.

As Huxley pointed out, there was no real mystery about how the drugs worked, but the experience was impressive.

A widely held theory was that the drugs could only bring out what was already inside a person. That’ll give you some idea of the nature of the time and the thinking. Insofar as a debate like that can “rage”, it raged for the entire life of the psychedelic era. The sheer range of reported experiences more or less crashed that part of the debate. Millions of people took the drug.

Timothy Leary took up the cause with "Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out", and a public issue, based mainly on acid freaks being ancient sages and moralistic middle class morons panicking about something they didn't understand, was born.

As a public issue it remains unique as one of the few clashes of viewpoints in which absolutely nobody had any idea what anyone else was talking about.

Not that it mattered. As usual with drugs, the publicity fueled production and sales and law enforcement budgets, so everybody was pretty happy with the way it turned out.

It was originally intended, according to myth, for psychotherapy.

One very common story is that the “CIA wanted to produce mass killer soldiers, so they gave them LSD. But all they did was look at the flowers and threaten anyone who tried to give them orders.” That particular tale is pretty much accepted as true.

The other story is that LSD distribution was shut down when the main American producer was arrested in the 1970s, and never started up again. Conspiracy theories of the time was that the government wanted to suppress intellectual freedom, etc.

All sounds pretty innocent now, when intellectual freedom has been suppressed by pure greed, ignorance and stupidity and a culture of mindless materialism.

But at the time it was considered important.

For those under 35, imagine human life being believed to have some meaning. It wasn’t some sort of cultural aberration, or drug fueled idealism. It followed on from the academic and literary traditions of the earlier part of the century, including the humanist/modernist writings of HG Wells, and the Golden Age of science fiction.

The hallucinogens were considered a natural scientific development by educated people, and a reason for moral outrage by everybody else. In that sense it was a forerunner of modern “debates”.

Hofmann, meanwhile, didn’t like the fact that his researches had been hijacked, and there’s no clear indication of how that happened, although rumors aren’t hard to find. He was a scientist, not a messiah, and he also worked on other derivatives of hallucinogens.

(I didn’t know anything about the guy until I researched this article. I knew LSD was invented in Switzerland, but I didn’t know it was that long ago, or who invented it.)

Hofmann also set up a website, and the Albert Hofmann Foundation, which includes on what seems to be a slightly dated set of pages perhaps the only museum dedicated to a mental phenomenon The World Wide Web Psychedelic Bibliography.

The links don’t work too well, but this is one of them: The Psychedelic Library, a fairly exhaustive collection of materials about the research and history of the hallucinogens.

It includes a picture of a head of wheat, with the dark Ergot fungus, one of Nature’s most powerful, and dangerous, hallucinogens, sprouting from it.

[Guerrilla22]

It's not that they're so opposed to drugs as they opposed to items which they do not control the production and thus cannot make a profit from. Medical marijauna= terrible. Oxycontin used as a pain killer= great idea because a large drug company produces it.

[bobroberts]

One reason is that it's one of the easiest way to oppress segments of the population which use those drugs (young, black, poor). They can't openly oppress people because of their color, hair, race, etc. They can, however, oppress people because of their behavior, and when they lie blatantly about the dangers and effects of the drugs they want to repress, it's easy for otherwise sane, rational people to go right along with it. It's an easy solution for authoritarians with an axe to grind.

Nixon created the modern drug war in the US because it was the easiest way to crack down on hippies. Before that, marijuana was originally banned to crack down on mexican "immigrants" (IE people who didn't move right along with our expanding borders). Under Reagan crack-cocaine flourished (partially facilitated by the government) and that was an excuse to start throwing as many black people in jail as they could and helped destroying the black community.

Today the drug war is blatantly racist, and provides an excuse for the US to maintain a gigantic prison population (for profit, of course), expand police power, legitimize police brutality, and to disenfranchise minorities.

[black magick hustla]

I don't think there is a huge conspiracy here. There are always left overs of past epochs in the minds of the ruling class. For example, I don't think the whole nonsense of alcohol=date-rape and pro-life has anything to do with someone purposely wanting to "opress" people.

