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{{Short description|Global anti-drug campaign led by the United States}}{{Other uses}}{{pp-semi-indef}}{{use mdy dates|date=March 2016}}

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)| place = Global| coordinates = | map_type = | map_relief = | map_size = | map_marksize = | map_caption = | map_label = | territory = | result = DATE=JUNE 17, 2021 WEBSITE=NPR DATE=2017-01-30 URL=HTTPS://WWW.VOX.COM/POLICY-AND-POLITICS/2017/1/30/14346766/DRUG-WAR-FAILURE-EVOLUTION WEBSITE=VOX DATE=4 JANUARY 2012 URL=HTTPS://WWW.CAMBRIDGE.ORG/CORE/JOURNALS/PS-POLITICAL-SCIENCE-AND-POLITICS/ARTICLE/ABS/NEVERENDING-DRUG-WAR-OBSTACLES-TO-DRUG-WAR-POLICY-TERMINATION/36E26DB84414E6EFE80CF3F96F55703F VOLUME=45 DOI=10.1017/S1049096511001739 VIA=CAMBRIDGE CORE, DOWARD >FIRST=JAMIE TITLE=THE UN'S WAR ON DRUGS IS A FAILURE. IS IT TIME FOR A DIFFERENT APPROACH? ACCESS-DATE=2024-02-17 LANGUAGE=EN-GB, 0029-7712, | combatants_header = United States}}

• United States police
• United States Armed Forces

Allies of the United States{{flag|United Nations}}

• United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime| combatant2 = Drug traffickers
• Drug cartels| combatant3 = | commander1 = | commander2 = | commander3 = | units1 = | units2 = | units3 = | strength1 = | strength2 = | strength3 = | casualties1 = | casualties2 = | casualties3 = | notes = | campaignbox = {{Campaignbox Operations in the War on drugs}}

}}The war on drugs is the policy of a global campaign,WEB, June 2011, War on Drugs: Report of the Global Commission on Drug Policy,weblink Feb 21, 2024, Global Commission on Drug Policy, The global war on drugs has failed. When the United Nations Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs came into being 50 years ago, and when President Nixon launched the US government’s war on drugs 40 years ago, policymakers believed that harsh law enforcement action against those involved in drug production, distribution and use would lead to an ever-diminishing market in controlled drugs such as heroin, cocaine and cannabis, and the eventual achievement of a ‘drug free world’. In practice, the global scale of illegal drug markets – largely controlled by organized crime – has grown dramatically over this period., led by the United States federal government, of drug prohibition, military aid, and military intervention, with the aim of reducing the illegal drug trade in the United States.NEWS,weblink Legalize All Drugs? The 'Risks Are Tremendous' Without Defining The Problem, Writer Dan, Baum, NPR.org, April 3, 2018,weblink January 15, 2018, live, Cockburn and St. Clair, 1998: Chapter 14JOURNAL, Bullington, Bruce, Alan A., Block, March 1990, A Trojan horse: Anti-communism and the war on drugs, Crime, Law and Social Change, 14, 1, 39–55, 1573-0751, 10.1007/BF00728225, 144145710, The initiative includes a set of drug policies that are intended to discourage the production, distribution, and consumption of psychoactive drugs that the participating governments, through United Nations treaties, have made illegal.The term "war on drugs" was popularized by the media shortly after a press conference, given on June 17, 1971, during which President Richard Nixon declared drug abuse "public enemy number one". He stated, "In order to fight and defeat this enemy, it is necessary to wage a new, all-out offensive.{{nbs}}[...] This will be a worldwide offensive.{{nbs}}[...] It will be government-wide{{nbs}}[...] and it will be nationwide." Earlier that day, Nixon had presented a special message to Congress on Drug Abuse Prevention and Control, which included text about devoting more federal resources to the "prevention of new addicts, and the rehabilitation of those who are addicted", but that aspect did not receive the same public attention as the term "war on drugs".WEB,weblink Richard Nixon: Special Message to the Congress on Drug Abuse Prevention and Control, December 8, 2013,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20131212201341weblink">weblink December 12, 2013, live, WEB, Mann, Brian, Jun 17, 2021, After 50 Years Of The War On Drugs, 'What Good Is It Doing For Us?',weblink Dec 8, 2023, NPR, WEB, June 18, 1971, Nixon Calls War on Drugs,weblink Dec 8, 2023, Palm Beach Post, NEWS, Dufton, Emily, The War on Drugs: How President Nixon Tied Addiction to Crime,weblink October 13, 2012, The Atlantic, March 26, 2012,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20121105093614weblink">weblink November 5, 2012, live, In the years since, presidential administrations have generally maintained or expanded Nixon's original initiatives, with the emphasis on law enforcement and interdiction over public health and treatment. Cannabis presents a special case; it came under federal restriction in the 1930s, and since 1970 has been classified as having a high potential for abuse and no medical value, with the same level of prohibition as heroin. Multiple mainstream studies and findings since the 1930s have recommended against such a severe classification. Beginning in the 1990s, cannabis has been decriminalized in 38 states, and legalized in 24, creating a policy gap with federal law.In June 2011, the Global Commission on Drug Policy released a critical report, declaring: "The global war on drugs has failed, with devastating consequences for individuals and societies around the world." In 2015, the Drug Policy Alliance, which advocates for an end to the war on drugs, estimated that the United States spends $51 billion annually on these initiatives; in 2021, after 50 years of the drug war, estimates of cumulative US spending reached a trillion dollars.WEB, Drug War Statistics,weblink Drug Policy Alliance, February 25, 2014,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20170705125711weblink">weblink July 5, 2017, live, NEWS,weblink After 50 Years Of The War On Drugs, 'What Good Is It Doing For Us?', Mann, Brian, NPR, 2021-06-17, The campaign {{snd, which by some estimates cost more than $1 trillion {{snd}} also exacerbated racial divisions and infringed on civil liberties in ways that transformed American society. }}{{As of|2024}}, the war on drugs continues, with a focus on fentanyl and other synthetic drugs.

History

{{See also|Legal history of cannabis in the United States}}Drugs in the US were largely unregulated until the early 20th century. Opium had been used to relieve pain since the Revolutionary War (1775-1783), particularly in the treatment of soldiers during wartime. In the 1800s, the use of opiates in the civilian population increased dramatically,WEB, Trickey, Erick, Jan 4, 2018, Inside the Story of America's 19th-Century Opiate Addiction,weblink live,weblink January 5, 2019, Dec 25, 2023, The Smithsonian, and cocaine use became prevalent.JOURNAL, Das, G, April 1993, Cocaine abuse in North America: a milestone in history,weblink Journal of Clinical Pharmacology, 33, 4, 296–310, 10.1002/j.1552-4604.1993.tb04661.x, 8473543, 9120504, PubMed, WEB, Aug 21, 2018, Cocaine,weblink Dec 15, 2023, History.com, Alcohol consumption steadily increased, as did the temperance movement, well-supported by the middle class, promoting moderation or abstinence.BOOK, Rorabaugh, W.J., The Alcohol Republic: An American Tradition, Oxford University Press, 1981, 978-0-1950-2990-1, 20–21, BOOK, Aaron, Paul, Musto, David, 1981, Temperance and Prohibition in America: A Historical Overview,weblink Feb 11, 2024, National Library of Medicine, National Academies Press (US), The practice of smoking cannabis spread in the early 1900s.WEB, Marijuana Timeline,weblink Dec 15, 2023, PBS Frontline, The authority to control dangerous drugs in the US exists at both the federal and state level, each acting separately under the US Constitution.JOURNAL, Braun, Richard L., January 1991, Uniform Controlled Substances Act of 1990,weblink Campbell Law Review, 13, 3, 366, At the state and local level, drug laws began to appear in the second half of the 1800s, while federal drug legislation arrived after the turn of the century..

Mid-1800s–1909: Proliferation of unregulated drug use

The latter half of the 19th century saw a ramping up of opiate use in America. Early in the century, morphine had been isolated from opium, decades later, heroin was created from morphine, each more potent than the previous form.WEB, June 10, 2019, Heroin, Morphine and Opiates,weblink March 28, 2021, history.com, BOOK, Courtwright, David T., :de:David Todd Courtwright,weblink Forces of habit drugs and the making of the modern world, 2009, Harvard University Press, 978-0674029903, Cambridge, Mass., 36–37,weblink 8 September 2017, live, vanc, dmy-all, With the invention of the hypodermic syringe, introduced in America mid-century, opiates were easily administered and became a preferred medical treatment. During the Civil War (1861-1865), millions of doses of opiates were distributed to sick and wounded soldiers, addicting some; home gardens were turned to poppies for opium processing in the war effort.WEB, McKendry, Joe, March 2019, Sears Once Sold Heroin,weblink Dec 25, 2023, The Atlantic, For $1.50, Americans around the turn of the century could place an order through a Sears, Roebuck catalog and receive a syringe, two needles, and two vials of Bayer Heroin, all in a handsome carrying case., In the civilian population, physicians treated opiates like a wonder drug, prescribing them widely, for chronic pain, irritable babies, asthma, bronchitis, insomnia, "nervous conditions", hysteria, menstrual cramps, morning sickness, gastrointestinal disease, "vapors", and on.NEWS, The Editorial Board, April 21, 2018, Opinion – An Opioid Crisis Foretold, The New York Times,weblink live, January 21, 2019,weblink January 22, 2019, WEB, The United States War on Drugs,weblink live,weblink January 6, 2019, January 21, 2019, web.stanford.edu, Drugs were also marketed over-the-counter to consumers. Laudanum, a powdered opium solution, was commonly found in the home medicine cabinet. Heroin was available as a cough syrup.BOOK, Cockburn, Alexander,weblink Whiteout: The CIA, Drugs and the Press, Jeffrey St. Clair, Verso, 1998, 1-85984-139-2, registration, WEB, Johnston, Ann Dowsett, 15 November 2013, 'Drink' and 'Her Best-Kept Secret',weblink 9 August 2023, The New York Times, In 1897, the Sears, Roebuck catalog offered a kit with a syringe, two needles, two vials of heroin and a handy carrying case for $1.50., Cocaine was introduced as a surgical anesthetic, and more popularly as a pick-me-up, found in soft drinks, cigarettes, blended with wine, in snuff, and other forms. Brand names appeared: Coca-Cola contained cocaine until 1903; Bayer created and trademarked "Heroin" as the name of their diamorphine product. In the 1890s, the Sears & Roebuck catalog, distributed to millions of American homes, offered a syringe and a small amount of cocaine or heroin for $1.50.

America's "first opioid crisis"

The 1880s saw opiate addiction surge among among housewives, doctors, and Civil War veterans,JOURNAL, Golub, Andrew, Bennett, Alex S., Elliott, Luther, Mar 30, 2015, Beyond America's War on Drugs: Developing Public Policy to Navigate the Prevailing Pharmacological Revolution, Aims Public Health, 2, 1, 142–160, 10.3934/publichealth.2015.1.142, 25893215, 4398966, creating America's "first opioid crisis."WEB, Little, Becky, Sep 13, 2023, How Civil War Medicine Led to America's First Opioid Crisis,weblink Feb 27, 2024, History.com, NEWS, Ruane, Michael E., December 1, 2021, America's first opioid crisis grew out of the carnage of the Civil War,weblink Feb 27, 2024, Washington Post, By the end of the century, an estimated 1 in 200 Americans were addicted to opiates, 60% of them women, typically white and middle- to upper-class. Medical journals of the later 1800s were replete with warning against overprescription. As medical advances like the x-ray, vaccines, and germ theory, presented better treatment options, prescribed opiate use began to decline. Meanwhile, smoking opium was popular among Chinese immigrant laborers; opium dens were established in Chinatowns in cities and towns across America. The public face of opiate use and addiction changed, from affluent white Americans, to “Chinese, gamblers, and prostitutes.”During this period, states and municipalities began enacted laws banning or regulating certain drugs.WEB, May 31, 2017, War on Drugs,weblink Dec 8, 2023, History.com, In Pennsylvania, an anti-morphine law was passed in 1860.Whitford and Yates. Presidential Rhetoric and the Public Agenda 36 In 1875, San Francisco enacted an anti-opium ordinance, vigorously enforced, imposing stiff fines and jail for visiting opium dens. The rationale held that "many women and young girls, as well as young men of a respectable family, were being induced to visit the Chinese opium-smoking dens, where they were ruined morally and otherwise." The law was racial in nature, one of the measures catering to resentment towards the Chinese laborer population who were being accused of taking jobs; no other uses of opiates or other drugs were affected. Similar laws were enacted in other states and cities. The federal government became involved, raising the import tariff on the grade of opium prepared for smoking. None of these measures proved effective in significantly reducing opium use,WEB, Brecher, Edward M., 1972, Licit and Illicit Drugs: The Consumers' Union Report on Narcotics, Stimulants, Depressants, Inhalants, Hallucinogens, and Marijuana—Including Caffeine, Nicotine, and Alcohol,weblink Feb 10, 2024, Consumers Union, while the anti-Chinese fervor lead to Congress halting Chinese laborer immigration for 10 years with the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882.JOURNAL, Lee, Erika, 2002, The Chinese Exclusion Example: Race, Immigration, and American Gatekeeping, 1882-1924, Journal of American Ethnic History, 21, 3, 36–62, 10.2307/27502847, 27502847, 157999472, In the following years, opioids, cocaine, and cannabis were associated with various ethnic minorities and targeted in other local jurisdictions.{{Additional citation needed|date=April 2024}}

1909–1971: Rise of federal drug regulation and prohibition

On February 9, 1909, the Smoking Opium Exclusion Act, "to prohibit the importation and use of opium for other than medicinal purposes", became the first federal law to ban the non-medical use of a substance.WEB, Opium prohibition law in library of congress,weblink 14 May 2019, Library of Congress, WEB, Opium and Narcotic Laws,weblink Dec 8, 2023, Office of Justice Programs, This was soon followed by the Harrison Narcotics Tax Act of 1914, that regulated and taxed the production, importation, and distribution of opiates and coca products.WEB, Opium Throughout History,weblink live,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20060923053042weblink">weblink September 23, 2006, October 8, 2010, PBS Frontline, WEB, Harrison Narcotics Tax Act, 1914,weblink 2013-11-18, Drug Reform Coordination Network, Amending the Smoking Opium Exclusion Act, the Anti-Heroin Act of 1924 specifically outlawed the manufacture, importation and sale of heroin.During World War I (1914-1918), soldiers were commonly treated with morphine, giving rise to addiction among veterans.WEB, Kamieński, Łukasz, March 7, 2019, Drugs,weblink Mar 25, 2024, International Encyclopedia of the First World, An international wartime focus on opiates and cocaine in the military, for medical treatment and performance enhancement, and for potential abuse, lead to a post-war adoption among nations of the Hague Convention of 1912, forming the basis of modern international drug control treaties and policy.WEB, Berridge, Virginia, November 22, 2014, Drugs, alcohol, and the First World War,weblink Mar 13, 2024, The Lancet, International drug control had been discussed before the war, but a global system was unlikely. ... The Hague Convention of 1912 was the product of this expanded geographical concern. The decision at the Hague that opium, morphine, and cocaine and their use should be confined to “legitimate medical purposes” was central to future international drug control. ... The German Government ... insisted that all 34 participating powers had to ratify the Hague Convention before it could come into force. The convention thus had an “all or nothing” aspect that had not been initially intended. ... The war changed the situation. ... Article 295 of the peace settlement enacted through the Treaty of Versailles in 1919 brought the Hague Convention into operation and gave the newly established League of Nations general supervision over international narcotics agreements., WEB, 2009, A Century of International Drug Control,weblink Mar 26, 2024, United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, 7, These policies were initially concerned with regulating the free trade of drugs, and didn't affect production or use. The US, one of the most prohibitionist countries, felt these provisions did not go far enough enough in restricting drugs.WEB, Oct 28, 2015, The UN Drug Control Conventions - A Primer,weblink Apr 6, 2024, International Drug Policy Consortium, In 1919, the US passed the 18th Amendment, prohibiting the sale, manufacture, and transportation of alcohol, with exceptions for religious and medical use, and the National Prohibition Act, informally known as the Volstead Act, to carry out the provisions of the 18th Amendment. By the 1930s, the policy was seen as a failure: production and consumption of alcohol did not decrease, organized crime flourished, and tax revenue, particularly needed after the start of the Great Depression in 1929, was lost. Prohibition was repealed by passage of the 21st Amendment in 1933, with President Franklin D. Roosevelt (1933-1945) asking Americans not to abuse "this return to personal freedom."WEB, Klein, Christopher, Mar 28, 2023, The Night Prohibition Ended,weblink Mar 11, 2024, History.com,

