On June 17, 1971, President Richard Nixon declared a federal War on Drugs during a White House press conference. President Nixon announced that “public enemy number one in the United States is drug abuse.” Nixon proposed an “all-out offensive” composed of a worldwide, bipartisan, government-wide initiative including a nationwide youth education campaign against drug use. The official beginning of the War on Drugs had a massive cultural, governmental, and criminal impact on the United States. It led to decades of increased funding and powers for law enforcement agencies, legislation that changed sentencing laws, and a national spotlight on the adverse effects of illegal drug use in the United States.
Background on the Criminalization of Narcotics
The criminalization of narcotics began in the United States decades before President Nixon’s address. The first federal law was enacted in 1906 to control narcotics in home remedies which primarily treated young children. This law, known as The Pure Food and Drug Act, emerged from salacious reports of unsanitary manufacturing conditions in the meatpacking industry. It aimed to regulate the labeling of manufactured products and prohibit the addition of ingredients which could harm the consumer. The law made clear that the government had a responsibility to protect consumers from harmful ingredients and appropriately expanded the government’s power to do so. Eight years later, the Harrison Narcotic Act classified drugs such as heroin, cocaine, morphine, and opium to facilitate the “orderly marketing” of such drugs. Disguised as a licensing law, it actually prohibited the sale of opiates. In reality, it had minimal impact on the use of such substances. The subsequent Marijuana Tax Act of 1937 levied hefty taxes against marijuana dealers to discourage its use. The Narcotics and Marijuana Tax Acts had little impact on drug use and disproportionately impacted and punished immigrants and racial minorities due to uneven enforcement.
Impact of the Declared ‘War on Drugs’ in the 1970s and 1980s
Richard Nixon’s 1971 declaration set a precedent for how the country’s political leaders would approach the question of drug abuse in the coming decades, explicitly emphasizing the role of law enforcement and incarceration in combating the trafficking, distribution, sale, and use of illegal narcotics. His declaration called for $350 million from Congress, in part to establish a new government bureau, the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA). The President’s call for an all-out offensive coincided with a rise in recreational drug use in the 1960s and the Controlled Substances Act (CSA), which Nixon signed into law in 1970. The CSA classified drugs into five schedules based on their medical application and potential for abuse, with class one drugs such as marijuana and heroin with a high risk for addiction and little evidence of medical benefit. Schedule five drugs are medications like cough syrup with low levels of codeine.
The official inception of the War on Drugs in 1971 expanded the power of law enforcement agencies and increased penalties on drug users and dealers, which President Ronald Reagan strengthened in the 1980s. President Reagan’s administration also passed the landmark Comprehensive Crime Control Act of 1984 and the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986. The Comprehensive Crime Control Act of 1984 established mandatory minimum sentences for various violent and non-violent crimes. The Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986 expanded the established mandatory minimum penalties for drug infractions, specifically possession, based on the drug’s classification (or schedule) and expanded international and domestic drug enforcement funding.
The War on Drugs in the 1990s
The drug control measures introduced under Reagan’s administration set the stage for drug policy in the 1990s. During President Clinton’s time in office, the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 was passed, introducing a new “three-strike rule.” The “three-strike rule” was aimed at discouraging recidivism. Under this rule, a defendant may receive life imprisonment if convicted in federal court of a serious violent felony and “has two or more prior convictions in federal or state courts, at least one of which is a ‘serious violent felony. The other prior offense may be a ‘serious drug offense.'” The 1994 Act was the largest-ever crime bill, adding 100,000 new police officers, $9.7 billion in funding for prisons, and $6.1 billion for prevention programs.
Impact of Policy Changes
The expansive changes in sentencing for drug infractions and police power had a massive impact on the criminal justice system. Between 1982 and 2007, drug arrests more than tripled. In a similar time frame, from 1987 to 2005, arrests from drug abuse violations increased from 1 in 14 out of all arrests to 1 in 8. The population of drug offenders in jails and prisons has increased 1100% since 1980. Between 1988 and 2004, the proportion of defendants convicted of a drug offense who were sentenced to prison increased from 79% to 93%; drug offenders released from prison in 1986 who had been convicted before the adoption of mandatory minimum sentences and sentencing guidelines had served an average of 22 months of prison, while offenders sentenced in 2004 were expected to serve 62 months. The growth in imprisonment is most explicitly seen in the increase in the number of prisons; in the mid-1990s, an average of three 500-bed prison facilities opened each week, which were filled with inmates convicted of drug offenses. In 1979, 6% of state prison inmates were convicted of nonviolent drug offenses, and by 1998 the proportion had increased to 21%.
Efficacy and Racial Bias
Incarceration for drug possession has been disproportionately harmful to African Americans.
African Americans comprise 14% of regular drug users but are 35% of those arrested for drug offenses and 56% of persons in state prisons for drug offenses. The United States spends about 33 billion dollars a year on drug control and one trillion total since the 1960s. The United States makes up 30% of the world’s illicit drug consumption. There are roughly 70,000 overdose deaths annually, increasing 4% each year. 47% of young people will use an illegal drug by the time they graduate high school, and about 39% of adults between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five have reported using drugs. Drug use in the United States costs the economy 200 billion a dollars a year in lost productivity.
Recent Developments
The War on Drugs has begun to be scaled back in recent years. In President Obama’s “drug policy for the 21st century,” he declared that the United States “cannot incarcerate our way out of the drug problem” and emphasized prevention and treatment over increased incarceration. The 2010 Fair Sentencing Act reduced the sentencing disparity between offenses for crack and powder cocaine from 100:1 to 18:1 and retroactively applied the sentencing guidelines to individuals sentenced before the law was passed, so thousands of people will be able to have their cases reviewed. The decriminalization and legalization of marijuana is also a significant step in scaling back the War on Drugs and the incarceration-focused drug control policies. Currently, it appears as though the trend is moving towards prioritizing treatment and prevention programs and scaling back the harsh penalties for drug users. The decriminalization of marijuana and the opioid crisis likely have played a significant role in changing the perception of drug users and addiction.
