War On Drugs
Hi Friends!
Welcome to Issue 49 of this newsletter. This week’s topic is The War On Drugs. “The War on Drugs is a phrase used to refer to a government-led initiative that aims to stop illegal drug use, distribution and trade by dramatically increasing prison sentences for both drug dealers and users. The movement started in the 1970s and is still evolving today.” The War on Drugs was popularized by Richard Nixon who said, "If we cannot destroy the drug menace in America, then it will surely in time destroy us," Nixon told Congress in 1971. "I am not prepared to accept this alternative." This drug war has led to consequences that have proliferated violence around the world and contributed to mass incarceration in the US. Let’s get into it!
Key Terms
The War On Drugs: The War on Drugs is a phrase used to refer to a government-led initiative that aims to stop illegal drug use, distribution and trade by dramatically increasing prison sentences for both drug dealers and users. The movement started in the 1970s and is still evolving today.
The Drug Scheduling System: Under the Controlled Substances Act, the federal government — which has largely relegated the regulation of drugs to the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) — puts each drug into a classification, known as a schedule, based on its medical value and potential for abuse. You can view the current Drug Schedules here.
Let’s Get Into It
Drug Use In America Before The “War On Drugs”
According to historian Peter Knight, opium largely came over to America with Chinese immigrants on the West Coast. Americans, already skeptical of the drug, quickly latched on to xenophobic beliefs that opium somehow made Chinese immigrants dangerous.
Cocaine was similarly attached in fear to Black communities, neuroscientist Carl Hart wrote for the Nation. The belief was so widespread that the New York Times even felt comfortable writing headlines in 1914 that claimed "Negro cocaine 'fiends' are a new southern menace."
Drug use for medicinal and recreational purposes has been happening in the United States since the country’s inception. In the 1890s, the popular Sears and Roebuck catalogue included an offer for a syringe and small amount of cocaine for $1.50.
In some states, laws to ban or regulate drugs were passed in the 1800s, and the first congressional act to levy taxes on morphine and opium took place in 1890.
The Smoking Opium Exclusion Act in 1909 banned the possession, importation and use of opium for smoking.
In 1914, Congress passed the Harrison Act, which regulated and taxed the production, importation, and distribution of opiates and cocaine.
In 1919, the 18th Amendment was ratified, banning the manufacture, transportation or sale of intoxicating liquors, ushering in the Prohibition Era. The same year, Congress passed the National Prohibition Act (also known as the Volstead Act), which provided guidelines on how to federally enforce Prohibition.
In 1937, the “Marihuana Tax Act” was passed. This federal law placed a tax on the sale of cannabis, hemp, or marijuana. While the law didn’t criminalize the possession or use of marijuana, it included hefty penalties if taxes weren’t paid, including a fine of up to $2000 and five years in prison.
The War On Drugs
President Richard M. Nixon signed the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) into law in 1970.
In June 1971, Nixon officially declared a “War on Drugs,” stating that drug abuse was “public enemy number one.”
Nixon went on to create the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) in 1973.
In the mid-1970s, the War on Drugs took a slight hiatus. Between 1973 and 1977, eleven states decriminalized marijuana possession.
Jimmy Carter became president in 1977 after running on a political campaign to decriminalize marijuana.
In the 1980s, President Ronald Reagan reinforced and expanded many of Nixon’s War on Drugs policies. In 1984, his wife Nancy Reagan launched the “Just Say No” campaign, which was intended to highlight the dangers of drug use.
In 1986, Congress passed the Anti-Drug Abuse Act, which established mandatory minimum prison sentences for certain drug offenses.
On September 5, 1989, in his first televised national address as president, George H.W. Bush called drugs "the greatest domestic threat facing our nation today," held up a bag of seized crack cocaine, and vowed to escalate funding for the war on drugs. He later approved, among other drug-related policies, the 1033 program (then known as the 1208 program) that equipped local and state police with military-grade equipment for anti-drug operations.
It’s Impact On Incarceration And Racist History
The escalation of the criminal justice system's reach over the past few decades, ranging from more incarceration to seizures of private property and militarization, can be traced back to the war on drugs. After the US stepped up the drug war throughout the 1970s and '80s, harsher sentences for drug offenses played a role in turning the country into the world's leader in incarceration.
During a 1994 interview, President Nixon’s domestic policy chief, John Ehrlichman, provided inside information suggesting that the War on Drugs campaign had ulterior motives, he was quoted saying:
“We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course, we did.”
When the 1986 Anti-Drug Abuse Act was passed, it was heavily criticized as having racist ramifications because it allocated longer prison sentences for offenses involving the same amount of crack cocaine (used more often by Black Americans) as powder cocaine (used more often by white Americans). 5 grams of crack triggered an automatic 5 year sentence, while it took 500 grams of powder cocaine to merit the same sentence.
Critics pointed to data showing that people of color were targeted and arrested on suspicion of drug use at higher rates than whites.
Overall, the policies led to a rapid rise in incarcerations for nonviolent drug offenses, from 50,000 in 1980 to 400,000 in 1997. In 2014, nearly half of the 186,000 people serving time in federal prisons in the United States had been incarcerated on drug-related charges, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons.
The number of Black men in prison (792,000) has already equaled the number of men enslaved in 1820. With the current momentum of the drug war fueling an ever expanding prison-industrial complex, if current trends continue, only 15 years remain before the United States incarcerates as many African-American men as were forced into chattel bondage at slavery's peak, in 1860.
The War On Drugs Today
Today, the US still continues to have the largest prison population on the planet. Learn more about it in my newsletters on Prison Reform.
Between 2009 and 2013, some 40 states took steps to soften their drug laws, lowering penalties and shortening mandatory minimum sentences, according to the Pew Research Center.
In 2010, Congress passed the Fair Sentencing Act (FSA), which reduced the discrepancy between crack and powder cocaine offenses from 100:1 to 18:1.
The recent legalization of marijuana in several states and the District of Columbia has also led to a more tolerant political view on recreational drug use. However, estimated 40,000 people today are incarcerated for marijuana offenses even as the overall legal cannabis industry is booming; one state after another is legalizing; and cannabis companies are making healthy profits.
Although Black communities aren't more likely to use or sell drugs, they are much more likely to be arrested and incarcerated for drug offenses.
A 2014 study from Peter Reuter at the University of Maryland and Harold Pollack at the University of Chicago found there's no good evidence that tougher punishments or harsher supply-elimination efforts do a better job of pushing down access to drugs and substance abuse than lighter penalties.
Most of the reduction in accessibility from the drug war appears to be a result of the simple fact that drugs are illegal, which by itself makes drugs more expensive and less accessible by eliminating avenues toward mass production and distribution.
Enforcing the war on drugs costs the US more than $51 billion each year, according to the Drug Policy Alliance. As of 2012, the US had spent $1 trillion on anti-drug efforts.