Ascendency of Anslinger and the FBN

The Federal Bureau of Narcotics (FBN) was established as an agency of the US Department of the Treasury by an act of June 14, 1930,WEB,weblink Records of the Drug Enforcement Administration DEA, Archives.gov, March 27, 2011,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20110521222056weblink">weblink May 21, 2011, live, with Harry J. Anslinger as the founding commissioner, a position he held for 32 years, until 1962.BOOK, Filan, Kenaz,weblink The Power of the Poppy: Harnessing Nature's Most Dangerous Plant Ally, 23 February 2011, Park Street Press, 978-1-59477-399-0, Rochester, Vt., 64, Anslinger supported Prohibition and the criminalization of all drugs, and spearheaded anti-drug policy campaigns.NEWS, Krebs, Albin, 18 November 1975, Harry J. Anslinger Dies at 83; Hard-Hitting Foe of Narcotics, CXXIV, 40, The New York Times, 236, Sulzberger Sr., Arthur Ochs,weblink 10 September 2021, Harry J. Anslinger, an implacable, hard-hitting foe of drug pushers and users during the 32 years he was the Treasury Department's Commissioner of Narcotics, died Friday in Hollidaysburg, Pa. His age was 83., Punch Sulzberger, He has been characterized as the first architect of the punitive war on drugs.WEB, Adams, Cydney, November 17, 2016, The man behind the marijuana ban for all the wrong reasons,weblink Mar 17, 2024, CBS News, BOOK, Chasin, Alexandra, Alexandra Chasin,weblink Assassin of Youth: A Kaleidoscopic History of Harry J. Anslinger's War on Drugs, 30 September 2016, University of Chicago Press, 9780226276977, Chicago, Illinois, United States of America, 10.7208/chicago/9780226277028.001.0001, 2016011027, 10 September 2021, Google Books, MAGAZINE, Halpern, John H., Blistein, David, Aug 12, 2019, America's War on Drugs Has Treated People Unequally Since Its Beginning,weblink March 16, 2024, TIME, Between 1930 and 1962, Anslinger established the standards that continue to serve as basic tools of the trade for America’s drug enforcement, such as dramatic drug busts, harsh penalties and questionable data. There remains serious disagreement in scholarly as well as political circles about how successful Anslinger really was in reducing drug sales and use in America, though he achieved several significant legislative victories, including the Uniform State Narcotic Drug Act, which fostered collaboration between federal agents and police in different states (each of which had its own specific laws)., During his three decades heading the FBN, Anslinger zealously and effectively pursued harsh drug penalties, with a particular focus on cannabis. He used his stature as the head of a federal agency to draft legislation, discredit critics, discount medical opinion and scientific findings, and convince lawmakers. Publicly, he used the media and speaking engagements, to introduce hyperbolic messages about the evils of drug use.WEB, Moynihan, Colin, August 10, 2020, An Exhibition Tells the Story of a Drug War Leader, but Not All of It,weblink subscription, Mar 17, 2024, New York Times, In the 1930s, he referred to a collection of news reports of horrific crimes that he attributed to drugs, particularly cannabis, without supporting evidence. He announced that youth become "slaves" to cannabis, "continuing addiction until they deteriorate mentally, become insane, turn to violent crime and murder.” He promoted a racialized view of drug use, saying that blacks and Latinos were the primary abusers. In Congressional testimony, he declared “of all the offenses committed against the laws of this country, the narcotic addict is the most frequent offender.”WEB, April 7, 2022, The Evolution of Marijuana as a Controlled Substance and the Federal-State Policy Gap,weblink Apr 17, 2024, Congressional Research Service, 2, He was also an effective administrator and diplomat, attending international drug conferences and steadily expanding the FBN's influence.WEB, Smith, Benjamin T., June 2021, Why we should remember Richard Nixon's war on drugs,weblink Jan 6, 2024, History Extra, In 1935, President Roosevelt publicly supported the adoption of the Uniform State Narcotic Drug Act; the New York Times used the headline "Roosevelt Asks Narcotic War Aid".WEB,weblink Roosvelt Asks Narcotics War Aid, 1935, Druglibrary.net, March 27, 2011,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20110723103650weblink">weblink July 23, 2011, live, WEB,weblink Letter to the World Narcotic Defense Association. March 21, 1935, Presidency.ucsb.edu, March 27, 2011,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20120203072730weblink">weblink February 3, 2012, live, The Uniform Law Commission developed the Act to address the 1914 Harrison Act's lack of state-level enforcement provisions, creating a model law reflecting the Harrison Act, that states could adopt to replace the existing patchwork of state laws. Anslinger and the FBN were centrally involved in drafting the Act, and later, in convincing states to adopt it.WEB, 1972, Marihuana - A Signal of Misunderstanding (First Report of the National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse),weblink Mar 16, 2024, Schaffer Library of Drug Policy, Drafting the Uniform Act, signal, With the passage of the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937,For repeal, see section 1101(b)(3), Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970, Pub. L. No. 91-513, 84 Stat. 1236, 1292 (Oct. 27, 1970) (repealing the Marihuana Tax Act which had been codified in Subchapter A of Chapter 39 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1954). federal law reflected state law—by 1936, the non-medical use of cannabis had been banned in every state.BOOK, Booth, Martin,weblink Cannabis: A History, June 2005, St. Martin's Press, 978-0-312-42494-7, New York, That year, the first two arrests for tax non-payment under the Act, for possession of a quarter-ounce (7g), and trafficking of four pounds (1.8 kg), resulted in sentences of nearly 18 months and four years respectively.WEB, Glick, Daniel, December 6, 2016, 80 Years Ago This Week, Marijuana Prohibition Began With These Arrests,weblink Leafly, The American Medical Association (AMA) had opposed the tax act on grounds that it unduly affected the medical use of cannabis. The AMA's legislative counsel testified that the claims about cannabis addiction, violence and overdoses were not supported.WEB, Statement of Dr. William C. Woodward, Legislative Counsel, American Medical Association,weblink 2006-03-25, Committee on Finance, U.S. Senate, 75c 2s. HR6906. Library of Congress transcript. July 12, 1937 Scholars have posited that the Act was orchestrated by powerful business interests – Andrew Mellon, Randolph Hearst, and the Du Pont family – to head off cheap competition from the hemp industry: Mellon was invested in DuPont's new synthetic plastic, nylon; Hearst was involved with pulp and timber.BOOK, French, Laurence,weblink NAFTA & neocolonialism: comparative criminal, human & social justice, Manzanárez, Magdaleno, University Press of America, 2004, 978-0-7618-2890-7, 129, May 7, 2020,weblink December 28, 2019, live, Earlywine, 2005: p. 24 {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160110080209weblink|date=January 10, 2016}}Peet, 2004: p. 55BOOK, Evans, Sterling,weblink Bound in twine: the history and ecology of the henequen-wheat complex for Mexico and the American and Canadian Plains, 1880–1950, Texas A&M University Press, 2007, 978-1-58544-596-7, 27, March 6, 2016,weblink April 24, 2016, live, BOOK,weblink The borderlands of the American and Canadian Wests: essays on regional history of the forty-ninth parallel, University of Nebraska Press, 2006, 978-0-8032-1826-0, Evans, Sterling, 199, registration, BOOK, Gerber, Rudolph Joseph,weblink Legalizing marijuana: drug policy reform and prohibition politics, Greenwood Publishing Group, 2004, 978-0-275-97448-0, 7, March 6, 2016,weblink January 8, 2016, live, BOOK, Earleywine, Mitchell,weblink Understanding marijuana: a new look at the scientific evidence, Oxford University Press, 2005, 978-0-19-518295-8, 231, March 6, 2016,weblink January 8, 2016, live, BOOK, Robinson, Matthew B.,weblink Lies, damned lies, and drug war statistics: a critical analysis of claims made by the office of National Drug Control Policy, Scherlen, Renee G., SUNY Press, 2007, 978-0-7914-6975-0, 12, March 6, 2016,weblink January 8, 2016, live, amp, BOOK, Rowe, Thomas C.,weblink Federal narcotics laws and the war on drugs: money down a rat hole, Psychology Press, 2006, 978-0789028082, 26, March 6, 2016,weblink January 8, 2016, live, BOOK,weblink Encyclopedia of Law Enforcement: Federal, Sage, 2005, 978-0761926498, Sullivan, Larry E., 747, March 6, 2016, etal,weblink January 8, 2016, live, BOOK, Lusane, Clarence,weblink Pipe dream blues: racism and the war on drugs, South End Press, 1991, 978-0896084100, 37–38, Clarence Lusane, registration, WEB, Was there a conspiracy to outlaw hemp because it was a threat to theDuPonts and other industrial interests?,weblink live,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20150402154536weblink">weblink April 2, 2015, March 17, 2015, {{Refn|Despite media reports at the time touting hemp as the new wonder fiber, harvesting and processing technology weren't sufficiently developed to compete commercially.WEB, LH, Dewey, 1943, Fiber production in the western hemisphere,weblink live,weblink March 13, 2016, February 25, 2015, United States Printing Office, Washington, 67, WEB, Fortenbery, T. Randall, Bennett, Michael, July 2001, Is Industrial Hemp Worth Further Study in the US? A Survey of the Literature,weblink live,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20160304041408weblink">weblink March 4, 2016, June 25, 2014, Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 25, |group=Note}}In 1944, the LaGuardia Committee report, the first US in-depth study of cannabis use, systematically contradicted government claims, finding that cannabis is not physically addictive, not a gateway drug, and its use does not lead to crime. The Committee was formed in 1939 by New York Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia, an opponent of the Marihuana Tax Act.WEB, Downs, David, April 19, 2016, The Science behind the DEA's Long War on Marijuana,weblink Jan 31, 2024, Scientific American, HARRY J. ANSLINGER: The Murderers THE STORY OF THE NARCOTIC GANGS, 1962 The FBN's Anslinger branded the study "unscientific", denounced all involved, from LaGuardia to the researching physicians, and interrupted other cannabis studies at the time.Jack Herer. 1985. The Emperor Wears No Clothes. Ah Ha Publishing, Van Nuys, CA.During World War II (1939-1945), in addition to opiates, amphetamines entered military use, to combat fatigue and improve morale. The class of stimulants, including the closely related methamphetamine, was discovered in the late 1800s, and commercialized as an over-the-counter drug in the 1930s. In the US, the Benzedrine brand quickly became popular for a variety of medical and recreational applications. During the war, it was widely used in the military and by the public; beginning in 1943, American soldiers could buy Benzedrine directly from the army, with no accompanying regulation.WEB, Racine, Nicholas, Spring 2019, Blood, Meth, and Tears: The Super Soldiers of World War II,weblink Apr 7, 2024, James Madison University, WEB, Holland, James, Jun 25, 2019, World War Speed,weblink Apr 7, 2024, PBS, Post-war, amphetamines were promoted as mood elevators and diet pills, to great success; by 1945, an estimated 750 million tablets a year were already being produced in the US, enough to provide a million people with a daily supply.WEB, Hicks, Jesse, Apr 15, 2012, Fast Times: The Life, Death, and Rebirth of Amphetamine,weblink Apr 7, 2024, Science History Institute, WEB, Blakemore, Erin, October 27, 2017, A Speedy History of America's Addiction to Amphetamine,weblink Apr 7, 2024, Smithsonian Magazine,

Drugs as a growing political issue, penalties get harsher

In the early 1950s, "white suburban grassroots movements", concerned about dealers preying on teenagers, pushed liberal politicians at state level to crack down on drugs. California, Illinois, and New York passed the first mandatory minimums sentences for drug offenses; Congress soon followed with the Boggs Act of 1951, creating the first federal mandatory minimums for drugs;MAGAZINE, Lassiter, Matthew D., Dec 7, 2023, America's War on Drugs Has Always Been Bipartisan—and Unwinnable,weblink Dec 21, 2023, Time (magazine), Time, The modern drug war began in the 1950s, with liberals—not conservatives—leading the charge. In California, the epicenter of the early war on narcotics, white suburban grassroots movements prodded liberal politicians like Governor Pat Brown into action. They blamed “pushers,” usually perceived and depicted as people of color, and demanded that elected officials crack down on the drug supply. Legislators in California, Illinois, and New York responded by passing the nation’s first mandatory-minimum sentencing laws in an effort to save teenagers from these traffickers., BOOK, Courtwright, David T., :de:David Todd Courtwright, 1992, A Century of American Narcotic Policy,weblink Mar 13, 2024, National Academies Press, first-offense possession of cannabis carried a 2-10 year minimum and a fine of up to $20,000.NEWS, Marijuana timeline,weblink 2014-07-31, PBS, This marked a change in Congress's approach to mandatory minimums, increasing their number, severity, and the crimes they covered. According to the United States Sentencing Commission, reporting in 2012: "Before 1951, mandatory minimum penalties typically punished offenses concerning treason, murder, piracy, rape, slave trafficking, internal revenue collection, and counterfeiting. Today, the majority of convictions under statutes carrying mandatory minimum penalties relate to controlled substances, firearms, identity theft, and child sex offenses.".JOURNAL, United States Sentencing Commission, 2012, Report to Congress: Mandatory Minimum Penalties in the Federal Criminal Justice System,weblink Federal Sentencing Reporter, 24, 3, 28, As detailed herein, beginning in 1951, Congress changed how it used mandatory minimum penalties in three significant ways. First, Congress enacted more mandatory minimum penalties. Second, Congress expanded its use of mandatory minimum penalties to offenses not traditionally covered by such penalties. Before 1951, mandatory minimum penalties typically punished offenses concerning treason, murder, piracy, rape, slave trafficking, internal revenue collection, and counterfeiting. Today, the majority of convictions under statutes carrying mandatory minimum penalties relate to controlled substances, firearms, identity theft, and child sex offenses. Third, the mandatory minimum penalties most commonly used today are generally lengthier than mandatory minimum penalties in earlier eras., JSTOR, In 1961, the United Nations' Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs became the first of three UN treaties that together form the legal framework for international drug control, and prohibits member countries from enacting domestic laws that conflict with the treaties. The Single Convention unified existing international drug agreements,WEB, Hilotin-Lee, J.D., Lyle Therese A., October 20, 2023, The Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs,weblink Dec 15, 2023, FindLaw, and limited possession and use of opiates, cannabis and cocaine to “medicinal and scientific purposes", prohibiting recreational use. Sixty-four countries initially signed on; it was ratified and came into force in the US in 1967. The Convention on Psychotropic Substances of 1971 added synthetic, prescription and hallucinogenic drugs. The Convention against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances of 1988 required criminalization of possession for personal consumption. The Conventions are legally binding under the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (1969).WEB, Haase, Heather J., Eyle, Nicolas Edward, Schrimpf, Joshua Raymond, August 2012, The International Drug Control Treaties: How Important Are They to U.S. Drug Reform?,weblink live, Apr 24, 2024, New York City Bar Association (Committee on Drugs & the Law), WEB, Treaties,weblink Dec 15, 2023, United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, WEB, Conventions,weblink Dec 15, 2023, Transnational Institute, In 1968, President Lyndon B. Johnson (1963-1969) decided that the government needed to make an effort to curtail the social unrest that blanketed the country at the time. He decided to focus his efforts on illegal drug use, an approach that was in line with expert opinion on the subject at the time. In the 1960s, it was believed that at least half of the crime in the U.S. was drug-related, and this number grew as high as 90 percent in the next decade.James Inciardi, The War on Drugs IV, ed. 4. (Delaware: Pearson Allyn and Bacon, 2008), 286. He created the Reorganization Plan of 1968 which merged the Bureau of Narcotics and the Bureau of Drug Abuse Control to form the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs within the Department of Justice.Andrew B. Whitford and Jeffrey Yates, Presidential Rhetoric and the Public Agenda (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009), 40.The Richard Nixon presidency (1969-1974) did not back away from the anti-drug precedent set by his predecessor. In his 1968 presidential nominee acceptance speech, Nixon's tough-on-crime pledge promised, "Our new Attorney General will ... launch a war against organized crime in this country. ... will be an active belligerent against the loan sharks and the numbers racketeers that rob the urban poor. ... will open a new front against the filth peddlers and the narcotics peddlers who are corrupting the lives of the children of this country."WEB, Aug 30, 2008, "Law and Order" in Richard Nixon 1968 Presidential acceptance speech,weblink Jan 8, 2024, C-SPAN, WEB, Newell, Walker, 26 April 2013, The Legacy of Nixon, Reagan, and Horton: How The Tough On Crime Movement Enabled A New Regime Of Race Influenced Employment Discrimination,weblink Feb 8, 2024, Berkeley Journal of African-American Law & Policy, In a 1969 special message to Congress, he identified drug abuse as "a serious national threat".WEB, April 2, 2007, Timeline: America's War on Drugs,weblink Dec 5, 2023, NPR, BOOK, Payan, Tony, A War that Can't Be Won, Staudt, Kathleen, Kruszewski, Z. Anthony, University of Arizona Press, 2013, 180, On October 27, 1970, Nixon signed into law the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970, setting his approach to drug control. The Act largely repealed mandatory minimum sentences:JOURNAL, Gill, Molly M., Oct 2008, Correcting Course: Lessons from the 1970 Repeal of Mandatory Minimums,weblink Federal Sentencing Reporter, 21, 1, 55–67, 10.1525/fsr.2008.21.1.55, 10.1525/fsr.2008.21.1.55, JSTOR, simple possession was reduced from a felony to a misdemeanor, the first offense carried a maximum of one year in prison, and judges had the latitude to assign probation, parole or dismissal. Penalties for trafficking were increased, up to life depending on quantity and type of drug. Funding was authorized for the Department of Health, Education and Welfare to provide treatment, rehabilitation and education. Additional federal drug agents were provided, and a "no-knock" power was instituted, that allowed entry into homes without warning to prevent evidence from being destroyed. Licensing and stricter reporting and record-keeping for drug manufacturers and distributors would occur under the Act.WEB, Associated Press, October 28, 1970, Nixon Signs Drug Abuse Control Bill,weblink Dec 13, 2023, New York Times, Title II of Act, the Controlled Substances Act, established five drug Schedules, categories based on medical value and potential for abuse.Thirty Years of America's Drug War, a Chronology {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110224054034weblink|date=February 24, 2011}}. Frontline (U.S. TV series).Under the new drug categories, cannabis was provisionally placed in the most restrictive Schedule I, "until the completion of certain studies now underway to resolve the issue."WEB, Aggarwal, Sunil, 2010, Cannabis: A Commonwealth Medicinal Plant, Long Suppressed, Now at Risk of Monopolization,weblink live,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20151222161017weblink">weblink December 22, 2015, 13 December 2015, Denver University Law Review, Since there is still a considerable void in our knowledge of the plant and effects of the active drug contained in it, our recommendation is that marihuana be retained within schedule I at least until the completion of certain studies now underway to resolve the issue. If those studies make it appropriate for the Attorney General to change the placement of marihuana to a different schedule, he may do so in accordance with the authority provided under section 201 of the bill., Nixon appointed the National Commission on Marijuana and Drug Abuse, known as the Shafer Commission, to investigate. The Shafer report, "Marihuana: A Signal of Misunderstanding" (1972), combined a review of the medical literature and a national drug survey. It recommended decriminalization for personal possession and use of small amounts of cannabis, and prohibition of supply only. The conclusion was not acted on by Nixon or Congress.WEB, February 1, 2019, National Commission on Marijuana and Drug Abuse 1971 Poll,weblink Apr 16, 2024, Roper Center, WEB, Downs, David, Apr 19, 2016, The Science behind the DEA's Long War on Marijuana,weblink Apr 16, 2024, Scientific American,

