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What is the War on Drugs?
The war on drugs is not a war in the defense of public health; it is, from its very foundation, a racist political agenda created to control non-white people by creating laws to strip them of their rights.
In the 1970s, towards the end of the Vietnam war, anti-war protestors were becoming more prominent. The very recent Civil Rights Movement was creating a more equitable world for non-white people. The rise of the “hippies,” and the idea of world peace brought together millions of people – and this was a problem for those whose power relies not on how well they include others, but how well the can subdue other people groups.
So in 1971, President Richard Nixon declared “war on drugs.” Nixon Aid John Ehrlichman said “You want to know what this was really all about…the Nixon White House…had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I’m 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…Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.” Scan the QR code at the bottom for a link to the full quote.
Author Michelle Alexander’s book The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness describes how the so-called “War on Drugs” is actually a war on African Americans.
The War on Drugs increased police funding and outfitted regular police units with military-grade equipment. More dramatic arrests (including the kind of ‘no-knock warrants’ that resulted in Breonna Taylor’s death in late 2020) have occurred, and harsher punishments for non-violent drug crimes but have done nothing to actually curb drug use. In reality, overdose deaths have increased.
Additionally, the misdemeanor and felony charges make it difficult to get a job, limiting opportunities for social and economic advancement. In many states, it also limits your ability to vote.
In a system designed to separate, vilify, and control in order to retain power for the few, the war on drugs continues to only benefit those in power.
The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander
The War on Drugs: A History by David Farber
