Clearly this isn’t about protecting regular people, this is the state preemptively demobilizing any movement for racial or economic justice, maintaining the permanent underclass of poor and under and unemployed people of color and dividing the working class. Like every war, the "War on Drugs" is really a "War on People."

While numerous cities have witnessed closing factories, sluggish economies, and population attrition due to urban flight, America has only one “Most Dangerous City.” What went wrong in Camden? The answer is simple: crack-cocaine. In 1985, there were twelve homicides in Camden. Ten years later, in 1995, there were sixty. What happened in the interim? Crack-cocaine arrived in the mid-1980s, followed by the proliferation of open-air drug markets – venues for outdoor drug sales – throughout the city.