1971–present: The "War on Drugs"

On May 27, 1971, after a trip to Vietnam, two congressmen, Morgan F. Murphy (Democrat) and Robert H. Steele (Republican), released a report describing a "rapid increase in heroin addiction within the United States military forces in South Vietnam". They estimated that "as many as 10 to 15 percent of our servicemen are addicted to heroin in one form or another."WEB, Murphy, Morgan F., Steele, Robert H., May 27, 1971, The World Heroin Problem,weblink Dec 14, 2023, Central Intelligence Agency, WGBH educational foundation. Interview with Dr. Robert Dupoint {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170905012229weblink|date=September 5, 2017}}. Pbs.org (February 18, 1970).Timeline: America's War on Drugs {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180329060119weblink|date=March 29, 2018}}. April 2, 2007. NPR. On June 6, a New York Times article, "It's Always A Dead End On 'Scag Alley'", cited the Murphy-Steele report in a discussion of heroin addiction. The article stated that, in the US, "the number of addicts is estimated at 200,000 to 250,000, only about one‐tenth of 1 per cent of the population but troublesome out of all proportion." It also noted, "Heroin is not the only drug problem in the United States. 'Speed' pills—among them, amphetamines—are another problem, and not least in the suburbs where they are taken by the housewife (to cure her of the daily 'blues') and by her husband (to keep his weight down)."WEB, Buckley, Tom, June 6, 1971, It's Always A Dead End on "Scag Alley",weblink Dec 14, 2023, New York Times, On June 17, 1971, Nixon presented to Congress a plan for expanded anti-drug abuse measures. He painted a dire picture: "Present efforts to control drug abuse are not sufficient in themselves. The problem has assumed the dimensions of a national emergency. ... If we cannot destroy the drug menace in America, then it will surely in time destroy us." His strategy involved both treatment and interdiction: "I am proposing the appropriation of additional funds to meet the cost of rehabilitating drug users, and I will ask for additional funds to increase our enforcement efforts to further tighten the noose around the necks of drug peddlers, and thereby loosen the noose around the necks of drug users." He singled out heroin and broadened the scope beyond the US: "To wage an effective war against heroin addiction, we must have international cooperation. In order to secure such cooperation, I am initiating a worldwide escalation in our existing programs for the control of narcotics traffic."WEB, Nixon, Richard, June 17, 1971, Special Message to the Congress on Drug Abuse Prevention and Control.,weblink Dec 13, 2023, UC Santa Barbara - The American Presidency Project, Later the same day, Nixon held a news conference at the White House, where he described drug abuse as "America's public enemy number one." He announced, "In order to fight and defeat this enemy, it is necessary to wage a new, all-out offensive. … This will be a worldwide offensive dealing with the problems of sources of supply ... It will be government wide, pulling together the nine different fragmented areas within the government in which this problem is now being handled, and it will be nationwide in terms of a new educational program." Nixon also stated that the problem wouldn't end with soldier addiction in the Vietnam War.WEB, Nixon, Richard, June 17, 1971, Remarks About an Intensified Program for Drug Abuse Prevention and Control,weblink Feb 22, 2024, The American Presidency Project, He pledged to ask Congress for a minimum of $350 million for the anti-drug effort (when he took office in 1969, the federal drug budget was $81 million).NEWS, Farber, David, June 17, 2021, The War on Drugs turns 50 today. It's time to make peace.,weblink Dec 12, 2023, Washington Post, The news media focused on Nixon's militaristic tone, describing his announcement with variations of the phrase "war on drugs". The day after Nixon's press conference, the Chicago Tribune proclaimed, "Nixon Declares War on Narcotics Use in US". In England, The Guardian headlined, "Nixon declares war on drug addicts." Drug control efforts came to be commonly referred to as the war on drugs.BOOK, Rosino, Michael, Debating the Drug War: Race, Politics, and the Media, January 2021, Routledge, 2021, 9781315295176, March 17, 2021, 4, Facing reelection with drug control as a campaign centerpiece, Nixon formed the Office of Drug Abuse Law Enforcement (ODALE) in late 1971. ODALE, armed with new federal enforcement powers, began orchestrating drug raids nationwide to improve the administration's watchdog reputation. In a private conversation while helicoptering over Brooklyn, Nixon was reported to have commented, "You and I care about treatment. But those people down there, they want those criminals off the streets." From 1972 to 1973, ODALE performed 6,000 drug arrests in 18 months, the majority of the arrested black.Whitford and Yates. Presidential Rhetoric and the Public Agenda 47In 1973, Nixon created the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) by executive order, accepted by Congress, to “establish a single unified command to combat an all-out global war on the drug menace.”WEB, Esquivel-Suárez, Fernando, August 23, 2018, The Global War on Drugs,weblink Feb 22, 2024, University of Virginia, It is charged with enforcing US controlled substances laws and regulations, nationally and internationally, coordinating with federal, state and local agencies and foreign governments, and has oversight over legally-produced controlled substances.WEB, Drug Enforcement Administration,weblink Apr 19, 2024, United States Department of Justice, December 6, 2022, The DEA absorbed the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs, ODALE, and other drug-related federal agencies or personnel from them.Decades later, a controversial quote attributed to John Ehrlichman, Nixon's domestic policy advisor, claimed that the war on drugs was fabricated to undermine the anti-war movement and African-Americans. In a 2016 Harper's cover story, Ehrlichman, who died in 1999,WEB, February 15, 1999, John D. Ehrlichman Dead At 73,weblink Jan 6, 2024, CBS News, was quoted from journalist Dan Baum's 1994 interview notes: "... 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."WEB, Dan Baum – Harper's Magazine,weblink live,weblink July 30, 2017, July 30, 2017, harpers.org, The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, 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. 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., WEB, Home – Dan Baum Writer,weblink live,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20170126153541weblink">weblink January 26, 2017, February 7, 2017, www.danbaum.com, WEB, Linkins, Jason, June 8, 2009, Dan Baum, Fired By New Yorker, Recounting His Story On Twitter,weblink live,weblink February 19, 2019, February 20, 2020, Huff Post, WEB, Lopez, German, March 22, 2016, Nixon official: real reason for the drug war was to criminalize black people and hippies,weblink live,weblink May 30, 2017, June 13, 2017, Vox, The quote was challenged by Ehrlichman's children,WEB, LoBianco, Tom, March 24, 2016, Report: Aide says Nixon's war on drugs targeted blacks, hippies,weblink Dec 19, 2023, CNN, Ehrlichman died in 1999, but his five children in questioned the veracity of the account. ... 'The 1994 alleged ‘quote’ we saw repeated in social media for the first time today does not square with what we know of our father. And collectively, that spans over 185 years of time with him. ... We do not subscribe to the alleged racist point of view that this writer now implies 22 years following the so-called interview of John and 16 years following our father’s death, when dad can no longer respond.', and Nixon-era officials.WEB, Hanson, Hilary, Mar 25, 2016, Nixon Aides Suggest Colleague Was Kidding About Drug War Being Designed To Target Black People,weblink Dec 19, 2023, HuffPost, [T]hree former Nixon aides say the quote just doesn’t sound like Ehrlichman, and if he did say it, he was mistaken. ... 'The comments being attributed to John Ehrlichman in recent news coverage about the Nixon administration's efforts to combat the drug crisis of the 1960's and 70's reflect neither our memory of John nor the administration's approach to that problem,' wrote Jeffrey Donfeld, Jerome H. Jaffe and Robert DuPont in a joint statement ..., In the end, the increasingly punitive reshaping of US drug policy by later administrations was most responsible for creating conditions such as Ehrlichman described.WEB, Lopez, German, Mar 29, 2016b, Was Nixon's war on drugs a racially motivated crusade? It's a bit more complicated.,weblink 2024-01-06, Vox, en, Ehrlichman's claim is likely an oversimplification, according to historians who have studied the period and Nixon's drug policies in particular. There's no doubt Nixon was racist, and ... race could have played one role in Nixon's drug war. ... he [also] personally despised drugs — to the point that it's not surprising he would want to rid the world of them. And there's evidence that Ehrlichman felt bitter and betrayed by Nixon after he spent time in prison over the Watergate scandal, so he may have lied. ... More importantly, Nixon's drug policies did not focus on the kind of criminalization that Ehrlichman described. Instead, Nixon's drug war was largely a public health crusade — one that would be reshaped into the modern, punitive drug war we know today by later administrations, particularly President Ronald Reagan., In a 2011 commentary, Robert DuPont, Nixon's drug czar, argued that Comprehensive Drug Abuse Act had rolled back mandatory minimum sentencing and balanced the "long-dominant law enforcement approach to drug policy, known as 'supply reduction'" with an "entirely new and massive commitment to prevention, intervention and treatment, known as 'demand reduction'", thus Nixon was not in fact the originator of what came to be called the "war on drugs".Global Commission on Drug Policy Offers Reckless, Vague Drug Legalization Proposal, Institute for Behavior and Health, Inc, July 12, 2011 {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110726165232weblink|date=July 26, 2011}}. (PDF). During Nixon's term, some 70% of anti-drug money was spent on demand-side public health measures, and 30% on supply-side interdiction and punishment, a situation reversed under subsequent administrations.{{Sfn|Lopez|2016b|ps="According to the federal government's budget numbers for anti-drug programs, the 'demand' side of the war on drugs (treatment, education, and prevention) consistently got more funding during Nixon's time in office (1969 to 1974) than the 'supply' side (law enforcement and interdiction). ... Historically, this is a commitment for treating drugs as a public health issue that the federal government has not replicated since the 1970s. (Although President Barack Obama's budget proposal would, for the first time in decades, put a majority of anti-drug spending on the demand side once again.)"}}WEB, The Editorial Board, Feb 22, 2023, America Has Lost the War On Drugs. What Now?,weblink New York Times, The war on drugs under the next two presidents, Gerald Ford (1974-1977) and Jimmy Carter (1977-1981), was essentially a continuation of their predecessors' policies. Carter's campaign platform included decriminalization of cannabis and an end to federal penalties for possession of up to one ounce. In a 1977 "Drug Abuse Message to the Congress", Carter stated, "Penalties against possession of a drug should not be more damaging to an individual than the use of the drug itself." None of his advocacy was translated into law.WEB, Sullum, Jacob, Jun 17, 2011, Did Jimmy Carter End the War on Drugs?,weblink Dec 19, 2023, Reason (magazine), Reason, WEB, Carter, Jimmy, August 2, 1977, Drug Abuse Message to the Congress,weblink Dec 19, 2023, The American Presidency Project - UC Santa Barbara,

Reagan escalation, crack crackdown, and "Just Say No"

The presidency of Ronald Reagan (1981-1989) saw an increase in federal focus on interdiction and prosecution. Shortly after his inauguration, Reagan announced, "We're taking down the surrender flag that has flown over so many drug efforts; we're running up a battle flag."Whitford and Yates. Presidential Rhetoric and the Public Agenda, 58. From 1980 to 1984, the federal annual budget of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) drug enforcement units went from eight million to 95 million.BOOK, Beckett, Katherine, Making Crime Pay: Law and Order in Contemporary American Politics, 1997, Oxford University Press, 0195136268, 1999 Revised, London, 52–53, 167, BOOK, 98th Congress, 1st Session, Federal Budget of United States Government, 1984, Federal Reserve of Saint Louis, 451, In 1982, Vice President George H. W. Bush and his aides began pushing for the involvement of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and US military in drug interdiction efforts.Scott and Marshall, 1991: p. 2Early in the Reagan term, First Lady Nancy Reagan, with the help of an advertising agency, began her youth-oriented "Just Say No" anti-drug campaign. Propelled by the First Lady's tireless promotional efforts through the 1980s, "Just Say No" entered the American vernacular. Later research found that the campaign had little or no impact on youth drug use.WEB, Stuart, Tessa, Mar 7, 2016, Pop-Culture Legacy of Nancy Reagan's 'Just Say No' Campaign,weblink Dec 29, 2023, Rolling Stone (magazine), Rolling Stone, WEB, Lilienfeld, Scott O., Arkowitz, Hal, Jan 1, 2014, Why "Just Say No" Doesn't Work,weblink Dec 29, 2023, Scientific American, WEB, Aug 21, 2018, Just Say No,weblink Dec 29, 2023, History.com, One striking change attributed to the effort: public perception of drug abuse as America's most serious problem, in the 2-6% range in 1985, rose to 64% in 1989.WEB, Tarricone, Jackson, Sep 10, 2020, Richard Nixon and the Origins of the War on Drugs,weblink Jan 17, 2024, Boston Political Review, In January 1982, Reagan established the cabinet-level South Florida Task Force, chaired by Bush, targeting a surge of cocaine and cannabis entering the US through the region, particularly Miami—an estimated 65-70% of the American cocaine supply—and the sharp rise in related crime. It was the "most ambitious and expensive drug enforcement operation" in US history, involving the DEA, Customs Service, the FBI and other agencies, and ships and planes from the Army, Navy, Air Force and Coast Guard. Critics called the initiative an election year political stunt. By 1986, the task force had made over 15,000 arrests and seized over six million pounds of cannabis and 100,000 pounds of cocaine, doubling cocaine seizures annually—using such statistics, administration officials called it Reagan's biggest drug enforcement success. At the same time, that year, federal and state agency officials said their impact was minimal, and that cocaine imports had increased in that period, to 75-80% of America's supply. According to the DEA agent heading the task force's investigative unit, "Law enforcement just can't stop the drugs from coming in. We're just not able to do it." A Bush spokesperson said, "We measure success by how much we can disrupt the smuggler and deny him his preferred routes of entry, not by how much we catch." WEB, Brinkley, Joel, Sep 4, 1986, 4-Year Fight in Florida 'Just Can't Stop Drugs',weblink live, Apr 24, 2024, New York Times, WEB, Pincus, Walter, October 7, 1982, War on Florida Drug Smugglers Is Costly, Political, Makes a Dent,weblink live, Apr 24, 2024, Washington Post, WEB, President's Commission on Organized Crime, 1986, America's Habit: Drug Abuse, Drug Trafficking, & Organized Crime—Chapter V Drug Enforcement, Policy, and Reducing Drug Demand,weblink live, Apr 24, 2024, Shaffer Library of Drug Policy, In 1984, Reagan signed the Comprehensive Crime Control Act, which included harsher penalties for cannabis cultivation, possession, and distribution, and established equitable sharing, a new civil asset forfeiture program that allowed state and local law enforcement to share the proceeds from asset seizures made in collaboration with federal agencies.WEB, Thurmond, Strom, S.1762 – 98th Congress (1983–1984): Comprehensive Crime Control Act of 1984,weblink www.congress.gov, 26 June 2019, 25 September 1984,weblink June 27, 2019, live, WEB, JOHN ENDERS (ASSOCIATED PRESS), April 18, 1993, Forfeiture Law Casts a Shadow on Presumption of Innocence : Legal system: Government uses the statute to seize money and property believed to be linked to narcotics trafficking. But critics say it short-circuits the Constitution.,weblink October 11, 2014, Los Angeles Times, ....Prosecutors and law enforcement officials insist the program, included in the Comprehensive Crime Control Act of 1984, is helping them fight the drug war. ... seizures hurt dealers where it counts--in the pocketbook...., Under the controversial program, up to 80% of seizure proceeds can go to local law enforcement, and most of it does, expanding their budgets. {{As of|2019|pre=By|bare=yes}}, $36.5 billion worth of assets had been seized, much of it drug-related.WEB, Freivogel, William, Feb 18, 2019, No Drugs, No Crime and Just Pennies for School: How Police Use Civil Asset Forfeiture,weblink Feb 13, 2024, Pulitzer Center, As the media focused on the emergence of crack cocaine in the early 1980s, the Reagan administration shored up negative public opinion, encouraging the DEA to play up the harmful effects of the drug. Stories of "crack whores" and "crack babies" became commonplace.Michelle Alexander. The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. (New York: The New Press, 2010), 51. In the summer of 1986, crack dominated the news. Time declared crack the issue of the year. Newsweek compared the magnitude of the crack story to Vietnam and Watergate.WEB, Gelber, Jonathan, 29 Jun 2021, How Len Bias's death helped launch the US's unjust war on drugs,weblink Dec 18, 2023, The Guardian, The cocaine overdose deaths of rising basketball star Len Bias, and young NFL football player Don Rogers,Rogers' death is a second warning both in June, received wide coverage. Riding the wave of public fervor, that October Reagan signed into law much harsher sentencing for crack through the Anti-Drug Abuse Act, commonly known as the Len Bias law.Whitford and Yates. Presidential Rhetoric and the Public Agenda, 61. According to historian Elizabeth Hinton, "[Reagan] led Congress in criminalizing drug users, especially African American drug users, by concentrating and stiffening penalties for the possession of the crystalline rock form of cocaine, known as 'crack', rather than the crystallized methamphetamine that White House officials recognized was as much of a problem among low-income white Americans".Hinton, Elizabeth. "From the War on Crime to the War on Drugs". From the War on Poverty to the War on Crime: the Making of Mass Incarceration in America, by Elizabeth Hinton, Harvard University Press, 2017, pp. 307–332.The Anti-Drug Abuse Act appropriated an additional $1.7 billion to drug war funding, and established 29 new mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenses (until then, the American legal system had seen 55 minimum sentences in total).Jesse Ventura. American Conspiracies (New York: Skyshore Publishing, 2010), 117. Of particular note, the Act made sentences for larger amounts of cocaine 100 times more severe for crack than for the powder form. With the 100:1 ratio, conviction in federal court for possession of 5 grams of crack would receive the same 5-year mandatory minimum as possession of 500 grams of powder cocaine.BOOK, Elsner, Alan,weblink Gates of Injustice: The Crisis in America's Prisons, Financial Times Prentice Hall, 2004, 978-0-13-142791-4, Saddle River, New Jersey, 20, Debate at the time considered whether crack, generally used by blacks, was more addictive than the powder form, generally used by whites, comparing the effects of snorting powder cocaine with the briefer, more intense high from smoking crack;JOURNAL, Hatsukami, DK, Fischman, MW, Nov 20, 1996, Crack cocaine and cocaine hydrochloride. Are the differences myth or reality? JAMA. 1996 Nov 20;276(19):1580-8. PMID: 8918856.,weblink JAMA, 276, 19, 1580–1588, 10.1001/jama.1996.03540190052029, 8918856, Jan 29, 2024, Cocaine hydrochloride is readily converted to base prior to use. The physiological and psychoactive effects of cocaine are similar regardless of whether it is in the form of cocaine hydrochloride or crack cocaine (cocaine base). However, evidence exists showing a greater abuse liability, greater propensity for dependence, and more severe consequences when cocaine is smoked (cocaine-base) or injected intravenously (cocaine hydrochloride) compared with intranasal use (cocaine hydrochloride). The crucial variables appear to be the immediacy, duration, and magnitude of cocaine's effect, as well as the frequency and amount of cocaine used rather than the form of the cocaine. Furthermore, cocaine hydrochloride used intranasally may be a gateway drug or behavior to using crack cocaine., pharmacologically, there is no difference between the two.WEB, Cocaine and crack drug profile,weblink Jan 29, 2024, European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction, According to the DEA, at first crack "was not fully appreciated as a major threat because it was primarily being consumed by middle class users who were not associated with cocaine addicts ... However, partly because crack sold for as little as $5 a rock, it ultimately spread to less affluent neighborhoods."WEB, 2006-08-23, DEA History Book, 1985 - 1990,weblink live,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20060823024931weblink">weblink August 23, 2006, 2024-01-29, Drug Enforcement Administration, Support for Reagan's drug crime legislation was bipartisan. According to Hinton, Democrats supported his legislation as they had since the Johnson administration, though Reagan was a Republican.Internationally, the Reagan term saw a massive increase in US military anti-drug activity in other countries. The Department of Defense budget for interdiction increased from $4.9 million in 1982 to $397 million by 1987. The DEA also expanded its presence on foreign soil. Countries were encouraged to adopt the same sort of punitive drug approach in place in the US, with the threat of economic sanctions for non-compliance. The UN Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs treaty provided a legal framework, and in 1988, the Convention against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances expanded that framework, working the US-style punitive approach into international law.BOOK, Buxton, Julia, The Impact of Global Drug Policy on Women: Shifting the Needle, Burger, Lona, Emerald Publishing, 2020, 978-1-83982-885-0, 9–22, International Drug Policy in Context, 10.1108/978-1-83982-882-920200003,

