This week, Revolve Impact and the Drug Policy Alliance released "A History of the War on Drugs From Prohibition to Gold Rush." The four-minute animation features narration from Shawn Carter, AKA the hip hop businessMAN Jay-Z, and Molly Krabapple, a visual artist and advocate.
Take a look. In his casual authoritative voice, Jay-Z takes us on a drug policy journey from the Nixon years to the present with the issues surrounding the legalization of marijuana and the explosion of the prison population due largely to mandatory sentencing for drug offenses. Throughout this narrative, the film shows Krabapple illustrating the story through sketch and collage.
Upon first view, the storytelling mesmerized me. It is a fresh, inspiring take on communication - one that relies on tools that usually entertain us and gives us knowledge along with that entertainment. At the end of the day, it may even birth a more active public. I've posted the two images that resonated the most with me. The first is a comparison of the capital the aboveground marijuana economy offers the startups who rush into those communities and the drug dealer who resides in communities where marijuana is still illegal. There are definitely two different end games. One becomes/increases (legal) wealth. The other often ends up a felon, and, yes, these outcomes often pivot on race and class.
One critique from my perspective - women never appear in this story though I am sure that this economy affects us as well. Even if they have not been convicted of these offenses, they still have families who are affected for multiple generations by incarcerations. You have children who may not grow up with parents in the home, and the family is impacted economically if these households do not have multiple streams of income. In addition to this critique, Vox ran an article that says the mass incarceration story told here is "all wrong." This article relays that the prison population exploded primarily because more violent offenders were locked. I'm not sure the two categories are mutually exclusive.
All in all, while the war on drugs may be an "epic fail." This type of storytelling is anything but. Op-eds are no longer the tried and true 800-word publications.