Justin Tinsley

“Almost immediately, amid an avalanche of media attention of Bias’s death, Congress passed the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986. It was signed so quickly that no one really took the time to understand its long-term ramifications, of which there many. “It was a real low point and dark chapter in the war on drugs,” Michael Collins, deputy director of the Drug Policy Alliance’s Office of National Affairs, said on the thirtieth anniversary of Bias’s death in 2016. “It was a point where hysteria dominated over evidence, and it was really the catalyst for a lot of the prison problems we are trying to reform today.”
― Justin Tinsley, It Was All a Dream: Biggie and the World That Made Him

“the New York Times reported that heroin usage by American troops in Vietnam “had reached epidemic proportions.” “Tens of thousands of soldiers are going back as walking time bombs,” an officer was reported as saying. “And the sad thing is there is no real program under way, despite what my superiors say, to salvage these guys.” They were returning from a war they were hated for to a country unwilling or unable to help them with their addictions. This was particularly hard for Black veterans, and the armed forces had a disproportionately high percentage of Black service members. Back in 1965, approximately 11 percent of the population was Black, but a quarter of Americans who died in combat in Vietnam were Black, and in 1967, 23 percent of combat troops were Black. And back home, resources and tax dollars were being stripped from densely populated areas where the Black population was high. The quality of the schools and neighborhoods diminished.”
― Justin Tinsley, It Was All a Dream: Biggie and the World That Made Him