(Bullit Marquez/AP)Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte recently admitted what has been plain since he took office and the killings started: He’s committing genocide. “The comparison of drug users and dealers to Holocaust victims is inappropriate and deeply offensive,” Todd Gutnick, the communications director for the Anti-Defamation League, told Reuters. In fact, our drug laws — with the exception of those involved in the creation of the Food and Drug Administration — were passed on the basis of racist myths related to fears about minority groups, not accurate health data. Of course we did.”And unfortunately, the dehumanization of drug users is not just a thing of the distant past. In the 1980s and ’90s, crack-cocaine users were routinely described as “fiends” — and police described routing users and dealers as a way to “sanitize” a community.

Source: Washington Post October 06, 2016 13:41 UTC