Hard line maintained and a new opioid crisis

Next to occupy the Oval Office, Reagan protégé and former VP George H. W. Bush (1989-1993) maintained the hard line drawn by his predecessor and former boss. In his first prime-time address to the nation, Bush held up a plastic bag of crack "seized a few days ago in a park across the street from the White House" (turned out that DEA agents had to lure the seller to Lafayette Park to make the requested arrest).NEWS, Isikoff, Michael, Sep 22, 1989, Drug Buy Set Up For Bush Speech,weblink Dec 12, 2023, Washington Post, The administration increased narcotics regulation in the first National Drug Control Strategy, issued by the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) in 1989.Tonry. Malign Neglect – Race, Crime and Punishment in America, 91. The director of ONDCP became commonly known as the US drug czar.File:Fuerza del Estado Michoacán.jpg|thumb|right|Mexican troops during a gun battle in Michoacán, 2007. Mexico's drug warMexico's drug warAs president, Bill Clinton (1993-2001) dramatically raised the stakes for drug felonies with his signing of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994. The Act introduced the federal "three-strikes" provision that mandated life imprisonment for violent offenders with two prior convictions for violent crimes or drugs, and provided billions of dollars in funding for states to expand their prison systems and increase law enforcement.WEB, Farley, Robert, April 12, 2016, Bill Clinton and the 1994 Crime Bill,weblink Dec 21, 2023, FactCheck.org, During this period, state and local government initiated controversial drug legislation, policies that demonstrated racial biases such as the stop-and-frisk police practice in New York City, and state-level "three strikes" felony laws, which began in California in 1994.Michelle Alexander. The New Jim Crow – Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, 92During the 1990s, opioid use in the US dramatically rose, leading to the ongoing, commonly called opioid epidemic. A loose consensus of observers describe three key stages to date: overprescription of legal opioids beginning in the early to mid-1990s, a rise in heroin use, and the introduction of fentanyl and other synthetics.JOURNAL, Pembleton, Matthew R., Weimer, Daniel, US Foreign Relations and the New Drug History,weblink The Social History of Alcohol and Drugs, 2019, University of Chicago Press, 33, 1, 4–12, 10.1086/702690, The George W. Bush (2001-2009) administration maintained the hard line approach.Whitford and Yates. Presidential Rhetoric and the Public Agenda. 72 In a TV interview in February 2001, Bush's new Attorney General, John Ashcroft, said about the war on drugs, "I want to renew it. I want to refresh it, relaunch it if you will." In 2001, after 9/11 and the Patriot Act, the DEA began promoting the tie between drug trafficking and international terrorism, gaining the agency expanded funding to increase its global presence.WEB, Beith, Malcolm, August 29, 2016, The DEA's war on narco-terrorism just got more complicated,weblink Feb 13, 2024, Vice (magazine), Vice,

Growing dissent and state-level changes

File:World prison population 2008.svg|thumb|300px|The US incarceration rate peaked in 2008. The US rate was the highest in the world in 2008. Chart is for prisoners per 100,000 population of all ages.Walmsley, Roy (30 Jan 2009). World Prison Population List (8th Edition). From World Prison Population Lists. By World Prison Brief. "The information is the latest available in early December 2008. … Most figures relate to dates between the beginning of 2006 and the end of November 2008." According to the summary on page one there were 2.29 million U.S. inmates and 9.8 million inmates worldwide. The U.S. held 23.4% of the world's inmates. The U.S. total in this report is for December 31, 2007 (see page 3), and does not include inmates in juvenile detention facilities.Correctional Populations in the United States, 2016 (NCJ 251211). Published April 2018 by (U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics]] (BJS). By Danielle Kaeble and Mary Cowhig, BJS statisticians. See PDF. Appendix table 1 on page 11 has rates and counts by state. See page 1 "highlights" section for the "1 in ..." numbers. See table 4 on page 4 for a timeline of nationwide incarceration rates. See appendix table 3 on page 13, for "Persons held in custody in state or federal prisons or in local jails, 2000, 2010, and 2015–2016". That table also has incarceration rates. See appendix table 2 on page 12 for the number or persons incarcerated in territorial prisons, military facilities, and jails in Indian country.)File:US timeline graphs of number of people incarcerated in jails and prisons.png|thumb|300px|US timeline graphs of number of people incarcerated in jails and prisonsJacob Kang-Brown, Chase Montagnet, and Jasmine Heiss. People in Jail and Prison in Spring 2021. New York: Vera Institute of JusticeVera Institute of JusticeIn the summer of 2001, a report by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), "The Drug War is the New Jim Crow", tied the vastly disproportionate rate of African American incarceration to the range of rights lost once convicted. It stated that, while "whites and blacks use drugs at almost exactly the same rates ... African-Americans are admitted to state prisons at a rate that is 13.4 times greater than whites, a disparity driven largely by the grossly racial targeting of drug laws." Between federal and state laws, those convicted of even simple possession could lose the right to vote, eligibility for educational assistance including loans and work-study programs, custody of their children, and personal property including homes. The report concluded that the cumulative affect of the war on drugs amounted to "the US apartheid, the new Jim Crow".WEB, Boyd, Graham, 2001, The Drug War Is the New Jim Cro,weblink American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), This view was further developed by lawyer and civil rights advocate Michelle Alexander in her 2010 book, (The New Jim Crow|The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness).NEWS, Remnick, David, Ten Years After 'The New Jim Crow.', The New Yorker, 17 January 2020,weblink In the year 2000, the US drug-control budget reached $18.4 billion,Alter, Jonathan. "The War on Addiction". Newsweek, February 12, 2001, pp. 37–43 nearly half of which was spent financing law enforcement while only one-sixth was spent on treatment. In the year 2003, 53% of the requested drug control budget was for enforcement, 29% for treatment, and 18% for prevention.How Goes the "War on Drugs": An Assessment of U.S. Drug Problems and Policy. RAND Corporation Drug Policy Research Center, 2005 The state of New York, in particular, designated 17% of its budget towards substance-abuse-related spending. Of that, 1% was put towards prevention, treatment, and research.{{Citation needed|date=March 2024}}During his time in office, Barack Obama (2009-2017) implemented a "tough but smart" approach to the war on drugs. While he claimed that his method differed from those of previous presidents, in reality, his practices were similar.Lassiter, Matthew. "'Tough and Smart' The Resilience of the War on Drugs During the Obama Administration." The Presidency of Barack Obama: A First Historical Assessment, edited by Julian E. Zelizer, Princeton University Press, 2018, pp. 162–178. In May 2009, Gil Kerlikowske, Director of the ONDCP{{snd}}Obama's drug czar{{snd}}indicated that the Obama administration did not plan to significantly alter drug enforcement policy, but that it would not use the term "war on drugs", considering it to be "counter-productive".NEWS, Fields, Gary, May 14, 2009, White House Czar Calls for End to 'War on Drugs', The Wall Street Journal,weblink live, May 14, 2009,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20150101124834weblink">weblink January 1, 2015, In August 2010, Obama signed the Fair Sentencing Act into law, reducing the 100:1 sentencing disparity between crack and powder cocaine to 18:1 for pending and future cases.WEB, Lampe, Joanna R., January 19, 2023, The Controlled Substances Act (CSA): A Legal Overview for the 118th Congress,weblink Mar 28, 2024, Congressional Research Service, 43, "The Fair Sentencing Act corrects a long-time wrong in cocaine cases" {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171120014727weblink|date=November 20, 2017}}, The Washington Post, August 3, 2010. Retrieved September 30, 2010.Bill Summary & Status – 111th Congress (2009–2010) – S.1789 – All Information – THOMAS (Library of Congress) {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140922214716weblink|date=September 22, 2014}}. Thomas.loc.gov. In 2013, Obama's Justice Department issued a policy memorandum known as the Cole Memo, stating that it would defer to state laws that authorize the production, distribution and possession of cannabis, "based on assurances that those states will impose an appropriately strict regulatory system."WEB, Avery, Dan, May 31, 2023, Where Is Marijuana Legal? Cannabis Laws in Every State,weblink live, Apr 21, 2024, CNET, WEB, August 29, 2013, Justice Department Announces Update to Marijuana Enforcement Policy,weblink live, Apr 21, 2024, US Department of Justice, In 2011, the Global Commission on Drug Policy, an international non-governmental group composed primarily of former heads of state and government, released a report that stated, "The global war on drugs has failed." It recommended a paradigm shift, to a public health focus, with decriminalization for possession and personal use.WEB, War on Drugs: Report of the Global Commission on Drug Policy,weblink Obama's ONDCP did not support the report, stating: "Drug addiction is a disease that can be successfully prevented and treated. Making drugs more available ... will make it harder to keep our communities healthy and safe."File:Attorney General Harris Tours U.S.-Mexico Border N2063 border 3 0.jpg|thumb|California Attorney General Kamala Harris visiting the U.S.–Mexico border on March 24, 2011, to discuss strategies to combat drug carteldrug cartelIn May 2012, the ONDCP published "Principles of Modern Drug Policy", broadly focusing on public health, human rights, and criminal justice reform, while targeting drug traffickers.Principles of Modern Drug Policy {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170123192527weblink |date=January 23, 2017 }}. Whitehouse.gov. According to ONDCP director Kerlikowske, drug legalization is not the "silver bullet" solution to drug control, and success is not measured by the number of arrests made or prisons built.Statement of the Government of the United States of America World Federation Against Drugs 3rd World Forum, May 21, 2012, Stockholm, Sweden {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170123192355weblink |date=January 23, 2017 }}. Whitehouse.gov (September 21, 2012). That month, a joint statement, "For a humane and balanced drug policy", was signed by Italy, Russia, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the US, promoting a combination of "enforcement to restrict the supply of drugs, with efforts to reduce demand and build recovery."Joint statement For a humane and balanced drug policy, Stockholm 20 May 2012 {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160109132326weblink |date=January 9, 2016 }} Meanwhile, at the state level, 2012 saw Colorado and Washington become the first two states to legalize the recreational use of cannabis with the passage of Amendment 64 and Initiative 502.NEWS, Coffman, Keith, Neroulias, Nicole, November 6, 2012, Colorado, Washington first states to legalize recreational pot, Reuters,weblink February 9, 2018, A 2013 ACLU report declared the anti-marijuana crusade a "war on people of color". The report found that "African Americans [were] 3.73 times more likely than whites to be apprehended despite nearly identical usage rates, and marijuana violations accounting for more than half of drug arrests nationwide during the previous decade". Under Obama's policies, nonwhite drug offenders received less excessive criminal sanctions, but by examining criminals as strictly violent or nonviolent, mass incarceration persisted.In March 2016, the International Narcotics Control Board stated that the UN's international drug treaties do not mandate a "war on drugs" and that the choice is not between "'militarized' drug law enforcement on one hand and the legalization of non-medical use of drugs on the other", health and welfare should be the focus of drug policy.INCB Report 2015 {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170426031831weblink |date=April 26, 2017 }} United Nations Information Service 2.3.2016. That April, the UN General Assembly Special Session (UNGASS) on the "World Drug Problem" was held.WEB, 2016, 30th Special Session of the General Assembly on the World Drug Problem, 19-21 April 2016, New York,weblink Apr 9, 2024, United Nations, The Wall Street Journal assessed the attendees' positions as "somewhat" in two camps: "Some European and South American countries as well as the U.S. favored softer approaches. Eastern countries such as China and Russia and most Muslim nations like Iran, Indonesia and Pakistan remained staunchly opposed."Fassihi, Farnaz, "U.N. Conference on Drugs Ends Without Shift in Policy", Wall Street Journal, April 22, 2016. Retrieved 2016-04-25. The outcome document recommended treatment, prevention and other public health measures, and committed to "intensifying our efforts to prevent and counter" drug production and trafficking, through, "inter alia, more effective drug-related crime prevention and law enforcement measures."WEB, 2016, Outcome Document of the 2016 United Nations General Assembly Special Session on the World Drug Problem,weblink Apr 9, 2024, United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, "Public Statement by the Global Commission on Drug Policy on UNGASS 2016", Press release, April 21, 2016. Retrieved 2016-04-25.Under President Donald Trump (2017-2021), Attorney General Jeff Sessions reversed the previous Justice Department's cannabis policies, rescinding the Cole Memo that deferred federal enforcement in states where cannabis had been legalized{{citation |author=Laura Jarrett |title=Sessions to nix Obama-era rules leaving states alone that legalize pot |date=January 4, 2018 |url=http://www.cnn.com/2018/01/04/politics/jeff-sessions-cole-memo/index.html |publisher=CNN}} He instructed federal prosecutors to “charge and pursue the most serious, readily provable offense” in drug cases, regardless of whether mandatory minimum sentences applied, which could trigger mandatory minimums for lower-level charges.WEB, May 12, 2017, Jeff Sessions enacts harsher sentencing and charges in criminal justice overhaul,weblink live, Apr 21, 2024, The Guardian, WEB, Beckett, Lois, Aug 21, 2017, How Jeff Sessions and Donald Trump have restarted the war on drugs,weblink Jan 14, 2024, The Guardian, MAGAZINE, Laslo, Matt, January 19, 2018, Pot Showdown: How Congress Is Uniting to Stop Jeff Sessions' War on Drugs,weblink Jan 14, 2024, Rolling Stone, With cannabis legalized to some degree in over 30 states, Sessions' directive was seen by both Democrats and Republicans as a rogue throwback action, and there was a bipartisan outcry. Trump fired Sessions in 2018, over other issues.WEB, November 8, 2018, Trump fires Attorney General Jeff Sessions,weblink Jan 14, 2024, BBC,

