The War on Drugs is a highly debated issue that remains prominent in the news despite beginning in roughly the 1970s. It began with the intent to cut down on the illegal drug trade and distribution of illegal substances. However, since its origin, it has faced pushback due to those who believe at its core, the War on Drugs is a way to achieve the racial and political objectives of those in power. Many believe the efforts to be an excuse to target minority groups and to criminalize them while others support the movement wholeheartedly, hopeful that it could result in a cutdown on crime and result in making the country safer. The government continued to put more and more resources towards the war as time went on, growing to perhaps its highest point in the late 80s and early 90s. Yet, just as support grew, so did the numbers of those who protested it. On top of that, The War on Drugs wasn’t just specific to the United States and the more time that passed, the more it began to affect other countries. While low-income areas with large minority populations were the most affected areas, the Mexican-American border was thrust into the spotlight as talk of the illegal drug trade continued to spread fear and panic. That shock and panic was furthered even more when news of the Iran-Contra affair broke and there was talk of CIA involvement in cocaine trafficking. Due to the fact that the issue is so highly contested, the media has responded to it in drastically different ways.

The History of The War on Drugs

When delving into the issue it quickly becomes obvious that the bulk of it arose roughly 40 years ago, however, the official beginning of the “war” doesn’t have a clear date. Some consider it to be in 1969 where Richard Nixon spoke to Congress and declared drug abuse to be a national threat. This was spurred on by a “dramatic jump in drug-related juvenile arrests and street crime between 1960 and 1967” (NPR). However, it wasn’t until 1971 until Nixon announced a “war on drugs” to the public and referred to drugs, particularly crack cocaine, as the number one enemy to the country. Other sources mention that there has been a war on drugs since long before Nixon gave the movement a name. According to the editors at History.com the beginning of this issue is actually all the way back in the 1800s, which was when the first congressional act to levy taxes on morphine and opium first occurred. This was a major change for most Americans considering that up until then, catalogues such as Sears and Roebuck often sold syringes and a small amount of cocaine for $1.50. It was not until 1909 that recreational use of Opium was outlawed in the United States under the Smoking Opium Exclusion Act. Yet, it was still allowed for medical purposes. There were a few more acts that followed that are worth mentioning such as:

• The Harrison Act in 1914 which “regulated and taxed the production, importation, and distribution of opiates and cocaine” (History.com)
• The Prohibition Act in 1919
  • However this only lasted until December of 1933 when the 21st Amendment was ratified
• The Marijuana Tax Act in 1937
  • This simply placed a tax on the sale of Marijuana and if that tax was not paid, the perpetrator could face up to a $2000 fine and five years in prison.
• The Controlled Substances Act in 1970
  • Signed by President Nixon, it calls for regulation of specific drugs as well as creative five levels to classify drugs based on “their medical application and potential for abuse” (History.com)

Whether one believes the war began in the late 1800s or in the late 60s, drastic changes did not truly begin until around 1973 where Nixon create the Drug Enforcement Administration. The DEA was given only about 1,470 agents and a budget that was a little less than 75 Million dollars. While those are certainly not small figures, it is worth noting that today that very same agency has almost 5,000 special agents and a budget of over $2.03 billion. Dozens of resources were poured towards the war even though only 48% of Americans in 1969 believed drugs to be a serious issue. Later on, in 1984, Nancy Reagan launched the “Just Say No” campaign which encouraged students to stop using illegal substances and to say no to those that invited others to use drugs.

Race and Politics

The first time there was mention of there being perhaps ulterior motives behind the War on Drugs was in 1994 during an interview with John Ehrlichman, Nixon’s domestic policy chief. In this interview shocking accusations were thrown out with Ehrlichman claiming that Nixon had two enemies: those against the war and African Americans. He even went so far as to say “Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course, we did” (History.com), claiming that the administration outright lied in order to push their own agenda. Conversation of ulterior motives, as well as efforts of the war itself, faded slightly during Jimmy Carter’s term, however they picked up once more as soon as Ronald Reagan was elected into office and his subsequent focus on the War on Drugs. This focus resulted in an increase in the number of incarcerations for nonviolent drug crimes. In 1986 the Anti-Drug Abuse Act was passed by Congress which created mandatory minimum sentences for certain drug crimes. This law was criticized, however, as a result of the fact that crack cocaine, which was used primarily in communities with larger African American populations, had a longer minimum sentence than powder cocaine which was predominantly used by whites. There was also speculation that African Americans were often targeted and arrested on suspicion of drug use much more often than white people.

