We've known this all along, but now an international commission of serious people, the Global Commission on Drug Policy, has said it out loud. The War on Drugs was a failure. Its Report begins,
The global war on drugs has failed, with devastating consequences for individuals and societies around the world. Fifty years after the initiation of the UN Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, and 40 years after President Nixon launched the US government’s war on drugs, fundamental reforms in national and global drug control policies are urgently needed.
Ah yes, Nixon. It's his legacy. Before I ramble on, I will point to an excellent article,
The global drug war and the Nixon connection, that Paul Rosenberg wrote for Al Jazeera. Consider this diary to be a pointer to his article, and some additional discussion of the points he made first.
The 1960s were a time of incredible divisiveness in the US, mainly caused by the Vietnam war. It was even worse than today. Everyone was either pro-war or anti-war, though it was largely a surrogate for the class divide. White working-class Americans tended to support the war. Fathers of that generation were often World War II or Korea veterans, and the military was an institution to be respected. Middle class Americans, especially more educated ones, tended to oppose the war. But in many families there was a huge generation gap, the young opposed and the old in favor.
This was also the time of civil rights ferment. The Voting Rights Act had taken effect and the south was beginning to see African-Americans get some say. The Great Migration was still underway, and African-Americans and Latinos were both moving in to northern cities, with many working-class whites feeling displaced. Indeed due to redlining and special mortgage policies for nonwhites, they often were displaced. Of course it wasn't the bankers who felt their rage; it was the ones below them on the social ladder, the nonwhites.
Among the young bourgeoisie, "dropping out" was a popular reaction. Hence around 1966, the "hippie" counter-culture took hold. (Spelling note: "Hippy" is not the same thing, but a reference to a wide mid-section of the body.) Of course the hippies, and many others who didn't quite leave society, had their own choice of pharmaceuticals. Some followed Dr. Leary's lead, and even more used the evil weed.
And what a history that weed had! Prohibition of alcohol was over and the prohibitionists needed a new enemy. In the 1930s, marijuana was largely a "negro" drug, used by jazz musicians, so the white establishment could dump on it with silliness like "Reefer Madness". It made its way to white "bohemians" and became totemic to hippies. So policies towards marijuana and to a lesser extent other recreational drugs were a badge of the culture wars, telling which side you were on.
Other drugs had racial connotations. Heroin was seen as the most dangerous, most addictive drug, and lots of news stories informed the white populace that most crime was caused by junkies looking for money to buy a fix. Heroin was seen as much more popular among nonwhites, though of course there were plenty of white junkies, often going into black neighborhoods to score a fix. Crime and drugs were tied together. And "law and order" was a racial dogwhistle.
The war in Vietnam had been growing more and more divisive, and by 1968 it had split the Democrats in half. The old working-class white and especially Catholic population instinctively supported the war and feared black people. Then there were the anti-war Democrats who rallied behind the more professorial Gene McCarthy. Robert Kennedy tried to reach both groups, but of course never lived to see if he could succeed. The enthusiasm gap was as wide as the generation gap. So Dick Nixon had an opportunity to go after the white pro-war Democrats.
This is how the War on Drugs came about. It united the cultural aversion to non-alcohol recreational drugs with simple racism. It was a strong play for weak Democrats. And it worked. Not only did it help Nixon get elected, but it gave Republican politicians (and some conservative Democrats) an issue that worked for the next decade or so. Hence the often-liberal Republican governor of New York, Nelson Rockefeller, targeted conservative support by passing incredibly draconian drug laws, including life imprisonment for some drug dealers. This has of course proven extremely expensive, as well as disruptive of many communities.
And it succeeded in becoming almost invulnerable to criticism. A politician who calls for reform of drug laws is called "soft on crime". Again, it's a dogwhistle, but it still works. It is starting to weaken as the older generation dies off, and the medicinal marijuana movement has proven a clever and effective way to shift the conversation away from law enforcement and into another politically-safe place. But it is still not a general answer; it's just evidence of a crack in the thick blue line.
The situation in Mexico, the Central American states, and Colombia reveals how the Nixon drug war has had disastrous implications for other countries. The rest of the world is finally beginning to speak up. We should not fear politicians who have a vested interest in the prison-industrial complex, which is largely fed by this failed policy. Let's pay attention to the Global Commission on Drug Policy and hold our politicians to do the same.