This election season the candidates have focused their message on the employment and the middle class. These issues are no doubt important, but what is the hyper-focus on economy leaving out of the campaign? The Takeaway series “Don’t Mention It” looks at issues ignored this election year. Today, our subject is the war on drugs.
It runs from Richard Nixon’s war on drugs to Ronald Reagan’s enthusiastic “just say no” campaign. For decades, drugs were treated like America’s greatest enemy. But in more recent years, it seems that we hear a lot less, if anything, about the war on drugs. Why is that? What’s happening today? And if today’s presidential candidates were to talk about the war on drugs, where would they begin?
Eugene Jarecki explores these questions in his newest documentary, opening on Friday, called “The House I Live In.”