Thread by @equalityAlec

THREAD. I'm having a hard time getting over a *news article* in SF Standard yesterday. It's written like a commercial paid for by the Reagan White House in the 1980s or one of the secretive DEA planted articles from 1990s. It's chilling. A few thoughts:

https://twitter.com/sfstandard/status/1526671435418279936

First, the theme of article is that reporters can't believe DA isn't convicting more people of selling drugs! It opens by saying "despite" rising Fentanyl addiction, DA isn't convicting people! This framing, and choice of "despite," suggests link btw prosecution and drug use.

This supposed link, on which ENTIRE article relies, is a fabrication. It's like printing PR from Exxon saying that burning oil has no effect on climate change. It would be interesting to know which pro-police sources placed and framed this article to hapless reporters. Copaganda.

Pay close attention: reporters exclude the scientific evidence. They do not tell readers that putting people in cages, separating them from their families, and deporting them to probable death as survivors of cartel trafficking *has no evidentiary link to reducing drug use.*

Second, this science denying premise of the article is all the more galling when you put together a few key facts that the reporters themselves include: pursuing drug convictions of these people would result in their deportation, and many of them would be killed if deported.

The reporters even note that many of the people selling small amounts of Fentanyl are themselves human trafficking victims from Honduras. Caging them and deporting them to death (i.e. a death sentence) would have *zero* impact on fentanyl use in SF, but it would kill them.

In light of these facts, the article's framing is barbaric. It's also incredible that, when writing copaganda like this, the reporters chose not to describe all of the non-punishment alternatives our society has for approaching drug use. It's actually hard to be this uninformed.

Finally, the article can be summed up with the quote from the pro-punishment source they choose to cite: "you have to face the consequences." Note: the "consequences" the article is talking about are human caging, deportation, and likely death for selling small amounts of drugs.

The reporters chose common tactic. Instead of making the barbaric point themselves, they find a safe choice in liberal culture: a formerly undocumented immigrant and now business leader who supports family separation + death penalty for drug sales. They use him as the mouthpiece.

Now the key question: Why do you think the reporters chose to use an undocumented person for the barbaric claim, central to article, that human trafficking victims must “face the consequences” of family separation, deportation, and death?

The answer is profoundly important. The factual claims and premises of most "War on Drugs" reporting are absurd. They are blatant anti-science misinformation, and horrifically cruel when any thought is applied to them.

To get this barbaric and irrational stuff printed, journalists need it to be presented as just someone's *opinion.* The reporters are "just asking questions." The more sympathetic the person the better.

Make no mistake, reporting like this led to the Drug War, and many more people will be harmed and die because of it. Many more children will lose their parents. Just take a quick look at what reporting like this has meant:

https://twitter.com/equalityAlec/status/1469398430103400450

This was a hard thread, and the state of local drug reporting is upsetting. Here is a photo of Franklin, who is a huge opponent of drug criminalization and the devastating harm it causes.

There is a lot more wrong with this article, as @petercalloway explains very well:

https://mobile.twitter.com/petercalloway/status/1526799823545937921