The man who some believe is the leading candidate for Anchorage mayor is pondering a country where all drugs are legal.
Forrest Dunbar, running for mayor in 2021, said on Twitter recently that the war on drugs is linked to Jim Crow laws, that collection of state and local laws that legalized racial segregation.
“It’s been said before, but it’s worth reiterating: it’s not a coincidence that the ‘War on Drugs’ as we know it really got going at the same time that formal, De jure Jim Crow was ending. This is from a Harper’s Magazine piece by Dan Baum,” he wrote, linking to the article.
[Read the Harper’s Magazine story: “Legalize it all, How to the the War on Drugs” at this link.]
“And yes, this is absolutely relevant to the anguish and conflict we are seeing in the country at the moment. Politicians have been sending police down this road for two generations now, and it has been hugely destructive for the communities where they are deployed,” Dunbar commented, linking the race riots and protests against police brutality to the war on drugs.
Dunbar, a registered Democrat from East Anchorage, serves on the Anchorage Assembly, winning reelection unopposed in 2019 and taking 91 percent of the vote in his district, with 7,938 votes.
In 2014, he ran against Rep. Don Young for Congress, losing but getting 41% percent of the vote. With Mayor Ethan Berkowitz term-limited, Dunbar filed for the mayor’s race last October. At the beginning of the year he had over $48,000 in his campaign bank account.
Eric Croft has also filed to run for mayor. A Democrat, he served on the Assembly, and started the year with a little more than $18,000 in his campaign account.
The other well-known contender in the race is Bill Evans, who served a term on the Assembly but has mainly been an attorney. Evans, who is a registered “Undeclared” voter, had just $2,100 in his year-start campaign report.
Lesser known candidates include Darin Colbry, Nelson Jesus Godoy, and Jacob Kern.
A very forward thinking attitude. It would be even more enlightened if he came forward with a plan to legalize or at least decriminalize sex work as well. Increased awareness about sex work and its’ legalization would decrease STD’s, decrease violence against sex worker’s regardless of gender, reduce violent crime (Incels exist in many sphere’s of public life!) and could be taxed to bring in greater revenue! Woohoo!
Allowing both of these vices will only continue to weaken families and our colllective moral fiber. We are already on a path of destruction. Now you suggest adding legalized prostitution to legalizing all drugs? That would mean heroine, cocaine, crystal meth and all forms and combinations thereof along with LSD and PCP. That sounds like a dangerous cocktail for society.
I sure hope common sense kicks in again and people realize what is really going on in the world, choosing to refrain from such abominable excesses.
Next, they’ll be pushing for legalization of pedophilia and all our toddlers will be out to work in the sex trade industry…only PUBLICALLY, not in secret like they’re doing it now….oh…wait…they ARE already pushing that type of legislation in DC! Didn’t corrupt politicians, in recent years, state that pedophilia is simply a “lifestyle choice” and “there’s no proof young children are harmed by sexual abuse” ?
What is next, if someone doesn’t put on the brakes of this suicide train going toward the cliff?
Portugal decriminalized all drugs, (not distribution) and drug use went down, so did deaths and OD’s.
Prostitution doesn’t harm anybody. Your faux concern for morality doesn’t cut it.
Pretty sure it is mostly White males and priests that consider pedophilia a lifestyle choice. It is abhorent.
What’s next is a safer society when we all have more piety – basically respecting the choices that others make for themselves!
And I am “pretty sure” you are a bigot.
RANDOM ALASKAN, Your hyperbole is a bit over the top. Your rhetoric sounds like some thing Carrie Nation would say advocating prohibition. We know how well that turned out. In 2000 Portugal legalized virtually all drugs and is doing quite well. If we have learned anything about drug laws in America it is that they are expensive to enforce, compromise our Constitutional rights and hardly put a dent in supply and demand.
Anchorage will be a basket case and the citizens who vote for a candidate who openly expresses legalizing all drugs are ID10Ts. I would not like my Grandson living in a place like this.
Anchorage needs a Conservative Mayor! Haven’t people learned anything about Democrats and these so called undeclared candidates? They turn every place they run into a third-world country. Basic economics and incentives eluded their understanding. How much longer must we suffer?
The truth! Why don’t you run? I mean, I think we should appoint, at random, qualified representatives, from a jury pool” style process, to serve term limits in DC, then you return to the community you represent. No outlandish, elite, exemptove perks. Just room and board, like jurists, leaving no opportunities to turn your “duty” into a career of corruption.