[Saorsa]

This is an excellent article on the subject - http://blogs.salon.com/0002762/stories/2003/12/22/whyIsMarijuanaIllegal.html

Basically, hemp is a far more effecient, useful and environmentally friendly form of material than cotton is, and the cotton industry found it hard to compete with in a lot of areas. So they pressured the US government into criminalising it to open up a market for their products, get rid of the competition and prevent hemp products from making further gains against cotton.

When you get right down to it, capitalism is in one way or another responsible for pretty much all of the world's problems.

[Severian]

It's not that they're so opposed to drugs as they opposed to items which they do not control the production and thus cannot make a profit from. Medical marijauna= terrible. Oxycontin used as a pain killer= great idea because a large drug company produces it.

There's no inherent reason why marijuana and other currently illegal drugs couldn't be profitable for pharmaceutical companies, agribusiness, and others.

Heck, there's a pretty expensive pill called "Marinol" right now....

And BTW, marijuana and illegal drugs are a pretty big and profitable business right now. Now those capitalists would stand to lose a lot of profit if drugs were legalized....

[razboz]

There's no inherent reason why marijuana and other currently illegal drugs couldn't be profitable for pharmaceutical companies, agribusiness, and others.

Heck, there's a pretty expensive pill called "Marinol" right now....

And BTW, marijuana and illegal drugs are a pretty big and profitable business right now. Now those capitalists would stand to lose a lot of profit if drugs were legalized....

I think you hit the nail on the head right there. i think most of you are thinking of the US or the UK when you say that drug control is a means for repression. while it is certainly used as such, i suspect that the cause for the continued illegality of certain drugs (especially marijuana and "natural" or naturally derived halucinogens as well as the more popular synthetics like cocaine and excatsy) is more due to the power of the drug cartels.

Indeed the drug buisness boggles the mind in terms of sheer scale of operations. i live in Mexico and the drug trade is one that employs hundreds of thousands of people generating billions of dollars. Not only this but the networks created by this trade are then used by arms dealers to transmit weapons to various parts of the world, generating countless billions more. Now the people who are in charge of these illegal buisnesses are few (no monopoly laws) and very powerful. Legalisation would haul all their buisness away from them and hand it over the tobacco or alcohol or pharmaceutical industry or whoever. Not very profitable for this handful of men. These are poeple who can buy wentire police forces, state governors and probably presidentrs. Can anyone delude themselves into thinking that they would even blink at buying the DEA, Congress, Senate, the Supreme Court, the White House should their interests really be threatened?

In mexico the drug war catches a few hundred kilos of weed, some crack and so on. The bill is the same in the US. If the war on drugs were really a war on drugs rather than a war for drugs, why arent they hauling in the tons of pot and heroin and shrooms and everythign else people take to make the world hurt a bit less?

Here in mexico the militarization of the war for drugs has been used to intimidate voters in state elections as well as begin to instore a military regime in the country. All the while the drug dealers have been using the army as a vector for transporting drugs in connivence with the local police forces. The army responds to no one but the president who has already (before even his supposed election) strucka dsome of the more powerful drug cartels.

[Guerrilla22]

There's no inherent reason why marijuana and other currently illegal drugs couldn't be profitable for pharmaceutical companies, agribusiness, and others.

Heck, there's a pretty expensive pill called "Marinol" right now....

And BTW, marijuana and illegal drugs are a pretty big and profitable business right now. Now those capitalists would stand to lose a lot of profit if drugs were legalized....

Yes, however unlike synthetic drugs manufactured by pharmaceuticals, most "illegal" narcotics can be grown and or manufactured by just about anyone. In other words, if big business can't monopolize the market on a drug it becomes illegal.

[bobroberts]

Companies can't patent a naturally occuring plant, or currently illegal drugs, so there is no incentive on the part of drug companies to change the current situation. Marijuana can compete quite favorably with many other drugs for a multitude of illnesses, so it also provides extra incentive to keep it illegal.

