Description:

Charles Shaw (Alternet, Huffington Post, Grist, Reality Sandwich) leads us on a fascinating, mind-blowing trip through the secret history of American drug policy, where nothing is as it appears. The drug war is one of those topics that is always met with fierce resistance for a number of reasons involving class and race and cultural identity. But more than that, it is one of those archetypal issues that is in conflict with the American mythology that we are governed by the rule of law, and the morality of righteousness. One of the great new stories we need to tell is the true history of US involvement in the global drug trade and the integral role of drugs in the American economic and political systems, how the American government has created many of the drug problems it claims the War on Drugs is supposedly designed to address. Learn about the domestic prison crisis, and what all those drug laws are really all about. In a reprise of his M.A.P.S/Entheon Village DreamRise presentation from the 2008 Burning Man festival, "The Secret History of the War on Drugs" is taken from his work-in-progress, Exile Nation, a book that chronicles his experiences in the drug war as both a recovering addict and activist working to raise awareness and reform drug policy, and the time he spent in prison on a non-violent drug possession charge."