A report by the American Medical Association reveals that majority of first-time users of heroin are white. It further indicates that about 90% of the whites are suffering from the recent heroin crisis in the United States. According to Maine Gov Paul LePage, the use of heroin by the Whites can be blamed on the outsiders from New York and Connecticut, who sell drugs and impregnate white girls before going back to where they came from.

Lepage accusation of the outsiders and use of the racially coded language to blame them betrays a lack of understanding. In essence, this whole scenario ignores the fact that majority of people suffering from drug crisis are the whites. Consequently, the U.S. drug policy is now changing and reversing the long-standing trends where the use of heroin was considered a problem for the racial minorities. In turn, it was considered a ground for stricter jail sentencing and law administration.

Blacks and other minorities had their lives decimated behind strict laws on drugs, three strike policies and the “War on Drugs”. Now they are changing their tune because white people are being adversely impacted.

The move to reverse the drug policy was fronted by Mitch Mc Connell, Majority Leader of the House and Hal Rogers R-KY, the House Appropriation Committee Chairman. This sudden change of the heart indicated a unique change for the party that had previously refused to change the laws relating to the use of hard drugs.

When Rogers was asked the reason he decided to champion the funding for the needle exchange programs despite the fact that he had earlier opposed them in public, he commented to the TakePart through an email in which he insisted that he was still against the use of the government money to sponsor illegal drug use. However, Rogers also believes that there are many establishments committed to administering syringe exchange programs at the local and state level. Such programs aim at providing the much-needed intervention for the people suffering from addiction and helping them to alleviate the pain.

….basically, now that this is really starting to be a problem for the white people in our backyards, we need to change.

To conclude, the use of hard drugs is not a matter of race, never has been. Every people does drugs, that’s been the fact. The American policies continues to display only a kinder, understanding hand when it is dealing with white people, not minorities and definitely not black people.

This is just one more reminder.