Some policy reversal attempts and successes

In 2018, Trump signed into law the First Step Act which, among other federal prison reforms, made the 2010 Fair Sentencing Act retroactive. A US Supreme Court decision in 2021 determined that retroactivity applied to cases where mandatory minimum penalties had been imposed.{{Sfn|Lampe|2023|p=44}}In 2020, both the ACLU and the New York Times reported that Republicans and Democrats were in agreement that it was time to end the war on drugs. While on the presidential campaign trail, President Joe Biden (2020–present) stated that he would take the steps to alleviate the war on drugs and end the opioid epidemic.WEB, Ofer, Udi, 6 January 2021, 50 Years Into the War on Drugs, Biden-Harris Can Fix the Harm It Created,weblink American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), NEWS, Nicholas, Kristof, 2020-11-07, Republicans and Democrats Agree: End the War on Drugs, The New York Times,weblink live, subscription,weblink 2021-06-28, On December 4, 2020, during the Trump administration, the House of Representatives passed the Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement Act (MORE Act), which would decriminalize cannabis at the federal level by removing it from the list of scheduled substances, expunge past convictions and arrests, and tax cannabis to "reinvest in communities targeted by the war on drugs".WEB, Apr 1, 2022, Summary: H.R.3617 — 117th Congress (2021-2022),weblink Jan 28, 2024, Congress.gov, The MORE Act was received in the Senate in December 2020 where it remained.Nadler, Jerrold. "H.R.3884 – 116th Congress (2019–2020): MORE Act of 2020." Congress.gov, 7 Dec. 2020, www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/3884. {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210210093633weblink |date=February 10, 2021 }} In April 2022, the Act was again passed by the House, and awaits Senate action.WEB, Adams, Benjamin M., Apr 1, 2022, U.S. House Passes MORE Act To Decriminalize Cannabis at the Federal Level,weblink Mar 17, 2024, High Times, Over time, states in the US have approached drug liberalization at a varying pace. Initially, in the 1930s, the states were ahead of the federal government in prohibiting cannabis; in recent decades, the trend has reversed. {{As of|2023|September}}, over 30 states had decriminalized or legalized cannabis, split about equally between recreational and medical-only use. Decriminalization in this context usually refers to first-time offenses and small quantities, such as, in the case of cannabis, under an ounce (28g).WEB, September 23, 2020, Decriminalization of marijuana in the United States,weblink Dec 21, 2023, Leafly, In November 2020, Oregon became the first state to decriminalize a number of drugs, including heroin, methamphetamine, PCP, LSD and oxycodone, shifting from a criminal approach to a public health approach;NEWS, Selsky, Andrew, November 4, 2020, Oregon leads the way in decriminalizing hard drugs,weblink live,weblink November 22, 2020, December 1, 2020, Associated Press News, Salem, Oregon, NEWS, 3 November 2020, Oregon Measure 110 Election Results: Decriminalize Some Drugs and Provide Treatment,weblink live,weblink 2 February 2021, 4 November 2020, The New York Times, portions of that policy were reversed in April 2024.WEB, Campbell, Josh, April 1, 2024, Oregon governor signs drug re-criminalization bill, reversing voter ballot measure,weblink Apr 19, 2024, CNN, In 2022, Biden signed into law the Medical Marijuana and Cannabidiol Research Expansion Act, to allow cannabis to be more easily researched for medical purposes. It is the first standalone cannabis reform bill enacted at the federal level.NEWS, Wadman, Meredith, December 2, 2022, New U.S. law promises to light up marijuana research, Science Magazine,weblink December 3, 2022, NEWS, Jaeger, Kyle, December 2, 2022, Biden Signs Marijuana Research Bill, A Historic First For Federal Cannabis Reform, Marijuana Moment,weblink December 3, 2022, NEWS, Natalie, Fertig, November 16, 2022, Congress sends first weed bill to Biden, Politico,weblink Passage of the legislation signaled a new era in federal cannabis policy: It's the first standalone marijuana-related bill approved by both chambers of Congress., That October, Biden stated on social media, "We classify marijuana at the same level as heroin – and more serious than fentanyl. It makes no sense," and pledged to start a review by the Attorney General on how cannabis is classified.WEB, Sinclair, Sarah, Jan 18, 2024, DEA Considers Rescheduling Cannabis: What This Means For U.S. And Global Policy,weblink Mar 16, 2024, Forbes, On October 6, he pardoned all those with federal convictions for simple cannabis possession, and urged state governments, where the large majority of convictions rest, to do the same. His action affected 6,500 people convicted from 1992 to 2021, and thousands convicted in the District of Columbia.WEB, Hutzler, Alexandra, Gomez, Justin, October 6, 2022, Biden announces pardons for thousands convicted of federal marijuana possession,weblink Apr 10, 2024, ABC News,

The War continues, focus on fentanyl

In 2023, the US State Department announced plans to launch a "global coalition to address synthetic drug threats", with more than 80 countries expected to join.WEB, Paun, Carmen, Schumaker, Erin, Leonard, Ben, Wanted: A united front against opioids,weblink POLITICO, en, 6 July 2023, WEB, Wilkinson, Tracy, Biden administration to launch global coalition to fight fentanyl,weblink Los Angeles Times, 7 July 2023, WEB, Assistant Secretary for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Todd D. Robinson On the Secretary's Participation in a Virtual Ministerial to Launch the Global Coalition to Address Synthetic Drug Threats,weblink www.state.gov, That April, Anne Milgram, head of the DEA since 2021, stated to Congress that two Mexican drug cartels posed "the greatest criminal threat the United States has ever faced." Supporting a DEA budget request of $3.7 billion for 2024, Milgram cited fentanyl in the "most devastating drug crisis in our nation’s history."WEB, MND Staff, April 28, 2023, DEA: 2 Mexican cartels pose 'greatest criminal threat' ever faced by the US,weblink Dec 21, 2023, Mexico News Daily, WEB, Milgram, Anne, Apr 27, 2023, Fiscal Year 2024 Request for the Drug Enforcement Administration,weblink Dec 21, 2023, Drug Enforcement Administration, In January 2024, the DEA confirmed that it was reviewing the classification of cannabis as a Schedule I narcotic. Days later, documents were released from the Department of Health and Human Services stating that cannabis has "a currently accepted medical use” in the US and a “potential for abuse less than the drugs or other substances in Schedules I and II." As of {{As of|2024|April|bare=yes}}, Schedule I drugs, considered most dangerous, with highest abuse potential and no medical use, include heroin, LSD, peyote, ecstasy and cannabis; Schedule II includes cocaine, oxycodone, fentanyl, methamphetamine and Adderall.

Foreign operations

File:Colpolwpowell.png|thumb|Colin Powell, then the United States Secretary of State, visiting Colombia in the early 2000s as part of the United States' support of Plan ColombiaWEB, Colombia Program At-A-Glance,weblink live,weblink January 9, 2016, October 20, 2015, usaid.gov, United States Agency for International Development, NEWS, Bennett, Brian, June 9, 2011, U.S. can't justify its drug war spending, reports say, Los Angeles Times,weblink live, February 20, 2020,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20180912225040weblink">weblink September 12, 2018, WEB, Drug War Clock,weblinkweblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20110810163837weblink">weblink 10 August 2011, 29 November 2021, DrugSense, NEWS, Vulliamy, Ed, April 3, 2011, How a big US bank laundered billions from Mexico's murderous drug gangs, The Guardian, London,weblink live, December 18, 2016,weblink December 22, 2016, NEWS, Spak, Kevin, 9 June 2011, Congress: US Wasting Billions in War on Drugs, NewserNewserDuring the 1970s, the US treated drugs as a policing issue in foreign countries. Billions of dollars were given to support anti-drug activity by police forces in Latin American countries, including Colombia, Peru and Bolivia. Beginning in the 1980s, the US increasingly involved the military and private security firms, to provide training and support to armed forces in drug-producing and transit countries.WEB, June 2023, Militarization and privatization of security: From the War on Drugs to the fight against organized crime in Latin America,weblink Dec 31, 2023, International Review of the Red Cross, Scholars have claimed that the war on drugs, a metaphorical war, is propaganda cloaking an extension of earlier military or paramilitary operations. Others have argued that large amounts anti-drug foreign aid money, training, and equipment actually goes to fighting leftist insurgencies and is often provided to groups who themselves are involved in large-scale narco-trafficking, such as corrupt members of the Colombian military.Foreign operations in the war on drugs initially focused on Latin America, and expanded globally over time. {{As of|2024}}, the DEA has, in addition to 241 domestic offices, 93 foreign offices in 69 countries.WEB, 2024, Divisions,weblink Feb 21, 2024, Drug Enforcement Administration,

Latin America

In 2021, Gustavo Gorriti, journalist and founder of corruption-focused IDL-Reporteros news media, wrote a scathing editorial in the Washington Post on the impact of 50 years of the war on drugs on Latin America. He described the flow of drugs to the US as an "unstoppable industry" that triggered an economic revolution throughout the region, where the illegal drug trade with its high profit margins far exceeded the potential of legitimate businesses. Corruption among politicians and anti-drug forces soared, even as those in charge were "cultivating close relationships with U.S. enforcement and intelligence agencies." An underclass of poor farmers became economic hostages, depending on drug crops for their survival. The big winners were "the systems built to wage a fight that they soon realized would have no end. ... [The war on drugs] became a source for endless resources, inflated budgets, contracts, purchase orders, power, influence — new economies battling drug trafficking but also dependent on it."NEWS, Gorriti, Gustavo, June 14, 2021, It's time to end five decades of strategic fallacy,weblink Jan 6, 2024, Washington Post, When, 50 years ago, President Richard M. Nixon declared drug abuse 'America’s public enemy number one' and called for 'an all-out offensive' to defeat it, he mobilized an army of disparate bureaucracies that quickly became ensnared in an inadequate and ineffective metaphor (defeat the 'enemy'). ... The war narrative prevailed, and the biggest winners were the systems built to wage a fight that they soon realized would have no end — but this was a good thing: It became a source for endless resources, inflated budgets, contracts, purchase orders, power, influence — new economies battling drug trafficking but also dependent on it. ... The booming market of potentially dangerous substances flowing from Latin America to the United States became an unstoppable industry. Starting in the mid-1970s, it triggered an economic revolution in the region. ... became a growth sector that put all export industries to shame. ... pioneered a capitalist revolution ... triggering vast inequality and violence. ... The clandestine nature of the industry and its high profit margins elevated political corruption to new heights. There are many examples across the region of those charged with fighting drug trafficking who ended up profiting from it, all while cultivating close relationships with U.S. enforcement and intelligence agencies. ... Beneath ... lies a vast foundation: the cocaine proletariat, farmers from Peru, Bolivia, Colombia, who depend on the crops for survival. Poverty binds them to an industry that offers liquidity and consistent returns, but that also devalues their rights and lives., At a meeting in Guatemala in 2012, three former presidents from Guatemala, Mexico and Colombia said that the war on drugs had failed and that they would propose a discussion on alternatives, including decriminalization, at the Summit of the Americas in April of that year.NEWS, March 31, 2012, Politics this week, The Economist,weblink live, April 2, 2012,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20120402040340weblink">weblink April 2, 2012, Guatemalan President Otto Pérez Molina said that the war on drugs was exacting too high a price on the lives of Central Americans and that it was time to "end the taboo on discussing decriminalization".BBC News – Guatemala's president urges debate on drug legalisation {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190706154837weblink|date=July 6, 2019}}. Bbc.co.uk (March 25, 2012). At the summit, the government of Colombia pushed for far-reaching changes to drugs policy, citing the catastrophic effects of the war on drugs in Colombia.NEWS, Vulliamy, Ed, April 15, 2012, Colombia calls for global drugs taskforce, The Observer,weblink live, April 15, 2012,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20131016010720weblink">weblink October 16, 2013,

Colombia

{{US involvement in Colombia}}Through the Plan Colombia program, between 2000 and 2015, the US provided Colombia with $10 billion in funding,NEWS, Rampton, Roberta, 4 February 2016, Obama pledges more than $450 million aid to help Colombia peace plan,weblink 8 April 2018, Reuters, WEB, Lee, Brendon, Jan 9, 2020, Not-So-Grand Strategy: America's Failed War on Drugs in Colombia,weblink Jan 17, 2024, Harvard International Review, primarily for military aid, training, and equipment,WEB, 2010, SUMMARY: FY 2010 STATE AND FOREIGN OPERATIONS APPROPRIATIONS,weblink February 2, 2010, U.S. House of Representatives, {{Dead link|date=May 2020|bot=InternetArchiveBot|fix-attempted=yes}} to fight left-wing guerrillas such as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC-EP), which has been accused of being involved in drug trafficking.Weiser, Benjamin. (September 5, 2012) FARC – Revolutionary Armed forces of Colombia" {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120527125840weblink|date=May 27, 2012}} The New York Times. The Clinton administration initially waived all but one of the human rights conditions attached to Plan Colombia, considering such aid as crucial to national security at the time.BOOK, Stokes, Doug,weblink America's Other War: Terrorizing Colombia, Zed Books, 2005, 978-1-84277-547-9,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20160109132325weblink">weblink January 9, 2016, dead, mdy-all, p. 99 Private US military contractors, including the former DynCorp, the largest private company involved, were contracted by the State Department and Defense Department, to carry out anti-drug initiatives as part of Plan Colombia.Private Security Transnational Enterprises in Colombia {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080417203427weblink|date=April 17, 2008}} José Alvear Restrepo Lawyers' Collective February 2008.Colombian military personnel received extensive counterinsurgency training from US military and law enforcement agencies, including the School of Americas (SOA). Author Grace Livingstone has stated that more Colombian SOA graduates have been implicated in human rights abuses than currently known SOA graduates from any other country.{{Citation needed|date=February 2024}} All of the commanders of the brigades highlighted in a 2001 Human Rights Watch report on Colombia were graduates of the SOA, including the III brigade in Valle del Cauca, where the 2001 Alto Naya Massacre occurred. US-trained officers have been accused of being directly or indirectly involved in many massacres during the 1990s, including the Trujillo Massacre and the 1997 Mapiripán Massacre.{{Citation needed|date=February 2024}}The efforts of U.S. and Colombian governments have been criticized for focusing on fighting leftist guerrillas in southern regions without applying enough pressure on right-wing paramilitaries and continuing drug smuggling operations in the north of the country.BOOK, Gill, Leslie,weblink The School of the Americas: military training and political violence in the Americas, Duke University Press, 2004, 978-0-8223-3392-0, 180, registration, Peet, 2004: p. 61 Human Rights Watch, congressional committees and other entities have documented the existence of connections between members of the Colombian military and the AUC, which the U.S. government has listed as a terrorist group, and that Colombian military personnel have committed human rights abuses which would make them ineligible for U.S. aid under current laws.{{Citation needed|date=August 2010}}A report by the RAND Corporation, examining the Colombian experience for insights applicable to the Mexican drug war, noted that "Plan Colombia has been widely hailed as a success, and some analysts believe that, by 2010, Colombian security forces had finally gained the upper hand once and for all." The report cited dramatic reductions in kidnappings and terrorist acts, and the recapture of territory, attributed to "a reinforced military and reinvigorated police force." It also found that, as of 2010, "Colombia is still a major source country for illicit narcotics. Moreover, the state continues to share sovereignty with a range of violent nonstate actors, including rebel groups and rightwing paramilitaries allied with drug traffickers and wealthy landowners."WEB, Mexico Is Not Colombia,weblink live,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20160304073123weblink">weblink March 4, 2016, October 20, 2015, rand.org, RAND Corporation National Security Research Division, The Washington Office on Latin America concluded in 2010 that both Plan Colombia and the Colombian government's security strategy "came at a high cost in lives and resources, only did part of the job, are yielding diminishing returns and have left important institutions weaker."Washington Office on Latin America "Colombia: Don't Call it a Model" {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100804065237weblink|date=August 4, 2010}}, July 13, 2010 Retrieved on May 8, 2010

Mexico

One of the first anti-drug efforts in the realm of foreign policy was President Nixon's Operation Intercept, announced in September 1969, targeted at reducing the amount of cannabis entering the United States from Mexico. The effort began with an intense inspection crackdown that resulted in a near shutdown of cross-border traffic.WEB, Operation Intercept: The perils of unilateralism,weblink live,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20090424224527weblink">weblink April 24, 2009, May 14, 2009, The burden on border crossings was controversial in border states; the effort lasted only 20 days.WEB, Consumers Union Report on Licit and Illicit Drugs,weblink live,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20110514191129weblink">weblink May 14, 2011, March 27, 2011, Druglibrary.org, The Mérida Initiative, launched in 2008, was a security cooperation program between the US and Mexico, aimed at combating drug trafficking and transnational crime. From 2008 to 2021, the US provided $3.5 billion in funding. The initial focus was anti-drug and rule-of-law measures, later broadened to include US-Mexico border activities. Components included military and law enforcement training and equipment, and technical advice and training to strengthen the national justice systems. In 2021, it was replaced by the Bicentennial Framework for Security, Public Health, and Safe Communities.WEB, Ribando Seelke, Clare, Oct 9, 2023, U.S.-Mexico Security Cooperation: From the Mérida Initiative to the Bicentennial Framework,weblink Jan 17, 2024, Congressional Research Service, In 2013, a Pew Research Center poll found that 85% of Mexican citizens supported using the Mexican army against drug cartels, 74% supported US training assistance for their police and military, 55% supported the US supplying of weapons and financial aid, and 59% were against deploying US troops on Mexican soil.NEWS, Mexican public favors military use, U.S. aid to fight drug cartels {{!, Pew Research Center |url=http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2013/07/16/mexican-public-favors-military-use-u-s-aid-to-fight-drug-cartels/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181112223531weblink |archive-date=November 12, 2018 |access-date=2018-10-23 |work=Pew Research Center |language=en-US}} Anti-drug efforts were seen as making progress by 37%, losing ground by 29%, and staying the same by 30%; 56% believed that the US and Mexico are both to blame for drug violence in Mexico.NEWS, 2013-04-29, U.S. Image Rebounds in Mexico,weblink live,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20181110154912weblink">weblink November 10, 2018, 2018-11-01, Pew Research Center's Global Attitudes Project, en-US,

Nicaragua

Senator John Kerry's 1988 U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations report on Contra drug links concludes that members of the U.S. State Department "who provided support for the Contras are involved in drug trafficking... and elements of the Contras themselves knowingly receive financial and material assistance from drug traffickers."Cockburn and St. Clair, 1998: {{Page needed|date=September 2010}} The report further states that "the Contra drug links include... payments to drug traffickers by the U.S. State Department of funds authorized by the Congress for humanitarian assistance to the Contras, in some cases after the traffickers had been indicted by federal law enforcement agencies on drug charges, in others while traffickers were under active investigation by these same agencies."