A city in ruins needs lots of govt. workers. More workers, more money in the workers union. Legal drugs means a greater need for police. More police, more union members. Dunbars money isn’t for the election. It’s to pay him to increase government money, employees, etc.
You’re right on. More union votes and less citizen rights. We need to fight this stupid movement. And people wonder what has happened. Just look at who is running the show — a bunch of libs who want your money for the people who won’t work..
Dunbar might be on to something. The war on drugs has been a dismal failure from so many perspectives. It has cost us ridiculous amounts of money to find, arrest and jail drug sellers and users. Consider the stupidity of National Guard helicopters surveilling Wasilla for grow operations. It didn’t work with prohibition in the 1930s and it doesn’t work now. Consider how many people are in jail for doing something that is essentially consensual between willing participants. Wait, did I just describe prostitution? Yes, and legalize that too. It is way past tine for the government to get out of moral turpitude matters between consenting adults.
You argue for legalizing prostitution because it “is essentially consensual between willing participants”. Apparently you’ve missed or ignored the whole issue of sex trafficking, where helpless victims are sold or kidnapped and forced into the sex trade. Consensual? Hardly. Legalizing vice doesn’t make it right, and the consequences don’t disappear because it becomes “legal”. Bad idea.
Randy, Your reply described helpless victims, who are kidnapped and forced to into the sex trade. Yes, that is abhorrent behavior, but it is clearly not consensual behavior between willing adults and beyond the scope of legalizing prostitution.
How to make a Anchorage an even bigger S-Hole than it already is…………………….keep voting in these idiot Demoncrats.
28 years I lived in the “Anchorage Bowl”. Just moved away and can’t say it wasn’t the best time to do so. Go ahead Anchorage, keep voting in these lunatics. Best thing is that not one more red cent is taken from me to fund policies that I disagree with.
Right. Vote for another Democrat failure. Wonder why the Muni is in its current shape? Look no farther than the liberal do gooders.
EaglExit can not get here soon enough, we need to break away from Anchorage before all that corruption and liberal policies infects Eagle River too.
Absolutely! I raised my family in Kenai and the was forced to move to Los Anchorage 5 years ago. It’s been awful! The crime and homelessness is making it very difficult to enjoy life. I just bought land in Eagle River, to try to get away from the madness. The sooner my house is built, the better!
I would love to see Eagle River sever itself from Los Anchorage. (As long as the leadership of Eagle River can keep the socially destructive Democrats out.)
Pandering for votes.
It would be better to actually have a cause and a spine.
What’s with all those rainbow colors? Is this a rainbow dance, or is a message to Republicans and Conservatives that they should stay the hell out of Anchorage gay politics?
A damn sad state of affairs Anchorage is in. Used to be a roster full of great candidates for public office would take on the challenges! Now the liberal lunatics seem to have driven all of conservative possibilities under ground! Sad, Sad, Sad!!
Love the picture; saved it.
I’m not sure what “roster full of great candidates” you’re referring to, whether generally or specifically. The problem as I see it has been one of imposing the left-versus-right false dichotomy upon what is supposed to be a nonpartisan office. In this year’s election, I observed candidates whose primary attribute was the ability to identify as conservative or Republican and who demonstrated a woeful lack of familiarity with the issues. When I was previously involved in Assembly politics in the 1990s, the leftward shift in the body came about through losing candidates who insisted on running country club campaigns while their opponents actually went out and pounded the pavement hard. Dick Tremaine’s election in a district that was still quite red at the time is perhaps the best example.
This must be why Anchorage has to have mail-in voting.
Hi Everyone.
6 years ago I went to Anchorage Alaska along with my Dad for My Birthday. Back then Anchorage was Still Served By Republican mayor Dan Sullivan (Not the US Senator) and it was also a Beautiful Place in My Mind .I thought would want to move there once i had enough money. But unfortunately, from the comment i have read; Anchorage is jumping off of a high cliff at the moment. If there was Anyway i could run for mayor, I would. Unfortunately i live in a different State. If there is anyone on this comment board still lives in Anchorage, please try to stay and fight for the city as long as you can. I don’t want this to be another lost cause like Detroit, LA, NY, or Austin. Either way, thanks for hearing me out.
Those of us caring, we will do the best we can. Pray for us. If you can, think about sending a little donation to upstanding conservative candidates in Anchorage elections. Pray for us.
Been a hole for 30 years. You had stars in your eyes.
Comments are closed.