![]() One of Nixon’s top aides, John Ehrlichman, admitted what the drug war was really about. ![]() Racism and the War on Drugsįrom the beginning, Nixon’s war on drugs had racist motivations. And communities of color have suffered the most. No other wealthy, developed nation comes close to America’s imprisonment rate. Mass incarceration has become the war on drugs’ legacy. The nation with the next highest prison population, El Salvador, trails by almost 100 people, with 562 per 100,000 incarcerated. ![]() No other country has so many of its citizens behind bars. The United States has the highest prison population, both in absolute numbers and per capita, in the world. Even with the slight decline, the amount of people in prison is almost four times as high as it was 50 years ago. By 2007, the number reached a peak of 767, and in 2021, that number is 639 per 100,000. The continuing war on drugs has caused the United State’s prison population to skyrocket. In 1972, 161 out of 100,000 citizens were incarcerated. Laws criminalizing drug possession and use, with mandatory minimum sentences, have remained intact. Though the age of “just say no” is long over, drug-related imprisonment remains high. The zero-tolerance policies implemented in the Reagan era led to an exponential growth in the nation’s prison population. It included a focus on marijuana and crack cocaine. It increased funding for anti-drug efforts and added to the number of drug offenses with mandatory minimum sentences. In 1986, Reagan passed the Anti-Drug Abuse Act, which was the next major step in the war on drugs. While she may have had admirable intentions for her efforts, she helped build a culture of public fear about drugs, which prompted support for harsher policies. In her addresses, she suggested children facing peer pressure to try drugs should “just say no,” which became the anti-drug slogan. She made dozens of appearances across the nation and several foreign countries. The first lady, Nancy Reagan, spearheaded an anti-drug campaign. His administration put significant focus on the issue of drugs, drawing a large amount of public attention. When Reagan took office in 1981, he began to expand the war on drugs, increasing the number of people imprisoned for nonviolent drug offenses. It became a focus again in the 1980s with the Ronald Reagan administration. After Nixon came President Jimmy Carter, who exercised minimal focus on drug policies and did little to change or expand on the war on drugs. In the decades that followed, the war on drugs intensified into what it has become today. Nixon also created the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) to target the production, distribution and use of illicit drugs. Schedule 1 drugs are those with no medicinal uses that doctors cannot prescribe. In the act he passed, Nixon put marijuana in the Schedule 1 category of controlled drugs, despite the dissent of his appointed review commission. He passed the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act, which put all drugs into an organized system based on addiction potential and medicinal use. It was June of 1971 when President Richard Nixon declared a war on drugs, calling drugs “public enemy number one.” He implemented this war in multiple ways - he increased federal drug control agencies and pushed for mandatory sentences and no-knock warrants. Seek Addiction Recovery Services With Gateway Foundation.Learn about the war on drugs and how America can heal from its impact. It’s vital to understand how the war on drugs began, how it has evolved over the years and the harmful effects it has had. Addressing the matter as a public health concern rather than a criminal issue will do more to help those who suffer from substance use disorders. The time has come for a new approach to substance use in America. The impact of the war on drugs has been mass incarceration, increased felony charges and lives disrupted by drug criminalization. The war on drugs has had little impact on drug use rates or public safety, but it has resulted in a skyrocketed prison population, especially among communities of color. Racism has been embedded in the United State’s war on drugs since its inception.
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