Panama

File:Panama clashes 1989.JPEG|thumb|right|The U.S. military invasion of Panama in 1989]]On December 20, 1989, the US invaded Panama with 25,000 American troops, as part of Operation Just Cause, to depose and arrest the Panamanian head of government, Gen. Manuel Noriega. Noriega had been giving military assistance to Contra groups in Nicaragua at the request of the US, which in turn tolerated his drug trafficking activities, known since the 1960s.Cockburn and St. Clair, 1998: pp. 287–290BOOK, Buckley, Kevin,weblink Panama: The Whole Story, Simon and Schuster, 1991, 978-0-671-72794-9, registration, The CIA prevented the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs from indicting him in 1971 and, under the directorship of future president George H. W. Bush, provided Noriega with hundreds of thousands of dollars annually as payment for his work in Latin America. When CIA pilot Eugene Hasenfus was shot down over Nicaragua by the Sandinistas in 1986, documents aboard the plane revealed many of the CIA's Latin American activities, making the agency's connection with Noriega a public relations liability for the US. The DEA was finally permitted to indict him for drug trafficking. Operation Just Cause and Nifty Package were launched to capture Noriega and overthrow his government. He surrendered to US soldiers on January 3, 1990,NEWS, Baker, Russell, January 3, 1990, OBSERVER; Is This Justice Necessary?, The New York Times Company,weblink live, March 5, 2010,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20080616105410weblink">weblink June 16, 2008, and was sentenced by a US court to 45 years in prison for racketeering, drug smuggling, and money laundering.NEWS, Rohter, Larry, April 10, 1992, The Noriega Verdict; U.S. Jury Convicts Noriega of Drug-Trafficking Role as the Leader of Panama,weblink September 28, 2017, The New York Times, 0362-4331, The United Nations General Assembly resolved that the invasion was a "flagrant violation of international law."United Nations General Assembly, A/RES/44/240, 88th Plenary Meeting, December 29, 1989 weblink

Ecuador

Ecuador is located between the world's two largest cocaine-producing countries, Colombia and Peru, and has long been a major drug transit point.WEB, Goette-Luciak, CD, Jan 11, 2024, Cocaine, cartels, and corruption: The crisis in Ecuador, explained,weblink Mar 22, 2024, Vox (website), Vox, From 1999, the Manta air base was the US military's most prominent South American presence, originating some 100 drug surveillance flights monthly. In 2009, citing unwanted internal influence by the CIA, Ecuador declined to renew the base's lease, ending official US military presence.WEB, Romero, Simon, April 21, 2008, Ecuador's Leader Purges Military and Moves to Expel American Base,weblink Mar 22, 2024, New York Times, WEB, January 24, 2024, Ecuador: Country Overview and U.S. Relations,weblink Mar 22, 2024, Congressional Research Service, Drug activity in Ecuador has dramatically intensified since 2018.NEWS, Collyns, Dan, 2023-09-12, 'We should treat it as a war': Ecuador's descent into drug gang violence,weblink 2024-02-09, The Guardian, en-GB, 0261-3077, In 2023, the US-Ecuador Defense Bilateral Working Group was formed to address the Ecuadorian situation, and a memorandum of agreement to help strengthen the Ecuadorian military was signed. A drug-related wider conflict broke out in 2024.NEWS, Saviano, Roberto, 2024-02-09, The world is hungry for cocaine and happy to buy it. But think of the ravaged countries that pay the price,weblink 2024-02-09, The Guardian, en-GB, 0261-3077,

Honduras

In 2012, the US sent DEA agents to Honduras to assist security forces in counternarcotic operations. Honduras has been a major stop for drug traffickers, who use small planes and landing strips hidden throughout the country to transport drugs. The US government made agreements with several Latin American countries to share intelligence and resources to counter the drug trade. DEA agents, working with other US agencies such as the State Department, the CBP, and Joint Task Force-Bravo, assisted Honduran troops in conducting raids on traffickers' sites of operation.NEWS, May 31, 2012, A New Front Line in the U.S. Drug War,weblink live,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20121129131648weblink">weblink November 29, 2012, October 13, 2012, New York Times, File:MilitaresMichoacán.jpg|thumb|Mexico is scheduled to receive US$1.6 billion in equipment and strategic support from the United States through the Mérida InitiativeMérida Initiative

Aerial herbicide application

The US regularly sponsored the spraying of large amounts of herbicides such as glyphosate over the jungles of Central and South America as part of its drug eradication programs. Environmental consequences resulting from aerial fumigation have been criticized as detrimental to some of the world's most fragile ecosystems;JOURNAL, Bowe, Rebecca, 2004, The drug war on the Amazon, E: The Environmental Magazine, Nov–Dec, the same aerial fumigation practices are further credited with causing health problems in local populations.NEWS, Rohter, Larry, May 1, 2000, To Colombians, Drug War is a Toxic Foe, The New York Times,

Impact on growers

The coca eradication policy has been criticised for its negative impact on the livelihood of coca growers in South America. In many areas of South America, the coca leaf has traditionally been chewed and used in tea and for religious, medicinal and nutritional purposes by locals.NEWS, Lindsay, Reed, March 25, 2003, Bolivian Coca Growers Fight Eradication,weblink live,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20090910174116weblink">weblink September 10, 2009, February 3, 2010, Washington Times, For this reason, many insist that the illegality of traditional coca cultivation is unjust. In many areas, the US government and military forced the eradication of coca, at the same time destroying other food or market crops, without providing an alternative, leaving farmers starving and destitute. In Bolivia, president Evo Morales (2006-2019), a former coca growers' union leader, promised to legalize the traditional cultivation and use of coca. His legalization efforts, combined with aggressive and targeted eradication efforts, lead to some success, using coca growers' federations to ensure compliance with the law rather than deploying security forces; a 12–13% decline in coca cultivation was noted in 2011.JOURNAL, Ledebur, Kathryn, Youngers, Coletta, March 25, 2013, From Conflict to Collaboration: An Innovative Approach to Reducing Coca Cultivation in Bolivia, Stability: International Journal of Security and Development, 2, 1, Art. 9, 10.5334/sta.aw, free, {{Anchor|Allegations of U.S. government involvement in drug trafficking}}

Domestic impact

The social consequences of the drug war have been widely criticized by such organizations as the ACLU as being racially biased against minorities and disproportionately responsible for the exploding United States prison population. Critics have compared the wholesale incarceration of the dissenting minority of drug users to the wholesale incarceration of other minorities in history.{{Citation needed|date=March 2024}} Psychiatrist Thomas Szasz wrote in 1997, "Over the past thirty years, we have replaced the medical-political persecution of illegal sex users ('perverts' and 'psychopaths') with the even more ferocious medical-political persecution of illegal drug users."The Manufacture of Madness: A Comparative Study of the Inquisition and the Mental Health Movement (1997), p. xi

Incarceration

{{also|Incarceration in the United States}}According to Human Rights Watch, the War on Drugs caused soaring arrest rates that disproportionately targeted African Americans due to various factors.WEB,weblink The Impact of the War on Drugs on U.S. Incarceration, May 2000, June 10, 2007, Human Rights Watch,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20081128173127weblink">weblink November 28, 2008, live, Anti-drug and tough-on-crime policies from the 1970s through the 1990s created a situation where the US, with less than 5% of the world population, houses nearly 25% of the world's prisoners. {{As of|2015}}, the US prison population rate was 716 per 100,000 people, the highest in the world, six times higher than Canada and six to nine times higher than Western European countries.NEWS, Ye Hee Lee, Michelle, April 30, 2015, Does the United States really have 5 percent of the world's population and one quarter of the world's prisoners?,weblink Dec 30, 2023, Washington Post, File:US incarceration rate timeline.gif|thumb|upright=1.3|Graph demonstrating increases in United States incarceration rateUnited States incarceration rateIn the 1980s, while the number of arrests for all crimes had risen by 28%, the number of arrests for drug offenses rose 126%.Austin J, McVey AD. The 1989 NCCD prison population forecast: the impact of the war on drugs. San Francisco: National Council on Crime and Delinquency, 1989. Increased demand lead to the development of privatization and the for-profit prison industry.Development of private prisons in the United StatesReporting on the effects of state initiatives, the Department of Justice found that, from 1990 through 2000, "the increasing number of drug offenses accounted for 27% of the total growth among black inmates, 7% of the total growth among Hispanic inmates, and 15% of the growth among white inmates." In 1994, the New England Journal of Medicine reported that the war on drugs resulted in the incarceration of one million Americans each year.JOURNAL, Grinspoon, Lester, Lester Grinspoon, Bakalar, James B., The War on Drugs—A Peace Proposal, New England Journal of Medicine, February 3, 1994, 357–360, 330, 5, 10.1056/NEJM199402033300513, 8043062, In 2008, The Washington Post reported that of 1.5 million Americans arrested each year for drug offenses, half a million would be incarcerated, and one in five black Americans would spend time behind bars due to drug laws.NEWS,weblink A reality check on drug use, George F., Will, George Will, October 29, 2009, The Washington Post, A19, September 18, 2017,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20171008145041weblink">weblink October 8, 2017, live, In addition to prison or jail, the US provides for the deportation of many non-citizens convicted of drug offenses.JOURNAL, Yates, Jeff, Collins, Todd, Chin, Gabriel J., 1995, A War on Drugs or a War on Immigrants? Expanding the Definition of 'Drug Trafficking' in Determining Aggravated Felon Status for Non-Citizens,weblink Maryland Law Review, 64, 875, February 28, 2021, Federal and state policies also impose collateral consequences on those convicted of drug offenses, separate from fines and prison time, that are not applicable to other types of crime.Gabriel J. Chin, "Race, The War on Drugs, and the Collateral Consequences of Criminal Conviction" {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080421195145weblink |date=April 21, 2008 }}, v.6 Journal of Gender, Race, Justice p.253 (2002) In order to comply with a federal law known as the Solomon–Lautenberg amendment, a number of states require a six-months driver's license suspension for anyone convicted of a drug offense.NEWS, States Are Pressed to Suspend Driver Licenses of Drug Users,weblink May 29, 2018, The New York Times, Associated Press, November 16, 1990,weblink July 4, 2018, live, {{citation |last1=Aiken |first1=Joshua |title=Reinstating Common Sense: How driver's license suspensions for drug offenses unrelated to driving are falling out of favor |url=https://www.prisonpolicy.org/driving/national.html |access-date=May 29, 2018 |publisher=Prison Policy Initiative |date=December 12, 2016}}{{citation |title="Possess a Joint, Lose Your License": July 1995 Status Report |url=http://www.mpp.org/site/c.glKZLeMQIsG/b.1087547/k.33C1/Possess_a_Joint_Lose_Your_License.htm |publisher=Marijuana Policy Project |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071008235035weblink |archive-date=October 8, 2007 |url-status=dead}} Other examples of collateral consequences for drug offenses, or for felony offenses in general, include loss of professional license, loss of ability to purchase a firearm, loss of eligibility for food stamps, loss of eligibility for Federal Student Aid, loss of eligibility to live in public housing, loss of ability to vote, and deportation.

Prison overcrowding

One consequence of the war on drugs policy has been the overcrowding of prisons within the United States. The policy's approach to prosecuting drug-related offenses has led to a surge in incarcerated individuals for nonviolent drug offenses. As a result, many prisons have become overburdened, often operating at capacities far beyond their intended limits. Overcrowding not only strains the prison system itself but also raises questions about the effectiveness of incarceration as a solution to drug-related issues.WEB, June 2013, The War on Marijuana in Black and White,weblink American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Resources that could be allocated to address the root causes of drug abuse, provide rehabilitation and treatment programs, or support communities affected by drug-related issues are instead diverted to managing the burgeoning prison population. This reallocation of resources away from preventive measures and treatment options undermines the potential for a comprehensive and holistic approach to addressing drug-related challenges. Critics argue that focusing solely on incarceration fails to address the underlying social factors contributing to drug abuse and perpetuates a cycle of criminality without offering pathways to recovery and reintegration into society.WEB, The Human Rights Impact of Over-Incarceration in the U.S., May 2015,weblink Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR),

Racial disparities in sentencing

Racial disparities have been a prominent and contentious aspect of the "War on Drugs" in the US. In 1957, the belief at the time about drug use was summarized by journalist Max Lerner in his work, America as a Civilization: "As a case in point we may take the known fact of the prevalence of reefer and dope addiction in Negro areas. This is essentially explained in terms of poverty, slum living, and broken families, yet it would be easy to show the lack of drug addiction among other ethnic groups where the same conditions apply."BOOK, Inciardi, James A, The War on Drugs IV: The Continuing Saga of the Mysteries and Miseries of Intoxication, Addiction, Crime, and Public Policy, Allyn and Bacon, 2008, 248, The Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986 created a 100:1 sentencing disparity in the U.S. for the trafficking or possession of crack when compared to penalties for trafficking of powder cocaine.NEWS, Congress passes bill to reduce disparity in crack, powder cocaine sentencing, Abrams, Jim, The Washington Post, July 29, 2010,weblink September 18, 2017,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20170905174012weblink">weblink September 5, 2017, live, Burton-Rose (ed.), 1998: pp. 246–247WEB, United States Sentencing Commission, Cocaine and Federal Sentencing Policy, 2002, 6,weblinkweblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20070715212213weblink">weblink July 15, 2007, August 24, 2010, As a result of the 1986 Act ... penalties for a first-time cocaine trafficking offense: 5 grams or more of crack cocaine = five-year mandatory minimum penalty, The bill had been widely criticized as discriminatory against minorities, mostly blacks, who were more likely to use crack than powder cocaine."The Fair Sentencing Act corrects a long-time wrong in cocaine cases" {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171120014727weblink |date=November 20, 2017 }}, The Washington Post, August 3, 2010. Retrieved September 30, 2010. In 1994, studying the effects of the 100:1 sentencing ratio, the United States Sentencing Commission (USSC) found that nearly two-thirds of crack users were white or Hispanic, while nearly 85% of those convicted for possession were black, with similar numbers for trafficking. Powder cocaine offenders were more equally divided across race. The USSC noted that these disparities resulted in African Americans serving longer prison sentences than other ethnicities. In a 1995 report to Congress, the USSC recommended against the 100:1 sentencing ratio.WEB, A Social History of America's Most Popular Drugs,weblink Dec 13, 2023, PBS Frontline, WEB, United States Sentencing Commission, Feb 1995, Special Report to the Congress: Cocaine and Federal Sentencing Policy,weblink Dec 13, 2023, United States Sentencing Commission, In 2010, the 100:1 sentencing ratio was reduced to 18:1.Other studies indicated similarly dramatic racial differences in enforcement and sentencing. Statistics from 1998 show that there were wide racial disparities in arrests, prosecutions, sentencing and deaths. African-American drug users made up for 35% of drug arrests, 55% of convictions, and 74% of people sent to prison for drug possession crimes. Nationwide African-Americans were sent to state prisons for drug offenses 13 times more often than other races,WEB, Key Findings at a Glance,weblink live,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20140816062935weblink">weblink August 16, 2014, February 3, 2010, Racial Disparities in the War on Drugs, Human Rights Watch, even though they supposedly constituted only 13% of regular drug users. Human Rights Watch's report, "Race and the Drug War" (2000), provided extensive documentation of racial disparities, citing statistics and case studies highlighting the unequal treatment of racial and ethnic groups by law enforcement agencies, particularly in drug arrests.WEB, Human Rights Watch, 2000, Race and the Drug War,weblink According to the report, in the US in 1999, compared to non-minorities, African Americans were far more likely to be arrested for drug crimes, and received much stiffer penalties and sentences.WEB, 2000, I. SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATIONS,weblink live,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20100207063858weblink">weblink February 7, 2010, February 3, 2010, Punishment and Prejudice: Racial Disparities in the War on Drugs, Human Rights Watch, In Malign Neglect – Race Crime and Punishment in America (1995), University of Minnesota professor and social justice author Michael Tonry wrote, "The War on Drugs foreseeably and unnecessarily blighted the lives of hundreds and thousands of young disadvantaged black Americans and undermined decades of effort to improve the life chances of members of the urban black underclass."Michael Tonry, Malign Neglect – Race Crime and Punishment in America (London: Oxford University Press, 1995), 82.File:Marion_Barry_smoking_crack.gif|right|thumb|D.C. Mayor Marion Barry captured on a surveillance camera smoking crack cocaine during a sting operation by the FBI and D.C. PoliceD.C. Police

