By Victor Trammell (Source: www.yourblackworld.net)– During the seventh week of 2021, a black male psychology professor and neuroscience expert at Columbia University went viral for his controversial opinion about an illegal narcotic.
The Insider published an article in which the media outlet interviewed Carl Hart (pictured), the Columbia professor who authored a book titled, “Drug Use for Grown-Ups.” Hart also told his Insider interviewer that he began using heroin around five or six years ago. The Ivy League educator now uses heroin regularly to “maintain a work-life balance.”
Additionally, Hart told his Insider interviewer that he believes heroin (a deadly opioid made from morphine) should be classified as a legal recreational drug that everybody can use. The Insider made sure to quote Hart in its February 19, 2021 article as candidly as possible. He provided plenty of rationales while attempting to validate his opinion.
“[I’m] well over 40. [After doing that first] line [of heroin] with a friend five or six years ago, [I] felt a dreamy light sedation [that was] free of stress,” Hart told the Insider.
“The use of drugs in the pursuit of happiness, in my view, is arguably an act that the government is obliged to safeguard. Why is our government arresting hundreds of thousands each year for using drugs, for pursuing pleasure, for seeking happiness? The short answer is that it is a very long story,” Hart wrote in the first chapter of his book.
The Associated Press reported on February 1, 2021, that the U.S. state of Oregon became the first American provincial authority to decriminalize the possession of hardcore drugs. Heroin, methamphetamine, LSD, and oxycodone were included in Oregon’s legalization initiative, which was legitimized by voters in the form of an election ballot measure.
“‘Today, the first domino of our cruel and inhumane war on drugs has fallen, setting off what we expect to be a cascade of other efforts centering health over criminalization,’ said Kassandra Frederique, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance, which spearheaded the ballot initiative,’” reads the report by The Associated Press.
“Ballot Measure 110’s backers said treatment needs to be the priority and that criminalizing drug possession was not working. Besides facing the prospect of being locked up, having a criminal record makes it difficult to find housing and jobs and can haunt a person for a lifetime,” the report also reads.
As expected, a number of Oregonians were adamantly opposed to legalizing hardcore drugs, such as heroin. With good reason, a great number of people across the nation would also disagree with legalizing “The Big H.” According to the CDC, heroin played a role in the roughly 81,000 overdose deaths, which occurred from May 2019 to May 2020.
It is also widely known that a portion of the time period in which these overdose deaths in the U.S. occurred, the nation was dealing with COVID-19-related health and economic crisis, which catalyzed the nation’s growing opioid epidemic.
“While overdose deaths were already increasing in the months preceding the 2019 novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, the latest numbers suggest an acceleration of overdose deaths during the pandemic,” reads a December 17, 2020 report by the CDC.
“The disruption to daily life due to the COVID-19 pandemic has hit those with substance use disorder hard. As we continue the fight to end this pandemic, it’s important to not lose sight of different groups being affected in other ways. We need to take care of people suffering from unintended consequences,” CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield was quoted as saying in the report.
“Synthetic opioids (primarily illicitly manufactured fentanyl) appear to be the primary driver of the increases in overdose deaths, increasing 38.4 percent from the 12-month period leading up to June 2019 compared with the 12-month period leading up to May 2020,” the CDC report also reads.
However, a race-related paradigm shift has occurred in America over the last decade, which reveals a singular fact: The U.S-based opioid epidemic and its main deadly byproduct (regular heroin usage) is largely a white problem, not a black one.
“Patients who started their opioid use prior to the 1980s were equally white and nonwhite. After the 1980’s the ethnicity of patients who experienced their first regular opioid use were increasingly white and decreasingly nonwhite,” read a report derived from a study by the Recovery Research Institute.
“Nearly 90 percent of patients who began regular [heroin] use in the last decade were white,” the institution’s report also reads.
Why is the information important? A good reason why is the fact that Carl Hart’s predominantly white and liberal benefactors in the media and publishing industry may certainly have a covert agenda: To put a black face on a seriously dire white-owned crisis in America.
“Contrary to media speculation which may have racialized heroin use disorder as a minority problem, this data suggests that ethnicity was not a factor among treatment-seeking individuals who began their first regular opioid use prior to the 1980s,” the Recovery Research Report Institute’s report adds.
“In fact, prior to the 1980s individuals were equally likely to be white or nonwhite. Since then, the percentage of treatment-seeking individuals who experienced their first regular opioid use were significantly more likely to be white,” the report goes on to read.
Conclusion
The welfare issue of government dependency and the so-called “feminization of poverty” is another American scenario of great discussion and controversy, which is cast as a predominantly black problem–when the majority of U.S.-based welfare recipients are white people.
Consciously civil and critically-thinking blacks in America must raise questions about the debatable mainstream agenda being pursued. This agenda appears to be utilizing Professor Carl Hart in a deliberate fashion for a covert purpose.
The risk of not raising such questions about Hart’s issue pertaining to race has far-reaching ramifications, which could dangerously set black America back for decades.
Victor Trammell, Jr. is a digital media producer, freelance journalist, and author. He primarily covers current events for the Your Black World online news network. Mr. Trammell is also a graduate student and currently taking up legal studies at Pepperdine University’s Caruso School of Law.
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