Olympics: AOC Condemns Ban of Sha'Carri Richardson over Cannabis

> "The criminalization and banning of cannabis is an instrument of racist and colonial policy"

> How is it racist?

American History and British History.

Initially, the marijuana prohibition in the US was a useful happy accident that served some very particular interests (including anti-mexican sentiment) and was largely forgotten in the midst of the Great Depression.

It was slowly being rolled back (Kennedy, etc) until Nixon. Nixon was an outright racist, which we know via various quotes from his Presidential term (we have audio too - https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/07/ronald-rea...) and his advisor's have admitted as much - “We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin. And then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities,” Ehrlichman said. “We could arrest their leaders. raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.”

There's also the "colonial" aspect from Britain's playbook. Cannabis prohibition began earlier in Britain's colonies than in Britain itself; attempts at criminalising cannabis in British India were made, and mooted, in 1838, 1871, and 1877.

I dislike AOC, but someone will tell you the name marijuana is a Mexican word, used to exploit fear/stereotypes about Mexican culture and that was the basis of cannabis prohibition.

If you want to draw from the well of business insider they have another article[1] on that very topic.

[1] https://www.businessinsider.com/racist-origins-marijuana-pro...