There are probably a few reasons why certain drugs are illegal or not, however the drug war as it has been implemented is a power grab by the state, justified by middle class paranoia fueled by false propaganda throughout the decades. Looking at the statistics of those who have been imprisoned by it, it is quite obviously racist in it's implementation, and it always has been. It's always been used as an excuse to target minority groups, whether political or racial. The horribly violent black markets created by these policies help insure the continuation of them, and the continued erosion of everyone's rights.

[razboz]

Yes, however unlike synthetic drugs manufactured by pharmaceuticals, most "illegal" narcotics can be grown and or manufactured by just about anyone. In other words, if big business can't monopolize the market on a drug it becomes illegal.

while the gist of what you say is probably correct, it simply isnt true in practice. wheat, maize and potatoes can all be grown by just about anyone, yet the food-industry has an absolute monopoly on the cultivation of these crops. while im sure we all have some aunt or uncle or grand father that does harvest the ocasional tomato, big buisness still has absolute control over these crops, the same way they could have absolute control over the maijuana, coca or opium poppies.

The fact is there are forces at work beyond the simple economic ones most people are comfortable dealing with. To repeat what i said in my other post in this thread: i am convinced that the drug cartels that control the illegal drug trade have made deals with memebers within the governments of the world. furthermore i am sure that these same drug cartels have arangements with legitimate weapons manufacturers to exploit the black markets, especially in the third world. Drugs are a means of raising capital in order to enter markets such as the Niger delta, Iran, North Korea, and the world of organisedislamic resistance throughout the middle east and south east asia.

What's more, the continued and increasing threat of small scale drug trafficking (or the perceived threat) in middle-class urban areas and the apparent logical increase in violence make convenient bogeymen for when the credibilty of a government reaches a low-point.

the sheer magnitude of the trade of illegal goods (pirate clothes, drugs, weapons, people) means that the regular way we perceive the system, with the governments and corporations at the top of the foodchain, has to be rethought. above both the governments and the corporations are the "drug" cartels, the mob, the mafia, the triads. Whatever their names are they have control over vast armies of footsoldier-salesmen, enough weapons to arm a decent sized country and a determination to keep their profits high.

[ckaihatsu]

Unlike food, which is a necessity for continued existence, (recreational) drugs are optional, and, being fun, they sell themselves.

I think commercial culture quickly runs into an inherent contradiction when it comes time to market / advertise recreational goods, because while they want to sell anything they can, they also need to encourage an overall work ethic / culture. Notice how alcohol and cigarettes are marketed as status symbols, not as straight pleasure-enhancing goods, the way toys and roller coaster rides are promoted for children, who don't work (at least in developed countries).

In capitalist society adults who are too pleasure-seeking, without being wealthy, are portrayed as psychotic, lazy, or childish. Any advertisements that encouraged pleasure seeking -- not simply medicinal relief -- would be essentially counter-cultural, the way the hippies were / are.


Chris




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[Severian]

Any advertisements that encouraged pleasure seeking -- not simply medicinal relief -- would be essentially counter-cultural, the way the hippies were / are.

Yes - they would be Mountain Dew commercials.

The counter-culture is capitalist culture - one can make a case that it has become the dominant voice of capitalist culture.

Sometimes you have to break the rules! Like punk - only it's a car! Etc.

Have you turned on a television in the last 10 years?

[ckaihatsu]

Heh -- yeah, I paid my tuition for that Semiotics in Commerce class down at the local community college, but I think it got co-opted by capitalists...! Didn't learn a thing! <grin>

Either that, or I guess I just haven't been paying attention to the commercials when I watch TV...! (Damn!)

Okay, thanks, Severian, later....

[ckaihatsu]

--- or ---

And this substance that brings happiness to people is called... Mountain... Dew?

[Thíazì]

This may be a little bit off-topic, but I don't understand why the ruling class would treat the drug problem as a criminal problem rather than a social and medical problem. Locking up a heroin addict certainly won't do him any good. Most people in jail for drug possession right now are actually in for possession of marijuana, oddly. The US really is wasting space in its prisons with non-violent offenders who've committed victimless crimes.

