War on Drugs != War on Poverty

An excellent post from the New Republic making what I think is the best case for surrendering in the War on (some) Drugs: doing so would really help poor African-Americans.

This sort of sums it up:

What we need is not a forum where people clap at zestily-enunciated lines about “responsibility.” We need simply to imagine a day when a Jevon thinks about dropping out of school and selling drugs and realizes that he can’t do that because drugs are available for low prices at Rite-Aid and CVS.

The one thing that McWhorter does not emphasize, but should, is that reducing the number of young black men with criminal records would mean much improved employment chances, and higher earnings conditional on employment, later in life.

Via the Agitator