Jay Z does notes a positive shift toward treatment of drug addiction as a health issue, rather than a mental one. “Drugs were bad, fried your brain, and drug dealers were monsters the sole reason neighborhoods in major cities were failing”.
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Offering additional historical context, Jay Z also discusses how economic ills in poorer communities were blamed not on “Reaganomics” as, frankly, they should have been considering how Reagan’s policies defunded schools and ceased to offer critical resources and a social safety net.
The hugely successful rapper, whose real name is Shawn Carter, blames mandatory minimum sentencing in part for the sharp rise in the U.S. prison population. “Forty-five years later, it’s time to rethink our policy and laws”.
With the prisons expanding as a result of the war of drugs, the ones populating these prisons became the minorities of the society – the black and Latino people. Crack, which is “still talked about as a black problem”, was penalized more harshly than powder cocaine. His latest single, “Spiritual”, brings police brutality into devastating focus, and now he’s offered his thoughts and voice to a stunning video that unpacks the War on Drugs and how it’s failed African Americans especially.
Variety described the video as “part history lesson, part call to action”. In it he explains how prison populations have grown over 900%, largely comprised of Black and Brown people, while White offenders often get leniency. No politician may illustrate this better than Maine Gov. Paul LePage (R), who has claimed that “guys with the name D-Money, Smoothie, Shifty” were coming to his state to deal drugs and impregnate white women. Jay wrote the narration himself, delivering his critique over animation by Molly Crabapple based on an idea from Dream Hampton.
The doc also touches on the rising legal weed industry. “Venture capitalists migrate to these states to open multi-billion dollar operations, but former felons can’t open a dispensary”, he said.
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Entertainment mogul Jay Z is calling the war on drugs an “epic fail”.