Deborah Small explored the effect of the War on Drugs to minority groups in a piece that argues that the War on Drugs is in fact a war on “Racial Justice”. Small points to the fact that “Blacks constitute 13 percent of all drug users, but 35 percent of those arrested for drug possession, 55 percent of those convicted, and 74 percent of those sent to prison” (Small). Not only that but the number of incarcerations of Black women for drug offenses jumped 828 percent between 1986 and 1991, which was the height of the War on Drugs. On top of that, the Latinx community was negatively affected as well with almost half of all marijuana arrests being Latinos.

CIA Involvement

The War on Drugs was thrust into the spotlight once more when discussion of corruption was brought up again in August of 1996 when a series of articles, dubbed as the “Dark Alliance”, were published in the San Jose Mercury News. These articles made allegations claiming that “cocaine was virtually unobtainable in black neighborhoods before members of the CIA’s army–the Nicaraguan Contras–started bringing it into South Central Los Angeles in the 1980s.” (CIA). Following these allegations, a seventeen person team was formed to investigate the issue. Over 250,000 pages of documents were examined and over 365 interviews were conducted, with many of those interviews being under oath. The findings of this investigation were simple, the CIA had never been involved and every accusation was disproven. Yet, despite this, there are still some who believe that there was CIA involvement.

The War on Drugs Today

Over the years, public support towards the War on Drugs has continuously dwindled, with many believing that it creates a racial divide or simply believing that it has failed and isn’t worth the money to continue. While it isn’t as prominent today as it used to be, the War on Drugs is still being fought. Programs like D.A.R.E are reminiscent of “Just Say No” and on top of that, legal efforts are still being made to end drug use across the country and even the world. For example, in April of 2004 the Illicit Drug Anti-Proliferation Act was enacted which targeted drugs such as ecstasy and methamphetamine. The War on Drugs has turned into a global effort and it’s not a cheap one. According to a VICE article by author JS Rafaelli, it costs a total of about “$100 billion a year in policing alone” (Rafaelli). The United States continues to be at the forefront of this policing with events such as the recent trial of Joaquín Guzmán Loera taking place in New York City and in 2004, America’s involvement in the U.S. Embassy Kabul Counternarcotics Implementation Plan. Which was “designed to reduce heroin production in Afghanistan, the world’s leading opium producer” (NPR).

Despite this, ideals are changing and in 2010 Congress passed the FSA, or the Fair Sentencing Act, which cut down on the difference between crack and powder cocaine offenses from 100:1 to 18:1. Not to mention, many states have legalized the medical use of marijuana which is changing the public’s overall views of drug use as a whole. With more and more coming to believe that the War on Drugs has, and is failing, it poses the question of if this decades-long war is coming to a close.

Works Cited

“Timeline: America’s War on Drugs.” NPR, NPR, 2 Apr. 2007, http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9252490.

Editors, History.com. “War on Drugs.” History.com, A&E Television Networks, 31 May 2017, http://www.history.com/topics/crime/the-war-on-drugs.

Small, Deborah. “The War on Drugs Is a War on Racial Justice.” Social Research, vol. 68, no. 3, 2001, pp. 896–903. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/40971924.

“Overview: Report of Investigation.” Central Intelligence Agency, Central Intelligence Agency, 3 Jan. 2012, http://www.cia.gov/library/reports/general-reports-1/cocaine/overview-of-report-of-investigation-2.html#conclusions.

Rafaelli, JS. “How the Drug War Eats the Poor.” Vice, VICE, 4 Feb. 2019, http://www.vice.com/en_us/article/43zwbg/how-the-drug-war-eats-the-poor.