about the public's health than about continuing the tobacco industry's billions in tax revenue.
"What does a serviceman pay for a carton of cigarettes?" a prospective Muslim convert would be
asked. It helped him to see that every regularly priced carton he bought meant that the white
man's government took around two dollars of a black man's hard-earned money for taxes, not for
tobacco.
You may have read somewhere-a lot has been written concerning it-about the Nation of Islam's
phenomenal record of dope-addiction cures of longtime junkies. In fact, the New York Times
carried a story about how some of the social agencies have asked representatives of the Muslim
program for clinical suggestions.
The Muslim program began with recognizing that color and addiction have a distinct connection. It
is no accident that in the entire Western Hemisphere, the greatest localized concentration of
addicts is in Harlem.
Our cure program's first major ingredient was the painfully patient work of Muslims who previously
were junkies themselves.
In the ghetto's dope jungle, the Muslim ex-junkies would fish out addicts who knew them back in
those days. Then with an agonizing patience that might span anywhere from a few months to a
year, our ex-junkie Muslims would conduct the addicts through the Muslim six-point therapeutic
process.
The addict first was brought to admit to himself that he was an addict. Secondly, he was taught
why he used narcotics. Third, he was shown that there was a way to stop addiction. Fourth,
the addict's shattered self-image, and ego, were built up until the addict realized that he had,
within, the self-power to end his addiction. Fifth, the addict voluntarily underwent a cold turkey
break with drugs. Sixth, finally cured, now an ex-addict completes the cycle by "fishing" up other
addicts whom he knows, and supervising their salvaging.
This sixth stage always instantly eliminated what so often defeats the average social agencies-
the characteristic addict's hostility and suspicion. The addict who is "fished" up knew personally
that the Muslim approaching him very recently had the same fifteen to thirty dollar a day habit.
The Muslim may be this addict's buddy; they had plied the same dope jungle. They even may
have been thieves together. The addict had seen the Muslim drifting off to sleep leaning
against a building, or stepping as high over a matchstick as if it were a dog. And the Muslim,
approaching the addict, uses the same old junkie jungle language.
Like the alcoholic, the junkie can never start to cure himself until he recognizes and accepts his
true condition. The Muslim sticks like a leech, drumming at his old junkie buddy, "You're hooked,
man!" It might take months before the addict comes to grips with this. The curative program is
never really underway until this happens.
The next cure-phase is the addict's realization of why he takes dope. Still working on his man,
right in the old jungle locale, in dives that you wouldn't believe existed, the Muslim often collects
audiences of a dozen junkies. They listen only because they know the clean-cut proud Muslim
had earlier been like them.
Every addict takes junk to escape something, the Muslim explains. He explains that most black
junkies really are trying to narcotize themselves against being a black man in the white man's
America. But, actually, the Muslim says, the black man taking dope is only helping the white man
to "prove" that the black man is nothing.
The Muslim talks confidentially, and straight. "Daddy, you know I know how you feel. Wasn't I right
out here with you? Scratching like a monkey, smelling all bad, living mad, hungry, stealing and
running and hiding from Whitey. Man, what's a black man buying Whitey's dope for but to make
Whitey richer-killing yourself!"