Gotham Gal -
June 10, 2026
Capitalism and Cannabis
I just finished reading the book The War Within A War: The Black Struggle in Vietnam and At Home. This book illuminates the history of Black men in the military, highlighting the Vietnam era, when they were fighting a white man’s war overseas, and at the same time, back home. I am not sure how we are teaching Vietnam in school, and if we are, but certainly, the Black man’s history is not the top topic. It is an excellent read and a worthy education.
We continued fighting a war that we were not going to win. The government knew it, but large corporations were benefiting from the economy of products shipped into Vietnam, from Coca-Cola to equipment. Black men were disproportionally being recruited and were beneficial to combat, but when they came home, they were still living in a racist society that would not hire them.
Nixon was a racist. After knowing how the Black communities were faring in war and at home, he found another way to keep them at bay by criminalizing marijuana. John Ehrlichman, a domestic policy advisor to Nixon, who went to prison for Watergate, spoke to Harper’s Magazine about Nixon’s War on Drugs(which Nancy Reagan leaned into as well). I already knew this info, but reading it in the book drives it home. He said that the Nixon campaign and White House had two enemies. The anti-war left and the Black people. They knew that they couldn’t make it illegal to be against the war or be Black, but to get the public to associate the hippies and Blacks with marijuana and heroin by heavily criminalizing it would disrupt both communities. They could then arrest those leaders, raid their homes, and break up their meetings. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.
Of course, we did. The nonsense continues, and that acknowledgment is from 1994, but the Controlled Substances Act was signed into law in 1970. This is almost sixty years later, and state governments have worked to turn the lies around, and the federal government will eventually get there. The issue is that it is not that easy to flip a switch, particularly when taxes, economics, and money are involved.
The unions have strong-armed the industry; the other vice industries have money, such as the alcohol industry, so they have the strongest lobbying efforts, and cannabis is on the opposite end of that spectrum because nobody is making money. Many of the early licenses to multi-state operators that went public on the Canadian stock market, including the large privately held ones, are all playing a game of Risk. It defines capitalism.
Many wanted to do the right thing by those who were affected by the War on Drugs, but not one state has figured it out. Once again, we find ourselves disenchanted with the leaders in government. No wonder we are where we are after 250 years.