Public opinion

{{further|Arguments for and against drug prohibition}}File:ONDCP Pothead.gif|thumb|upright|A US government domestic public interest poster {{circa}} 2000 concerning cannabis in the United Statescannabis in the United StatesIn the 21st century, according to polling, a majority of Americans have been skeptical about the methods and effectiveness of the war on drugs. A national poll in 2008 found that three in four Americans believed that the drug war was failing.WEB, October 2, 2008, Public Views Clash with U.S. Policy on Cuba, Immigration, and Drugs,weblink dead,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20100211052209weblink">weblink February 11, 2010, May 10, 2010, Zogby International, In 2014, a Pew Research Center poll found found that 67% of Americans feel that a movement towards treatment for drugs like cocaine and heroin is better versus 26% who feel that prosecution is the better route. Moving away from mandatory prison terms for drug crimes was favored by two-thirds of the population, a substantial shift from a fifty-fifty for-against split in 2001. A large majority saw alcohol as a greater danger to health (69%) and society (63%) than cannabis.NEWS, 2014-04-02, America's New Drug Policy Landscape {{!, Pew Research Center |url=http://www.people-press.org/2014/04/02/americas-new-drug-policy-landscape/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181029091742weblink |archive-date=October 29, 2018 |access-date=2018-10-23 |work=Pew Research Center for the People and the Press |language=en-US}}WEB, 2014-04-01, New Pew Poll Confirms Americans Ready to End War on Drugs,weblink 2018-10-22, Drug Policy Alliance, en, In 2018, a Rasmussen Reports poll found that less than 10% of Americans think that the war on drugs is being won.WEB, January 10, 2018, Voters Have Little Faith in War on Drugs,weblink October 22, 2018, Rasmussen Reports, In Gallup polls on whether cannabis should be legal, 15% of Americans agreed in March 1972, rising to 28% in April 1977, where it roughly stayed until 2000, when it began rising again, to 68% in October 2021.WEB, Qamar, Zoha, Oct 14, 2022, Five Decades Into The War On Drugs, Decriminalizing Marijuana Has High Bipartisan Support,weblink Apr 11, 2024, FiveThirtyEight, In May 2021, a Bully Pulpit Interactive/ACLU poll found that 83% of Americans, across party lines, considered the war on drugs a failure, and 12% considering it a success.WEB, Slisco, Aila, Jun 10, 2021, Two-Thirds of American Voters Support Decriminalizing All Drugs: Poll,weblink Apr 11, 2024, Newsweek, WEB, June 9, 2021, Poll Results on American Attitudes Toward War on Drugs,weblink Apr 11, 2024, American Civil Liberties Union,

Socioeconomic effects{{anchor|Socio-economic_effects}}

Permanent underclass creation

File:Utah State Prison Wasatch Facility.jpg|thumb|Approximately 1 million people are incarcerated every year in the United States for drug law violations.]]Penalties for drug crimes among American youth almost always involve permanent or semi-permanent removal from opportunities for education, strip them of voting rights, and later involve creation of criminal records which make employment more difficult. One-fifth of the US prison population are incarcerated for a drug offence.WEB, Plant, Michael, Singer, Peter, 2021-05-04, Why drugs should be not only decriminalised, but fully legalised,weblink 2021-05-22, www.newstatesman.com, en, Thus, some authors maintain that the War on Drugs has resulted in the creation of a permanent underclass of people who have few educational or job opportunities, often as a result of being punished for drug offenses which in turn have resulted from attempts to earn a living in spite of having no education or job opportunities.WEB,weblink How to construct an underclass, or how the War on Drugs became a war on education, Blumenson, Eric, Eva S., Nilsen, May 16, 2002, Drug Policy Forum of Massachusetts, August 7, 2011,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20100622164812weblink">weblink June 22, 2010, dead, WEB, Tony, Newman, Jan 3, 2013,weblink Connecting the Dots: 10 Disastrous Consequences of the Drug War, HuffPost, July 5, 2019,weblink live, June 23, 2019, In her 2010 book, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, Michelle Alexander argues that the war on drugs has effectively perpetuated a racial caste system, with African American and Hispanic individuals experiencing disproportionately high rates of arrest, conviction, and incarceration for drug-related offenses. This system functions as a modern form of racial control, stripping individuals of their rights and opportunities, and reinforcing societal inequalities. According to Alexander, the consequences extend beyond criminal justice, affecting economic opportunities, access to education, and overall social mobility for affected individuals and communities.BOOK, Alexander, Michelle, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, The New Press, 2010, 978-1595581037,

Cost to taxpayers

In 2007, "An Open Letter to the President, Congress, Governors, and State Legislatures" signed by over 550 economists, including Nobel Laureates Milton Friedman, George Akerlof and Vernon L. Smith, endorsed the findings of a 2006 paper, "The Budgetary Implications of Marijuana Prohibition," by Harvard economist Jeffrey A. Miron. Comparing the cost of drug prohibition to the tax revenue if cannabis was taxed as regular consumer good, or similarly to alcohol, the letter stated: "The fact that marijuana prohibition has these budgetary impacts does not by itself mean prohibition is bad policy. Existing evidence, however, suggests prohibition has minimal benefits and may itself cause substantial harm. We therefore urge the country to commence an open and honest debate about marijuana prohibition. We believe such a debate will favor a regime in which marijuana is legal but taxed and regulated like other goods."WEB, An open letter,weblink dead,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20071017021537weblink">weblink October 17, 2007, February 20, 2008, Prohibition Costs, According to a 2010 report on co-authored by Miron, the annual savings on enforcement and incarceration costs from the legalization of drugs would amount to roughly $41.3 billion, with $25.7 billion being saved among the states and over $15.6 billion accrued for the federal government. Miron further estimated at least $46.7 billion in tax revenue based on rates comparable to those on tobacco and alcohol: $8.7 billion from marijuana, $32.6 billion from cocaine and heroin, and $5.4 billion from other drugs.NEWS,weblink The Budgetary Impact of Ending Drug Prohibition, CATO.org, Jeffrey A., Miron, Waldock, Katherine, amp, 2010, May 15, 2013,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20130512134045weblink">weblink May 12, 2013, live,

Drug testing in the workplace

Workplace drug testing has been widespread and controversial in the US since the late 1980s: there is no clear measure of its effectiveness in improving safety and productivity, and testing affects significantly more non-whites than whites. Testing is more prevalent in the US than elsewhere in the world.WEB, Engber, Daniel, Dec 27, 2015, Why Do Employers Still Routinely Drug-Test Workers?,weblink Jan 24, 2024, Slate (magazine), Slate, Most common is urine analysis for amphetamines, cocaine, marijuana, opioids and PCP;WEB, November 21, 2023, Drug Testing,weblink Jan 24, 2024, National Institutes of Health, usually with no practical discrimination between the effects of the different drugs. Workplace testing rapidly gained popularity after the Reagan administration made it mandatory for federal workers, peaking in 1996, with 81% of companies reporting drug screening, up from 21% in 1987.NEWS, DePillis, Lydia, March 10, 2015, Companies drug test a lot less than they used to — because it doesn't really work,weblink Jan 24, 2024, Washington Post, In the1980s, testing had been promoted to business as a way to reclaim what were said to be huge losses in productivity caused by drug use. Studies released in the 1990s refuted these claims; a 1994 report from the National Academy of Sciences, "Under the Influence? Drugs and the American Work Force“, concluded that "the data... do not provide clear evidence of the deleterious effects of drugs other than alcohol on safety and other job performance indicators.” By 2004, workplace testing was down to 62% of companies, in 2015, it was reported as below 50%. Drug use continues to be blamed for productivity losses, and testing remains common.In 2021, some companies began to reduce drug testing in order to improve hiring prospects in a tight labor market. Amazon, America's second largest employer, eliminated cannabis testing in job pre-screening, where not required by government regulations, stating, "Pre-employment marijuana testing has disproportionately affected communities of color by stalling job placement." In a survey of 45,000 companies worldwide, 9% reported the elimination of testing in order to improve hiring.MAGAZINE, McCluskey, Megan, Oct 20, 2021, Amid a Labor Shortage, Companies Are Eliminating Drug Tests. It's a Trend That Could Create More Equitable Workplaces,weblink Jan 24, 2024, Time (magazine), TIME, In 2022, thousands of US truck drivers were taken off the road after testing positive for cannabis, contributing to a severe driver shortage; a conflict between the majority of states with some form of cannabis legalization, and the federal Department of Transportation's zero-tolerance cannabis policy, even for medical use, is cited as an issue.WEB, Davis, Leesa, May 18, 2022, Marijuana violations have taken over 10,000 truck drivers off the road this year, adding more supply chain disruptions,weblink Feb 17, 2024, Stacker, {{anchor|Efficacy}}

Legality

The legality of drug prohibition within the US has been challenged on various grounds. One argument holds that drug prohibition, as presently implemented, violates the substantive due process doctrine in that its benefits do not justify the encroachments on rights that are supposed to be guaranteed by the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution.WEB, Redlich, Warren, Warren Redlich, 2005-02-05, A Substantive Due Process Challenge to the War on Drugs,weblink dead,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20150217035034weblink">weblink 2015-02-17, It is true that the approach suggested in this paper would limit police power. Constitutional protection of individual rights exists for that very purpose. We face coercive government action, carried out in a corrupt and racist manner, with military and paramilitary assaults on our homes, leading to mass incarceration and innocent deaths. We can never forget the tyranny of a government unrestrained by an independent judiciary. Our courts must end the War on Drugs., Is the Constitution in Harm's Way? Substantive Due Process and Criminal Law {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110703081522weblink|date=2011-07-03}} Eric Tennen Another argument interprets the Commerce Clause to mean that drugs should be regulated in state law not federal law.{{Citation needed|date=December 2023}} A third argument states that the reverse burden of proof in drug-possession cases is incompatible with the rule of law, in that the power to convict is effectively taken from the courts and given to those who are willing to plant evidence.WEB, Anon, The universally unconstitutional war on drugs (3rd Ed.),weblink dead,weblink" title="archive.today/20120707011613weblink">weblink 2012-07-07, 2011-07-31,

Efficacy

There is no clear measure of the effectiveness of the war on drugs, and it has been called a policy failure.WEB, Chalabi, Mona, Apr 16, 2016, The 'war on drugs' in numbers: a systematic failure of policy, TheGuardian.com,weblink Feb 21, 2024, Since Richard Nixon declared the war on drugs in 1971, it seems as though people rather than products have been most directly affected. But lack of data makes it hard to understand the impact: like most illicit activities, drug production, trade and use is hard to measure accurately. And without knowing baseline values, it’s hard to understand the effect of any given policy – let alone comparing the impact of various policies. However, where long-term data is available, it does point to systematic failures in drug policies., Thirty years into the campaign, a National Research Council report, "Informing America’s Policy on Illegal Drugs" (2001), found that "existing drug-use monitoring systems are strikingly inadequate to support the full range of policy decisions that the nation must make." The report noted that studies of efforts to address drug usage and smuggling, from US military operations to eradicate coca fields in Colombia, to domestic drug treatment centers, had all been inconclusive, if the programs had been evaluated at all: It concluded, "It is unconscionable for this country to continue to carry out a public policy of this magnitude and cost without any way of knowing whether and to what extent it is having the desired effect."weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20081205024427weblink">Drug Policy News, Drug Policy Education Group, Vol. 2 No.1, Spring/Summer 2001, p. 5BOOK, 2001, Manski, Charles F., Pepper, John V., Petrie, Carol V., Informing America's Policy on Illegal Drugs: What We Don't Know Keeps Hurting Us,weblink Feb 3, 2024, National Academies of Sciences, 10.17226/10021, 978-0-309-07273-1, Writing in the New Statesmen in 2021, journalist James Bloodworth stated, "The war on drugs is a failure. We know this. We’ve long known it. In fact, there is such an abundance of evidence for its failure that we have more certainty here than in most areas of policy. ... According to the International Drug Policy Consortium there was a 31 per cent global increase in drug taking between 2011 and 2016. ... It is impossible to suppress the demand for drugs." He quoted Helen Clark, former prime minister of New Zealand and head of the Global Commission on Drug Policy: “The total elimination of drugs? Dream on, there’s never been a time in human history where human beings haven’t resorted to some kind of substances that will take them out of their current reality for whatever reason.”WEB, Bloodworth, James, Dec 7, 2021, The government is tripping if it thinks this renewed war on drugs won't backfire,weblink Apr 9, 2024, New Statesman, (File:Rentz vs Narcotics Smugglers.jpg|thumb|upright=1.3|right|{{USS|Rentz|FFG-46}} attempts to put out a fire set by drug smugglers trying to escape and destroy evidence.)

Interdiction

{{See also|Supply reduction|Illegal drug trade}}{{External media | width = 210px | float = right | headerimage= | video1 =A Conversation with President Obama and David Simon (The Wire creator), discussing The Wire and the War on Drugs, The White HouseWEB, The President Interviews the Creator of "The Wire" About the War on Drugs, March 26, 2015,weblink March 28, 2015,weblink January 30, 2017, NARA, National Archives, whitehouse.gov, live, }}In 1988, the RAND Corporation released a Department of Defense-funded two-year study, Sealing the Borders: The Effects of Increased Military Participation in Drug Interdiction. It concluded that the use of the armed forces to interdict drugs coming into the US would have little or no effect on cocaine traffic and might, in fact, raise the profits of cocaine cartels and manufacturers. It noted that seven prior studies, including one by the Center for Naval Research and the Office of Technology Assessment, had come to similar conclusions.Peter H. Reuter, Sealing the borders: the effects of increased military participation in drug interdiction (RAND 1988); Robert E. Kessler, "Study: Military Can't Curb Drugs", Newsday, May 23, 1988 at 23; "Military support would have little effect on drug smuggling, study says", United Press International, March 4, 1988.In mid-1995, the US government tried to reduce the supply of methamphetamine precursors to disrupt the market of this drug. According to a 2009 study, this effort was successful, but its effects were largely temporary.JOURNAL, Dobkin, Carlos, Nicosia, Nancy, The War on Drugs: Methamphetamine, Public Health, and Crime, American Economic Review, February 2009, 99, 1, 324–349, 10.1257/aer.99.1.324, 20543969, 2883188, In the six years from 2000 to 2006, the U.S. spent $4.7 billion on Plan Colombia, an effort to eradicate coca production in Colombia. The main result of this effort was to shift coca production into more remote areas and force other forms of adaptation. The overall acreage cultivated for coca in Colombia at the end of the six years was found to be the same, after the US Drug Czar's office announced a change in measuring methodology in 2005 and included new areas in its surveys.WEB, April 14, 2006,weblink 2005 Coca Estimates for Colombia, Office of National Drug Control Policy, October 4, 2007,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20070927234649weblink">weblink September 27, 2007, Cultivation in the neighboring countries of Peru and Bolivia increased, some would describe this effect like squeezing a balloon.Juan Forero, "Colombia's Coca Survives U.S. plan to uproot it", The New York Times, August 19, 2006Richard Davenport-Hines, in his book The Pursuit of Oblivion, criticized the efficacy of the war on drugs by pointing out that "10–15% of illicit heroin and 30% of illicit cocaine is intercepted. Drug traffickers have gross profit margins of up to 300%. At least 75% of illicit drug shipments would have to be intercepted before the traffickers' profits were hurt."BOOK, Davenport-Hines, Richard Peter Treadwell,weblink The Pursuit of Oblivion: A Global History of Narcotics, W. W. Norton, 2002, 978-0-393-05189-6, New York, 301684673, Richard Davenport-Hines, Alberto Fujimori, president of Peru from 1990 to 2000, described US foreign drug policy as "failed": "For 10 years, there has been a considerable sum invested by the Peruvian government and another sum on the part of the American government, and this has not led to a reduction in the supply of coca leaf offered for sale. Rather, in the 10 years from 1980 to 1990, it grew 10-fold."Don Podesta and Douglas Farah, "Drug Policy in Andes Called Failure", The Washington Post, March 27, 1993According to a report commissioned by the Drug Policy Alliance, and released in March 2006 by the Justice Policy Institute, harsher sentences for drug offenses committed in drug-free school zones are ineffective at keeping youths away from drugs, and instead create strong racial disparities in the judicial system.WEB, How drug-free zone laws impact racial disparity–and fail to protect youth,weblink dead,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20060718134920weblink">weblink July 18, 2006, July 27, 2006, Justice Policy Institute, mdy, According to data collected by the Federal Bureau of Prisons 45.3% of all criminal charges were drug related and 25.5% of sentences for all charges last 5–10 years. Furthermore, non-whites make up 41.4% of the federal prison system's population and over half are under the age of 40.WEB, BOP Statistics: Inmate Race,weblink live,weblink July 30, 2019, 2019-08-15, www.bop.gov, The Bureau of Justice Statistics states that over 80% of all drug related charges are for possession rather than the sale or manufacture of drugs.WEB, Crime & Justice Electronic Data Abstracts, Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS),weblink live,weblink August 15, 2019, 2019-08-15, www.bjs.gov,

