Jay Z weighs in on the war on drugs in a new illustrated op-ed video for The New York Times.
The rapper, who once was a drug dealer before making it big as a rapper, critiques America’s drug problem and calls Richard Nixon’s 1971 plan an “epic fail.”
“Rates of drug use are as high as they were when Nixon declared this so-called war in 1971,” he says in the video, which credits him as both author and narrator. “Forty-five years later, it’s time to rethink our policy and laws. The war on drugs is an epic fail.”
Starting from the “Reaganomics” of the ‘80s to the legalization of marijuana, the mogul goes on to highlight the racial inequalities that emerged from the plan while drawing on key facts and data to defend his point of view.
Watch Jay Z’s op-ed below.
