In 1986 Reagan Drug Czar Carlton Turner ridiculously claimed that Marijuana leads to homosexuality and ultimately to AIDS. Three years earlier the Reagan White House had quitely launched what basically amounts to a Nationwide Ignorance Breeding Scheme.
In 1983 Reagan Officials purged our nations Libraries of any Drug Literature prior to 1980. They removed all medical & scientific literature that defined addiction as a disease instead of a crime. Dan Baum reporter with Wall Street Journal & Rolling Stone as well as the author of Smoke & Mirrors: The War on Drugs & the Politics of Failure comments on the GOP Book Purging in this 38 second video.
Reagan certainly deserves much of the blame. Presidents are responsible for their appointments, and he appointed White House drug advisors who were small minded, who believed and said preposterous things," Sterling told DRCNet. "His drug advisor Carleton Turner was quoted in Time saying using marijuana leads to homosexuality.
When Reagan came in, the people he put in charge of the National Institutes on Drug Abuse (NIDA) began purging libraries of materials that contained facts about drugs that were no longer politically acceptable.
If purging books from libraries isn't Fascism then what the hell is. What they did is eerily reminiscent of what NAZI Germany had done 50 years earlier when they burned books. Erasing Science and rewriting History won't solve anything especially an extremely complicated issue like narcotics addiction. Presidents Nixon , Ford , and Carter all appointed Medical Doctors as their Drug Czars. Starting with Reagan all Drug Czars have either been moralistic bureaucrats , cops, or Generals. I think it's time our leadership starts telling us the truth concerning the failed drug war and stop worrying about GOP potraying them as weak on drugs. The first step towards truth as well as reality would be to once again have a Medical Doctor as the Drug Czar or better yet abolish the post entirely by reassigning Narcotics Control to the SURGEON GENERAL. Marijuana harms no one and certainly doesn't lead to AIDS. What does lead to AIDS is the failed War on Drugs. Selling weed to an undercover cop could lead to AIDS. (SEE CARTOON BELOW)