Shawn “Jay Z” Carter narrates a New York Times op-ed in video form, slamming the War on Drugs and pointing out the glaring differences between how whites and minorities are affected by discriminatory policing and drug laws.
Sentencing reform advocacy groups like Families Against Mandatory Minimums (FAMM) and the November Coalition have been fighting this battle since the early 1990s. President Obama has been attempting to make a difference, but more celebrities like Jay Z need to stand up and be leaders.
“In 1986 when I was coming of age, Ronald Reagan doubled down on the War on Drugs that had been started by Richard Nixon in 1971,” Jay Z narrates. “Drugs were bad, fried your brain. Drug dealers were monsters and the sole reason that neighborhoods and major cities were failing … Young men like me who hustled became the sole villain and drug addicts lacked moral fortitude. In the 1990s incarceration rates in the U.S. blew up, and today we imprison more people than any other country in the world.”
Still from The War on Drugs: From Prohibition to Gold Rush
The history lesson starts with President Nixon declaring the War on Drugs in 1971, then highlights New York’s tough Rockefeller drug laws, the crack/cocaine sentencing disparities, and ends with the legal marijuana industry. Jay Z points out how marijuana is making beaucoup money for white “ganjapreneurs” in Colorado, but in states like Louisiana, minorities are still being arrested and locked up at alarming rates for weed.
Still from The War on Drugs: From Prohibition to Gold Rush
With more entertainers taking up the fight and raising awareness through projects like this—which was a collaboration with the Drug Policy Alliance and Revolve Impact—we can only hope that a more sensible policy evolves and we end this war on American people once and for all.
The four-minute video, The War on Drugs: From Prohibition to Gold Rush, addresses racial discrimination, mass incarceration and how the drug war has negatively impacted people of color. Celebrated artist Molly Crabapple brings Jay Z’s words to life with her vivid illustrations, striking colors and distinctive style.
“Jay Z and Molly Crabapple’s groundbreaking video will educate millions of people about the devastation wrought on the African American community because of the drug war,” said Asha Bandele from the Drug Policy Alliance. “That it is offered at a moment when policymakers are finally joining advocates in demanding an end to the architecture that actually incentivizes biased policing and police violence makes it especially timely.”
Jay Z’s narration notes that rates of drug use are still as high as when Nixon declared the War on Drugs in 1971, despite the millions of people that have been incarcerated since then: “The War on Drugs exploded the U.S. prison population disproportionately locking away black and Latinos. Our prison population grew more than 900%.”
“Long after the crack era we continued our War on Drugs,” he narrates. “Judges’ hands were tied by tough-on-crime laws and they were forced to hand out mandatory life sentences for simple possession and low-level drug sales … Forty-five years later, it’s time we rethink our policies on the War on Drugs. The War on Drugs is an epic fail.”