In any country that would like to call itself free, one should be able to do to his body whatever he so wishes so long as he's not a liability to anyone else.

[ckaihatsu]

http://www.granma.cu/INGLES/2005/octubre/juev13/42carceles.html

The prison industry in the United States: big business or a new form of slavery?

BY VICKY PELAEZ (Taken from El Diario-La Prensa, New York)

HUMAN rights organizations, as well as political and social ones, are condemning what they are calling a new form of inhumane exploitation in the United States, where they say a prison population of up to 2 million – mostly Black and Hispanic – are working for various industries for a pittance. For the tycoons who have invested in the prison industry, it has been like finding a pot of gold. They don’t have to worry about strikes or paying unemployment insurance, vacations or comp time. All of their workers are full-time, and never arrive late or are absent because of family problems; moreover, if they don’t like the pay of 25 cents an hour and refuse to work, they are locked up in isolation cells.

There are approximately 2 million inmates in state, federal and private prisons throughout the country. According to California Prison Focus, "no other society in human history has imprisoned so many of its own citizens." The figures show that the United States has locked up more people than any other country: a half million more than China, which has a population five times greater than the U.S. Statistics reveal that the United States holds 25% of the world’s prison population, but only 5% of the world’s people. From less than 300,000 inmates in 1972, the jail population grew to 2 million by the year 2000. In 1990 it was one million. Ten years ago there were only five private prisons in the country, with a population of 2,000 inmates; now, there are 100, with 62,000 inmates. It is expected that by the coming decade, the number will hit 360,000, according to reports.

What has happened over the last 10 years? Why are there so many prisoners?

"The private contracting of prisoners for work fosters incentives to lock people up. Prisons depend on this income. Corporate stockholders who make money off prisoners’ work lobby for longer sentences, in order to expand their workforce. The system feeds itself," says a study by the Progressive Labor Party, which accuses the prison industry of being "an imitation of Nazi Germany with respect to forced slave labor and concentration camps."

The prison industry complex is one of the fastest-growing industries in the United States and its investors are on Wall Street. "This multimillion-dollar industry has its own trade exhibitions, conventions, websites, and mail-order/Internet catalogs. It also has direct advertising campaigns, architecture companies, construction companies, investment houses on Wall Street, plumbing supply companies, food supply companies, armed security, and padded cells in a large variety of colors."

According to the Left Business Observer, the federal prison industry produces 100% of all military helmets, ammunition belts, bullet-proof vests, ID tags, shirts, pants, tents, bags, and canteens. Along with war supplies, prison workers supply 98% of the entire market for equipment assembly services; 93% of paints and paintbrushes; 92% of stove assembly; 46% of body armor; 36% of home appliances; 30% of headphones/microphones/speakers; and 21% of office furniture. Airplane parts, medical supplies, and much more: prisoners are even raising seeing-eye dogs for blind people.

CRIME GOES DOWN, JAIL POPULATION GOES UP

According to reports by human rights organizations, these are the factors that increase the profit potential for those who invest in the prison industry complex:

• Jailing persons convicted of non-violent crimes, and long prison sentences for possession of microscopic quantities of illegal drugs. Federal law stipulates five years’ imprisonment without possibility of parole for possession of 5 grams of crack or 3.5 ounces of heroin, and 10 years for possession of less than 2 ounces of rock-cocaine or crack. A sentence of 5 years for cocaine powder requires possession of 500 grams – 100 times more than the quantity of rock cocaine for the same sentence. Most of those who use cocaine powder are white, middle-class or rich people, while mostly Blacks and Latinos use rock cocaine. In Texas, a person may be sentenced for up to two years’ imprisonment for possessing 4 ounces of marijuana. Here in New York, the 1973 Nelson Rockefeller anti-drug law provides for a mandatory prison sentence of 15 years to life for possession of 4 ounces of any illegal drug.

• The passage in 13 states of the "three strikes" laws (life in prison after being convicted of three felonies), made it necessary to build 20 new federal prisons. One of the most disturbing cases resulting from this measure was that of a prisoner who for stealing a car and two bicycles received three 25-year sentences.

