The War on Drugs

For Sensimillaback Saturday today, I've rummaged through my cartoons from thirty years ago on the topic of the War on Drugs.

in the Racine Journal Times, September 24, 1989

The Woodstock generation had joined the over-30 establishment by this point, settling down, holding down steady jobs, buying "entertainment centers," and becoming parents. My own classmates were following quickly on the heels of those Children of the Sixties, laughing along with their risqué drug references on Saturday Night Live and Cheech and Chong albums.

Earlier this month, I posted this cartoon from September, 1989, when the Journal Times solicited reader feedback on the question of legalizing or decriminalizing drug use.

in the Racine Journal Times, September 3, 1989

Not surprisingly, the great majority of responses were in the negative.

The George H.W. Bush administration was committed to combatting recreational drugs in the U.S. Brandishing on television a plastic bag of crack cocaine he claimed was found being sold right across the street from the White House, Bush proposed spending $7.9 billion on the war on narcotics. In addition to dramatically hiking military aid to Colombia, Bolivia, and Peru, Bush called for measures to clamp down on the demand side domestically. Casual drug users would lose their driving privileges under the proposal, and/or be sentenced to military-style boot camps.

in UW-Milwaukee Post, September 26, 1989

Bush claimed that this new war could be paid for without raising taxes; he recommended diverting $751 million (less than 10% of that $7.9 million) from juvenile justice, housing, immigration and economic development. Democrats, for their part, voiced few if any objections to the War on Drugs. Senate Judiciary Chair Joe Biden (D-You May Remember Him) sniffed that the budget for the war ought to be four times what Bush wanted.

in UW-Milwaukee Post, September 14, 1989

I scanned this one in color as a cautionary tale: never store newsprint next to your original drawings. The original of a cartoon I drew for the UW-Parkside Ranger somehow got lost in the newspaper office (it being the beginning of a new school year, I imagine some first-time staffer might have thrown it away), so I had stuck the newspaper in which the cartoon had run into my files instead. Before long, the newsprint had stained the front of the Angelo Grumley cartoon and the back of another.

And speaking of drugs and cartoon originals I never got back, I'll close with another cartoon missing from my files. Since the new-school-year thing doesn't apply at the daily newspaper, perhaps it got mislaid, discarded, or purloined by someone at the Journal Times who foolishly thought a Berge Original would be worth Big Money someday. After this, I started sticking return address labels on the back of my cartoons for a while.

in the Racine Journal Times, September 6, 1989

(A different sort of drug abuse.)