Connections between Trayvon Martin shooting and the War on Drugs

I have chosen, on purpose, not to write any articles on the Trayvon Martin/ George Zimmerman case. I might be the only political based Examiner, who hasn't written on it. It's too emotional at this point, and I am still not sure what happened that day. I reserve though to write articles on it in the future, of course.

But, the city of Sanford, Florida (where the shooting happened) has stated that they will potentially arrest journalists/reporters who ask questions of public officials, after work hours. They have backtracked from that. I understand some officials might be annoyed at questions asked by reporters, especially after normal work hours, but whenever the government threatens to arrest members of the press for asking questions, that is very troubling.

The fact is, this shooting of Martin was inspired, in part, by our nation's War on Drugs. Let me explain. Martin was a young African-American male, and I believe he was suspected by Zimmerman as a potential criminal type, in part because of his race. Martin might also have been suspected by Zimmerman, for being a drug dealer.

The drug war creates a market for drug sellers, that has had negative effects for some young African-American men. We have sent jobs overseas in the last 30 years, and the lower waged jobs available in many central cities don't pay anywhere near comparable to a job selling drugs. It takes only a few individuals to become tempted to sell drugs, to allow the creation of an illegal blackmarket of suppliers.

If drugs are legalized and regulated, young children in the African-American community will be less suspicious of police, because there wouldn't be police illegally searching them for drugs/guns in the middle of the day, especially in New York City. Young African American men won't have arrest records from the drug war, even if never convicted or actually possessing drugs at any point. The fact is, the drug war has had deep negative effects on the African-American community in America, more so than probably any other community. Even more so than the Latino community.

Drug legalization would be of course, beneficial to society at large, as has been well documented. President Richard Nixon had ignored a report on marijuana (by a commissioin that he himself had appointed), that had the conclusions that private posession of small amounts of marijuana, should not be a criminal offense. That was of course, rejected out of hand by Nixon, and we still suffer the fruits of his biases, 40 years later.