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Civil
Liberties and Drug Prohibition
CJPF
President Eric E. Sterling's speech, "Drug Laws and
Thought Crime," to a Temple University Law School symposium
in the Spring of 2001 is published in the Temple
Political & Civil Rights Law Review: Drug Laws and Thought
Crime.
September
13, 2002
Sterling's
remarks, "Drug Laws and
Thought Crime," argue that the war on drugs serves
to maintain white privilege vis a vis African Americans,
and other people of color, by disproportionately stigmatizing
and punishing them. Drug prohibition was created along
with re-segregation policies after Plessy v. Ferguson
(1896). It was reanimated by racially tinged competition
for jobs in the 1930s in which whites, displaced by the
depression and the "dust bowl" sought employment advantages
against Mexican agricultural laborers in California. It
matured in the 1960s and 1970s in a reaction to the civil
rights movement, urban riots, and a dramatic increase
in crime in the U.S. The "war on drugs" was fully expressed
in the 1980s and 1990s in the legislative and law enforcement
response to the crack epidemic, depicted by the media
as a urban, black phenomenon of crime and depravity.
The analysis compares the flat rate of American prison
incarceration from 1930 to 1970--while segregation remained
legally in place, with the explosive rise in incarceration
rates since segregation was outlawed. Sterling argues
that the war on drugs which is driving the disproportionate
increase in prosecution and incarceration of African-Americans
and Hispanics has, for the last third of the Twentieth
century, served to maintain the privileged social and
economic position of whites compared to people of color.
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Drug Policy: A Smorgasbord
of Conundrums Spiced By Emotions Around Children and Violence
By Eric E. Sterling. Valparaiso Law Review. Spring
1997, Volume 31, Number 2. This excerpt is from a 49-page
law review comment in a 500-page symposium volume, "Juvenile
Crime: Policy Proposals on Guns, Violence, Drugs and Gangs,"
addresses the complexities of drug policy and how it is
shaped by concerns about children and public safety. Discusses
availability of illegal drugs, drug use by children, the
"right" to use drugs, crack markets and violence, drug
dealing by adolescents, the handicap of drug prohibition
on urban redevelopment, and issues regarding medical marijuana.
It responds to two articles, one by Daniel D. Polsby,
and one by Mark A.R. Kleiman.
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Law
Enforcement Against Entheogens: Is It Religious Persecution?
By Eric E. Sterling. Excerpted from a chapter in the
book Entheogens and the Future of Religion. Edited
by Robert Forte. San Francisco, CA: Council on Spiritual
Practices (1997). An excerpt from the chapter by Eric
E. Sterling discusses the history and nature of laws
against the use of entheogens -- peyote, marijuana,
and other plant materials used for spiritual purposes.
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The
Bill of Rights: A Casualty of the War on Drugs?
Delivered by Eric E. Sterling at the 92nd convention
of the Colorado Bar Association, Aspen, Colorado. Puts
forth the thesis that "the most tragic casualties of
the 'war on drugs' are our constitutional liberties,"
September 14, 1990
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