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Elvis's Own Personal Drug War


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Elvis's Own Personal Drug War

11 HOURS AGO Chris Calton

When Elvis Presley died in 1977 from drug abuse, he was an official, badge-carrying federal agent for the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs, an honorary appointment granted by President Richard Nixon.

To say that Elvis Presley had a respect for law enforcement is to drastically understate his enthusiasm. In another life, he would have liked to have been a police officer, and he was obsessed with collecting police badges and uniforms. When he would perform shows around the country, he always made an effort to obtain a badge from the local police force, sometimes by using his celebrity status and other times by donating money to police functions. In some cases, he would offer a $5,000 donation to a police ball in order to procure a badge. He was also known to give expensive cars to local sheriffs, including Sherriff Bill Morris of Memphis who gratefully deputized Presley after receiving a gift of a Mercedes-Benz.    :snip:

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Massacres and Marijuana: Vietnam and the Drug War

19 HOURS AGO Chris Calton

In Vietnam, many soldiers found narcotics to be a coping agent against the horrors of war. Narcotics also became an easy scapegoat for a government looking to obfuscate the results of its own actions. In this episode, Chris Calton explains how the US government escalated the War on Drugs at home, while serving as a drug runner in Southeast Asia.  

https://mises.org/system/tdf/08_HC_20170927.mp3?file=1&type=audio 

https://mises.org/library/massacres-and-marijuana-vietnam-and-drug-war

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  • 3 weeks later...

Crack Babies, the Contras, and the CIA

2 HOURS AGOChris Calton

During the 1980s, the war on drugs became defined by cocaine and crack. In this episode, Chris Calton explains how the potent mix of politicians and fake news created the myth of the "crack baby", while the CIA became drug runners for the Contras.  :snip: https://mises.org/library/crack-babies-contras-and-cia-1

 

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the empire comes home

 View all posts from this blog

 By:Maj. Danny Sjursen | October 18, 2017

Counterinsurgency, Policing, and the Militarization of America’s Cities

“This . . . thing, [the War on Drugs] this ain't police work . . . I mean, you call something a war and pretty soon everybody gonna be running around acting like warriors . . . running around on a damn crusade, storming corners, slapping on cuffs, racking up body counts . . . pretty soon, damn near everybody on every corner is your f**king enemy. And soon the neighborhood that you're supposed to be policing, that's just occupied territory.” —Major "Bunny" Colvin, season three of HBO’s The Wire

I can remember both so well.

2006: my first raid in South Baghdad. 2014: watching on YouTube as a New York police officer asphyxiated—murdered—Eric Garner for allegedly selling loose cigarettes on a Staten Island street corner not five miles from my old apartment. Both events shocked the conscience.

It was 11 years ago next month: my first patrol of the war and we were still learning the ropes from the army unit we were replacing. Unit swaps are tricky, dangerous times. In Army lexicon, they’re known as “right-seat-left-seat rides.” Picture a car. When you’re learning to drive, you first sit in the passenger seat and observe. Only then do you occupy the driver’s seat. That was Iraq, as units like ours rotated in and out via an annual revolving door of sorts. Officers from incoming units like mine were forced to learn the terrain, identify the key powerbrokers in our assigned area, and sort out the most effective tactics in the two weeks before the experienced officers departed. It was a stressful time.   :snip:  https://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/the-empire-comes-home/

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