• Longer sentences.

• The passage of laws that require minimum sentencing, without regard for circumstances.

• A large expansion of work by prisoners creating profits that motivate the incarceration of more people for longer periods of time.

• More punishment of prisoners, so as to lengthen their sentences.

HISTORY OF PRISON LABOR IN THE UNITED STATES

Prison labor has its roots in slavery. After the 1861-1865 Civil War, a system of "hiring out prisoners" was introduced in order to continue the slavery tradition. Freed slaves were charged with not carrying out their sharecropping commitments (cultivating someone else’s land in exchange for part of the harvest) or petty thievery – which were almost never proven – and were then "hired out" for cotton picking, working in mines and building railroads. From 1870 until 1910 in the state of Georgia, 88% of hired-out convicts were Black. In Alabama, 93% of "hired-out" miners were Black. In Mississippi, a huge prison farm similar to the old slave plantations replaced the system of hiring out convicts. The notorious Parchman plantation existed until 1972.

During the post-Civil War period, Jim Crow racial segregation laws were imposed on every state, with legal segregation in schools, housing, marriages and many other aspects of daily life. "Today, a new set of markedly racist laws is imposing slave labor and sweatshops on the criminal justice system, now known as the prison industry complex," comments the Left Business Observer.

Who is investing? At least 37 states have legalized the contracting of prison labor by private corporations that mount their operations inside state prisons. The list of such companies contains the cream of U.S. corporate society: IBM, Boeing, Motorola, Microsoft, AT&T, Wireless, Texas Instrument, Dell, Compaq, Honeywell, Hewlett-Packard, Nortel, Lucent Technologies, 3Com, Intel, Northern Telecom, TWA, Nordstrom’s, Revlon, Macy's, Pierre Cardin, Target Stores, and many more. All of these businesses are excited about the economic boom generation by prison labor. Just between 1980 and 1994, profits went up from $392 million to $1.31 billion. Inmates in state penitentiaries generally receive the minimum wage for their work, but not all; in Colorado, they get about $2 per hour, well under the minimum. And in privately-run prisons, they receive as little as 17 cents per hour for a maximum of six hours a day, the equivalent of $20 per month. The highest-paying private prison is CCA in Tennessee, where prisoners receive 50 cents per hour for what they call "highly skilled positions." At those rates, it is no surprise that inmates find the pay in federal prisons to be very generous. There, they can earn $1.25 an hour and work eight hours a day, and sometimes overtime. They can send home $200-$300 per month.

Thanks to prison labor, the United States is once again an attractive location for investment in work that was designed for Third World labor markets. A company that operated a maquiladora (assembly plant in Mexico near the border) closed down its operations there and relocated to San Quentin State Prison in California. In Texas, a factory fired its 150 workers and contracted the services of prisoner-workers from the private Lockhart Texas prison, where circuit boards are assembled for companies like IBM and Compaq.

Oregon State Representative Kevin Mannix recently urged Nike to cut its production in Indonesia and bring it to his state, telling the shoe manufacturer that "there won’t be any transportation costs; we’re offering you competitive prison labor (here)."

PRIVATE PRISONS

The prison privatization boom began in the 1980s, under the governments of Ronald Reagan and Bush Sr., but reached its height in 1990 under William Clinton, when Wall Street stocks were selling like hotcakes. Clinton’s program for cutting the cutting the federal workforce resulted in the Justice Departments contracting of private prison corporations for the incarceration of undocumented workers and high-security inmates.

Private prisons are the biggest business in the prison industry complex. About 18 corporations guard 10,000 prisoners in 27 states. The two largest are Correctional Corporation of America (CCA) and Wackenhut, which together control 75%. Private prisons receive a guaranteed amount of money for each prisoner, independent of what it costs to maintain each one. According to Russell Boraas, a private prison administrator in Virginia, "the secret to low operating costs is having a minimal number of guards for the maximum number of prisoners." The CCA has an ultra-modern prison in Lawrenceville, Virginia, where five guards on dayshift and two at night watch over 750 prisoners. In these prisons, inmates may get their sentences reduced for "good behavior," but for any infraction, they get 30 days added – which means more profits for CCA. According to a study of New Mexico prisons, it was found that CCA inmates lost "good behavior time" at a rate eight times higher than those in state prisons.