Prohibition versus public health

During the 1990s, the Clinton administration commissioned a major cocaine policy study by the RAND Drug Policy Research Center. The report recommended that $3 billion be switched from federal and local law enforcement to treatment, concluding that treatment is the cheapest way to cut drug use, and twenty-three times more effective than the supply-side war on drugs.C. Peter Rydell, Controlling Cocaine: Supply Versus Demand Programs (Rand Drug Policy Research Center 1994).File:US timeline. Drugs involved in overdose deaths.jpg|thumb|upright=1.3|US yearly overdose deaths, and the drugs involved. There were around 110,500 drug overdose deaths overall in 2022 in the US.Drug Overdose Death Rates By National Institute on Drug AbuseNational Institute on Drug AbuseIn the constitution of the multinational non-governmental World Federation Against Drugs, the "Declaration of the World Forum Against Drugs" (2008), advocates for "no other goal than a drug-free world", and states that a balanced policy of drug abuse prevention, education, treatment, law enforcement, research, and supply reduction provides the most effective platform to reduce drug abuse and its associated harms and calls on governments to consider demand reduction as one of their first priorities. It supports the UN drug conventions, the inclusion of cannabis as one of the "hard drugs", and the use of criminal sanctions "when appropriate" to deter drug use. It opposes legalization in any form, and harm reduction in general.WEB, June 26, 2009, Constitution of World Federation Against Drugs (Appendix I: Declaration of the World Forum Against Drugs),weblink Mar 31, 2024, World Federation Against Drugs, In 2015 The U.S. government spent over to $25 billion on supply reduction, while allocating only $11 billion for demand reduction. Supply reduction includes: interdiction, eradication, and law enforcement; demand reduction includes: education, prevention, and treatment. The war on drugs is often called a policy failure.MAGAZINE, End the Drug War,weblink live,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20170913015602weblink">weblink September 13, 2017, 12 July 2017, Foreign Policy, BOOK, Friesendorf, Cornelius,weblink US Foreign Policy and the War on Drugs: Displacing the Cocaine and Heroin Industry, 2007, Routledge, 9781134123940, en, 12 July 2017, JOURNAL, Peter, Andreas, Peter Andreas, 22 June 2003, A Tale of Two Borders: The U.S.-Mexico and U.S.-Canada Lines After 9/11,weblink live, Center for Comparative Immigration Studies, en,weblink August 27, 2018, 12 July 2017, THESIS, Westhoff, Lotte Berendje Rozemarijn, 2013, Ronald Reagan's War on Drugs: A Policy Failure But A Political Success, MA, Leiden University, 1887/21802,weblink 29 November 2021, JOURNAL, Bagley, Bruce Michael, 1988, US Foreign Policy and the War on Drugs: Analysis of a Policy Failure, Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs, 30, 2/3, 189–212, 10.2307/165986, 165986, JOURNAL, Mitchell, Ojmarrh, 2009-01-01, Ineffectiveness, Financial Waste, and Unfairness: The Legacy of the War on Drugs,weblink Journal of Crime and Justice, 32, 2, 1–19, 10.1080/0735648X.2009.9721268, 0735-648X, 144508042, In a 2023 UN report, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights stated that "decades of punitive, 'war on drugs' strategies had failed to prevent an increasing range and quantity of substances from being produced and consumed", described punitive drug policies as a failure, and called for an approach "based on health and human rights, including through the legal regulation of drugs."WEB, Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, August 15, 2023, Human rights challenges in addressing and countering all aspects of the world drug problem,weblink live, Apr 20, 2024, United Nations, 6, WEB, jstaff, 2023-09-20, The International Community Must Act on UN Human Rights Chief's Ground-Breaking Call for Systemic Drug Policy Reform,weblink 2023-10-01, WOLA, en-US, WEB, 134 NGOs sign collective statement urging the international community to act on UN human rights chief's ground-breaking call for systemic drug policy reform,weblink 2023-10-01, IDPC, en,

Drug use

File:MOJO-July-August-Cover200x262.jpg|thumb|2009 Mother Jones magazine cover]]In 2005, the federally funded Monitoring the Future annual survey reported about 85% of high school seniors found marijuana "easy to obtain", virtually unchanged since 1975, never dropping below 82.7% in three decades of national surveys.WEB,weblink Table 13: Trends in Availability of Drugs as Perceived by Twelfth Graders, Johnston, L. D., O'Malley, P. M., Bachman, J. G., Schulenberg, J. E., November 30, 2005, Teen drug use down but progress halts among youngest teens, Monitoring the Future, August 23, 2007,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20110724223128weblink">weblink July 24, 2011, live, The DEA stated that the number of users of cannabis in the US declined between 2000 and 2005, even with many states passing new medical cannabis laws, making access easier,WEB,weblinkweblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20100710025900weblink">weblink dead, The DEA Position On Marijuana, July 10, 2010, though usage rates remain higher than they were in the 1990s according to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health.WEB,weblink truth: the Anti-drugwar NSDUH Trends in Past Month Substance Use (1979–2008) by Percentage of Population 1 of 2, February 3, 2011,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20110708093137weblink">weblink July 8, 2011, live, The ONDCP stated in April 2011 that there has been a 46% drop in cocaine use among young adults over the previous five years, and a 65% drop in the rate of people testing positive for cocaine in the workplace since 2006.White House Drug Policy Director Kerlikowske Meets with Swedish Counterdrug Officials, ONDCP, March 21, 2011 {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221227081043weblink |date=December 27, 2022 }}. Whitehousedrugpolicy.gov. At the same time, a 2007 study found that up to 35% of college undergraduates used stimulants not prescribed to them.Elsevier {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221227081055weblink |date=December 27, 2022 }}. Jaacap.com.A 2013 study found that prices of heroin, cocaine and cannabis had decreased from 1990 to 2007, while the purity of these drugs had increased.JOURNAL, Werb, D., Kerr, T., Nosyk, B., Strathdee, S., Montaner, J., Wood, E., The temporal relationship between drug supply indicators: an audit of international government surveillance systems, BMJ Open, September 30, 2013, 3, 9, e003077, 10.1136/bmjopen-2013-003077, 24080093, 3787412, NEWS,weblink National Drug and Control Budget, March 2014,weblink June 6, 2017, NARA, National Archives, Office of National Drug Control Policy, live, The National Survey on Drug Use and Health for 2019 found that 1.7% of US adults over 25 had used cocaine in the previous 12 months, compared to 1.8% in 2002, and cannabis use went from 7% in 2002 to 15.2%. The DEA's 2021 National Drug Threat Assessment stated that "a steady supply of cocaine was available throughout domestic markets" in 2019 and 2020.WEB, Raisbeck, Daniel, Vásquez, Ian, 2022, Cato Handbook for Policymakers: The International War on Drugs,weblink Mar 28, 2024, Cato Institute, According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), drug abuse fatalities in 2021 reached an all-time high of 108,000 deaths,WEB,weblink A Record Number of Drug-Related Deaths Shows the Drug War Is Remarkably Effective at Killing People, Reason.com, May 13, 2022, a 15% increase from 2020 (93,000)WEB,weblink A Record Number of Drug-Related Deaths Illustrates the Lethal Consequences of Prohibition, Reason.com, July 15, 2021, which, at the time, was the highest number of deaths and a 30% increase from 2019, .During alcohol prohibition, from 1920 to 1933, alcohol use initially fell but began to increase as early as 1922. It has been extrapolated that even if prohibition had not been repealed in 1933, alcohol consumption would have surpassed pre-prohibition levels. One argument against the war on drugs is that it uses similar measures as Prohibition and is no more effective.WEB, July 17, 1991, Alcohol Prohibition Was a Failure,weblink dead,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20131229232307weblink">weblink December 29, 2013, March 27, 2011, Cato.org, mdy-all,

Alternatives

{{See also|Responsible drug use}}A prevalent critical view holds that the war on drugs has been costly and ineffective largely because US federal and state governments have chosen the wrong methods, focusing on interdiction and punishment rather than regulation and treatment.WEB, Pearl, Betsy, Jun 27, 2018, Ending the War on Drugs: By the Numbers,weblink Mar 20, 2024, Center for American Progress, The US leads the world in both recreational drug usage and incarceration rates; 70% of men arrested in metropolitan areas test positive for an illicit substance,NEWS, May 17, 2012, Data Suggests Drug Treatment can Lower U.S. Crime,weblink live,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20120817101942weblink">weblink August 17, 2012, November 22, 2012, Reuters, and 54% of all men incarcerated will be repeat offenders.NEWS, English, Matthew, September 30, 2012, U.S. Prison System Needs Reform, Does not Meet Intended Goals,weblink live,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20121122072956weblink">weblink November 22, 2012, November 23, 2012, Collegiate Times, Aggressive, heavy-handed enforcement funnels individuals through courts and prisons; instead of treating the cause of the addiction. Making drugs illegal rather than regulating them also creates a highly profitable black market. Jefferson Fish has edited scholarly collections of articles offering a wide variety of public health-based and rights-based alternative drug policies.Fish, J. M. (Ed.) (1998). How to legalize drugs. Northvale, New Jersey: Jason Aronson.Fish, J. M. (Ed.) (2000). "Is our drug policy effective? Are there alternatives?" New York City, New York: Fordham Urban Law Journal. (Proceedings of the March 17 & 18, 2000 joint conference of the New York Academy of Sciences, New York Academy of Medicine, and Association of the Bar of the City of New York. Vol. 23, No. 1, pp. 3–262.)Fish, J. M. (Ed.) (2006). Drugs and society: U. S. public policy. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield.In the US, current public health-oriented interventions include harm reduction, drug courts, and Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion (LEAD) programs, which give police treatment or social services options rather than arrest with minor drug offenses. Harm reduction approaches include provision of sterile syringes, medically supervised injection sites (SIF), and availability of the opioid overdose-countering drug naloxone.As an alternative to imprisonment, drug courts in the US identify substance-abusing offenders and place them under strict court monitoring and community supervision, as well as provide them with long-term treatment services.The President's National Drug Control Strategy, White House, 2004. {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090213091104weblink|date=February 13, 2009}} According to a National Drug Court Institute report, drug courts have a wide array of benefits, with only 16.4% of the nation's drug court graduates rearrested and charged with a felony within one year of completing the program (versus the 44.1% of released prisoners who end up back in prison within one year). Additionally, enrolling an addict in a drug court program costs much less than incarcerating one in prison.Huddleston, C. West III, et al. Painting the Current Picture: A National Report Card on Drug Courts and Other Problem Solving Court Programs in the United States, Vol. 1, Num. 1, May 2004 According to the Bureau of Prisons, the fee to cover the average cost of incarceration for Federal inmates in 2006 was $24,440.Lappin, Harley G. Annual Determination of Average Cost of Incarceration. Department of Justice – Bureau of Prisons. June 6, 2007 The annual cost of treatment in a drug court program ranges from $900 to $3,500.A survey by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) found that substance abusers who remain in treatment longer are less likely to resume their former drug habits. Of the people studied, 66% were cocaine users. After experiencing long-term in-patient treatment, only 22% returned to the use of cocaine.Considering outright legalization of recreational drugs, New York Times columnist Eduardo Porter noted: "Jeffrey Miron, an economist at Harvard who studies drug policy closely, has suggested that legalizing all illicit drugs would produce net benefits to the United States of some $65 billion a year, mostly by cutting public spending on enforcement as well as through reduced crime and corruption. A study by analysts at the RAND Corporation, a California research organization, suggested that if marijuana were legalized in California and the drug spilled from there to other states, Mexican drug cartels would lose about a fifth of their annual income of some $6.5 billion from illegal exports to the United States."NEWS, Porter, Eduardo, July 3, 2012, Numbers Tell of Failure in Drug War,weblink live,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20170129051604weblink">weblink January 29, 2017, 4 July 2012, The New York Times,

See also

{{Div col|colwidth=30em}}

• Baker, a series of counter-narcotics training exercises conducted by the United States Army and several Asian countries
• Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue
• Chasing the Scream
• Civil forfeiture in the United States
• Class war
• Cognitive liberty
• Crack epidemic
• Drugs in the United States
• Harm reduction
• Latin American drug legalization
• Law Enforcement Action Partnership
• November Coalition
• Philippine Drug War
• Prison-industrial complex
• Race war
• Recreational use of drugs
• (Smoke and Mirrors: The War on Drugs and the Politics of Failure)
• Victimless crime
• War on Gangs

Covert activities and foreign policy

• Allegations of CIA drug trafficking
• Golden Crescent
• Golden Triangle
• Harry J. Anslinger
• Military Cooperation with Civilian Law Enforcement Agencies Act
• CIA transnational anti-crime and anti-drug activities
• Plan Colombia
• UMOPAR
• Air Bridge Denial Program

Government agencies and laws

• Continuing Criminal Enterprise
• Marijuana Control, Regulation, and Education Act
• Office of National Drug Control Policy
• United Nations Drug Control Programme

{{div col end}}

Notes

{{reflist|group=Note}}

References

{{Reflist}}

Further reading

{{Library resources box}}

• BOOK, Hari, Johann, Chasing the Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs, London; New York, 2015, Bloomsbury, 978-1620408902, Chasing the Scream,
• JOURNAL, Blanchard, Michael, Gabriel J., Chin, 1128945, Identifying the Enemy in the War on Drugs: A Critique of the Developing Rule Permitting Visual Identification of Indescript White Powders in Narcotics Prosecutions, American University Law Review, 47, 557, 1998,
• Daniel Burton-Rose, The Celling of America: An Inside Look at the U.S. Prison Industry. Common Courage Press, 1998.
• Stephanie R. Bush-Baskette, "The War on Drugs as a War on Black Women," in Meda Chesney-Lind and Lisa Pasko (eds.), Girls, Women, and Crime: Selected Readings. Sage, 2004.
• JOURNAL, Chin, Gabriel, 390109, Race, the War on Drugs and the Collateral Consequences of Criminal Conviction, Gender, Race & Justice, 6, 253, 2002,
• Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair, Whiteout: The CIA, Drugs and the Press. New York: Verso, 1998.
• Mitchell Earlywine, Understanding Marijuana: A New Look at the Scientific Evidence. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.
• Kathleen J. Frydl, The Drug Wars in America, 1940–1973. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013.
• JOURNAL, Kenneth B., Nunn,weblink Race, Crime and the Pool of Surplus Criminality: Or Why the War on Drugs Was a War on Blacks, Gender, Race & Justice, 6, 6, 381, 2002,
• Tony Payan, "A War that Can't Be Won." Tucson: The University of Arizona Press, 2013.
• Preston Peet, Under the Influence: The Disinformation Guide to Drugs. The Disinformation Company, 2004.
• Thomas C. Rowe, Federal Narcotics Laws and the War on Drugs: Money Down a Rat Hole. Binghamton, NY: Haworn Press, 2006.
• Eric Schneider, "The Drug War Revisited," Berfrois, November 2, 2011.
• Peter Dale Scott and Jonathan Marshall, Cocaine Politics: Drugs, Armies, and the CIA in Central America. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1911.
• Dominic Streatfeild, Cocaine: An Unauthorized Biography. Macmillan, 2003.
• Douglas Valentine, The Strength of the Wolf: The Secret History of America's War on Drugs. New York: Verso, 2004.

Government and NGO reports

• National Drug Threat Assessment 2009 from the United States Department of Justice
• War On Drugs: Legislation in the 108th Congress and Related Developments, a 2003 report from the Congressional Research Service via the State Department website
• The Report of the Canadian Government Commission of Inquiry into the Non-Medical Use of Drugs – 1972
• {{citation |author=Drug Enforcement Administration |year=2017 |title=Drugs of abuse: A DEA resource guide |edition=2017 |location=Washington, D.C. |publisher=Author |url=https://www.dea.gov/pr/multimedia-library/publications/drug_of_abuse.pdf |access-date=January 23, 2018 |archive-date=December 3, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161203195836weblink |url-status=dead }}
• Revealing the missing link to Climate Justice: Drug Policy, a 2023 report from the International Coalition on Drug Policy Reform and Environmental Justice

External links

{{commons category}}

• Narco News – news site focusing on drug war in Latin America
• Drug Policy Facts
• Major Studies of Drugs and Drug Policy Full text of major government commission reports on the drug laws from around the world over the last 100 years
• Historical Research on the Drug War Full text of numerous full histories of the drug war and thousands of original historical documents
• weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20080705105743weblink">Cato Institute Drug Prohibition Research

{{drug use}}{{United States topics}}{{Colombia conflict}}{{Mexican Drug War}}{{Internal conflict in Peru}}{{Richard Nixon}}