Newark's New Mayor Wants to Decriminalize All Drugs...Maybe

[neversickanymore]

Newark's New Mayor Wants to Decriminalize All Drugs...Maybe
Jesse Walker|May. 19, 2014

Over at Vice, Michael Tracey describes a conversation with Ras Baraka, the mayor-elect of Newark (and Amiri Baraka's son):

Mayor-Elect Ras Baraka claims to have looked out upon the beleaguered city and, after careful consideration, devised an ingenious remedy for its many ills.

"I think drugs should be decriminalized, period," he told me.

Yes, that would include crack, methamphetamine, and heroin. Perhaps not a policy position one would expect to hear promulgated in the context of a ferociously contested election marked by persistent fear of drug-related violence, but maybe there is something brewing in Newark.
Bold stuff. But...

Puzzlingly, despite endorsing the concept of drug decriminalization, the victorious Baraka also hedged on the question of marijuana legalization per se. When asked for his view on the senate bill [to legalize possession of pot for adults], he equivocated, remarking obtusely, "If the people decide they want to go further, that's when they go further." It is a telling sign of the times in Newark that the winning candidate...would apparently be unwilling to voice a clear position on marijuana legalization while he claims to support systemic change to the entire drug-prohibition regime.

http://reason.com/blog/2014/05/19/newarks-new-mayor-wants-to-decriminalize

 

[...]

His father was a genius.

Black Art By Amiri Baraka

Poems are bullshit unless they are
teeth or trees or lemons piled
on a step. Or black ladies dying
of men leaving nickel hearts
beating them down. Fuck poems
and they are useful, wd they shoot
come at you, love what you are,
breathe like wrestlers, or shudder
strangely after pissing. We want live
words of the hip world live flesh &
coursing blood. Hearts Brains
Souls splintering fire. We want poems
like fists beating niggers out of Jocks
or dagger poems in the slimy bellies
of the owner-jews. Black poems to
smear on girdlemamma mulatto bitches
whose brains are red jelly stuck
between 'lizabeth taylor's toes. Stinking
Whores! we want "poems that kill."
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead
with tongues pulled out and sent to Ireland. Knockoff
poems for dope selling wops or slick halfwhite
politicians Airplane poems, rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
rrrrrrrrrrrrrrr . . .tuhtuhtuhtuhtuhtuhtuhtuhtuhtuh
. . .rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr . . . Setting fire and death to
whities ass. Look at the Liberal
Spokesman for the jews clutch his throat
& puke himself into eternity . . . rrrrrrrr
There's a negroleader pinned to
a bar stool in Sardi's eyeballs melting
in hot flame Another negroleader
on the steps of the white house one
kneeling between the sheriff's thighs
negotiating coolly for his people.
Aggh . . . stumbles across the room . . .
Put it on him, poem. Strip him naked
to the world! Another bad poem cracking
steel knuckles in a jewlady's mouth
Poem scream poison gas on beasts in green berets
Clean out the world for virtue and love,
Let there be no love poems written
until love can exist freely and
cleanly. Let Black people understand
that they are the lovers and the sons
of warriors and sons
of warriors Are poems & poets &
all the loveliness here in the world

We want a black poem. And a
Black World.
Let the world be a Black Poem
And Let All Black People Speak This Poem
Silently
or LOUD

Source: Selected Poetry of Amiri Baraka/LeRoi Jones (1979)

 

[S.J.B.]

There is no contradiction in supporting decriminalization of all drugs yet not supporting cannabis legalization.