IMPORTING AND EXPORTING INMATES

Profits are so good that now there is a new business: importing inmates with long sentences, meaning the worst criminals. When a federal judge ruled that overcrowding in Texas prisons was cruel and unusual punishment, the CCA signed contracts with sheriffs in poor counties to build and run new jails and share the profits. According to a December 1998 Atlantic Monthly magazine article, this program was backed by investors from Merrill-Lynch, Shearson-Lehman, American Express and Allstate, and the operation was scattered all over rural Texas. That state’s governor, Ann Richards, followed the example of Mario Cuomo in New York and built so many state prisons that the market became flooded, cutting into private prison profits.

After a law signed by Clinton in 1996 – ending court supervision and decisions – caused overcrowding and violent, unsafe conditions in federal prisons, private prison corporations in Texas began to contact other states whose prisons were overcrowded, offering "rent-a-cell" services in the CCA prisons located in small towns in Texas. The commission for a rent-a-cell salesman is $2.50 to $5.50 per day per bed. The county gets $1.50 for each prisoner.

STATISTICS

Ninety-seven percent of 125,000 federal inmates have been convicted of non-violent crimes. It is believed that more than half of the 623,000 inmates in municipal or county jails are innocent of the crimes they are accused of. Of these, the majority are awaiting trial. Two-thirds of the one million state prisoners have committed non-violent offenses. Sixteen percent of the country’s 2 million prisoners suffer from mental illness.

[Andres Marcos]

Not all people who don't like drugs are members of the ruling class. I don't do drugs partly because I don't like them(for the effect they had on some of my family members) and partly because I can't afford it, or I have more necessary things to buy especially now since food is getting expensive my 8$ an hour isnt cutting some of it. I agree though the War on Drugs should be ended b/c it puts too many people in jail for something stupid.

[ckaihatsu]

I'm sure all of us here can agree that the War on Drugs needs to be ended because it's nothing but a ruse, or a cover, that the ruling class uses to repress people of color -- call it a soft war or something....

It also goes to show that in the absence of any progressive movement for capitalism it may simply revert back to cruder forms of social control and exploitation, like outright slavery, as detailed in the news article.

The issue of recreational drug use in general is such a non-issue that it's disgusting that it becomes politicized at all -- it's on par with abortion and other personal matters that should simply be available as needed, paid for by public funds, and that's it.

To me it's one of those where-do-you-draw-the-line kinds of things -- obviously people like to indulge in pleasurable activities of all kinds, so where do you draw the line? Why bother having coffee or tea, instead of plain hot water? Why bother with preparing meals when we could just eat raw ingredients for our nutritive needs?

If the requirements of pleasure and pleasure-seeking aren't validated then we reactively categorize all pleasure as "mere" "style", and soon we're at the threshold of being Puritans, or the Amish, or some other retrograde, simplistic, static mode of living.

A liberated society should be one where people only leave pleasure-seeking because they tire of it themselves and *want* to do more substantive, society-oriented activities. Until that point the rest of the enlightened society *should* sympathize with them, for whatever reasons they have, and provide those implements of pleasure free of charge, in the best spirit of goodwill.

While LSD is arguably the greatest invention / discovery in all of human history -- (really) -- it's too bad that there's such a lack of variety of recreational drugs available, especially legally. I don't mean to degrade actual travel, but there's much to be said for the initiative of *any* journey, whether exterior or interior.



The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e. the class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/german-ideology/ch01b.htm

[ArabRASH]

They oppose ganja because it expands people's mind which they are totally against, because maybe people will notice their bullshit. Notice how all rastafaris are against Capitalism.

They oppose other drugs, because when illegal price increases(as supply decreases and demand possibly increases due to illegality), and they get more revenue.