The War on Drugs (April 2022)
Dublin Core
Title
The War on Drugs (April 2022)
Subject
Drugs, Nixon, Reagan, Racism
Language
English
Description
The slideshow portrays a historical overview of Nixon and Reagan's War on Drugs, and how it was targeted to criminalize black neighborhoods and an anti-war left
Creator
@so.informed
Date
2022-04-20
Contributor
Seth Gebauer
Instagram Slideshow Item Type Metadata
Text Transcription
1.) The War on Drugs
2.) The War on Drugs was spearheaded by President Richard Nixon in the 1970's in response to the heavy drug use of the previous decade. Nixon's administration, in what as promoted as an effort to stop illicit drug use among American youth, declared a "war on drugs" that would radically transform the criminal justice system and have a lasting negative impact on poor communities and communities of color "if we cannot destroy the drug menace in America, then it will surely in time destroy us. I am not prepared to accept this alternative" -- Nixon to Congress, 1971
3.) The counterculture movement of the 1960's brought drug use into the mainstream. This did not sit well with Nixon. In a posthumous interview published by Harper's Magazine in 2016, Nixon's domestic-policy adviser, John Ehrlichman, laid bare the true aim of the War on Drugs: to criminalize Nixon's "two enemies: the anti-war left and Black people." Ehrlichman went on to explain, "We knew we couldn't make it illegal to be either against the war or (to be) Black, but by getting the public to associate either the hippies with marijuana and Blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities." And they did.
4.) Not only did the War on Drugs criminalize drugs beyond what experts deemed necessary at the time, it also contributed to measures like mandatory minimum sentencing laws and no-knock warrants. Both of which continue to have a deeply negative impact on communities of color to this day.
5.) The War on Drugs started with Nixon, but it certainly did not end upon his leaving office. Enter Ronald Reagan and his wife, Nancy. In 1986, President Ronald Reagan passed the Anti-Drug Abuse Act through Congress, which pumped an additional $1.7 billion into the War on Drugs. This legislation also implemented 29 new mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenses, such as mandating a minimum of 5 years without parole for possession of 5 grams of crack cocaine versus the same sentence for 500 grams of powder cocaine. In the 80's, crack cocaine was being used in significant numbers in lower-income neighborhoods, as crack cocaine cost significantly less than pure cocaine. (Crack cocaine is cocaine that has been cut with water and baking soda). The crack epidemic hit, as it is commonly called, impacted Black communites across the country more than any other.
6.) What's more: Reagan'sechoes of Nixon's "tough on crime" approach to drugs fueled law enforcement's ability to target Black Americans at a much higher rate than whites. "If the (crack) addicts were predominantly white, instead of Black, we would have offered them treatment, as we do now." -- Robert M. Stutman, special agent in charge of the Drug Enforcement Administration's (DEA) New York City Office during the 1980's. Prior to the addiction of mandatory minimum sentencing for crack cocaine, the average federal sentence for Black Americans was 11% higher than for white Americans. Just four years later, that figure soared to 49% higher.
7.) Four years after Reagan left office, President bill Clinton and then-Senator Joe Biden produced the 1994 Crime Bill. The '94 crime bill imposed harsher prison sentences federally, provided funding for states to build more prisons, funded the hiring of 100,000 additional police officers, and encouraged those officers to make more drug-related arrests. It was a direct escalation of the War on Drugs that had already been taking a toll on the country. Many people argue that mass incarceration exists in its current form because of the 1994 Crime Bill, which has resulted in 450,000 people sitting behind bars because of nonviolent drug offenses.
8.) Some facts: Every 25 seconds, someone in America is arrested for drug possession. 456,000 individuals (1/5 of the incarcerated population in the U.S.)-- is serving time for a drug charge. 1.15 million people are on probation or parole for drug-related offenses. Black Americans are 4X more likely to be arrested for cannabis charges than their white peers. Black Americans are nearly 6X more likely to be incarcerated for drug-related offenses than their white counterparts, despite equal substance usage rates. One American dies every 5 minutes from an opioid overdose. Americans account for less than 5 percent of the world's population but consume 80 percent of all opioids produced globally. The United States has spent more than $1 trillion on the War on Drugs.
9.) The supply, use and sale of drugs within the U.S. have all increased over 300% since the beginning of the War on Drugs. In other words; Nixon's War on Drugs has failed. Nixon's war on minorities, however, is still going strong.
10.) Sources:
ACLU. "Marijuana Arrests by the Numbers." n.d. https://www.aclu.org/gallery/marijuana-arrestsnumbers.
Baum, Dan. "Legalize It All, by Dan Baum.'' Harper's, March 31, 2016. https://harpers.org/archive/2016/04/legalize-it-all/.
Dickinson, Tim. "Why America Can't Quit the Drug War." Rolling Stone, May 5, 2016. https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/why-america-cant-quit-the-drug-war-47203/
Drug Policy Alliance. "Making Economic Sense." n.d. https://drugpolicy.org/issues/makingeconomic-sense.
Ofer, Udi. "How the 1994 Crime Bill Fed the Mass Incarceration Crisis." ACLU, June 4, 2019. https://www.aclu.org/blog/smart-justice/mass-incarceration/how-1994-crime-bill-fed-massincarceration-crisis.
Prison Policy Initiative. "450,000 People Are Incarcerated for Nonviolent Drug Offenses on Any Given Day." https://www.prisonpolicy.org/graphs/pie2020_drugs.html.
Shahidullah, Shahid M. "Crime Policy in America: Laws, Institutions, and Programs." In Crime Policy in America: Laws, Institutions and Programs, 137-37. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, Inc, 2008.
2.) The War on Drugs was spearheaded by President Richard Nixon in the 1970's in response to the heavy drug use of the previous decade. Nixon's administration, in what as promoted as an effort to stop illicit drug use among American youth, declared a "war on drugs" that would radically transform the criminal justice system and have a lasting negative impact on poor communities and communities of color "if we cannot destroy the drug menace in America, then it will surely in time destroy us. I am not prepared to accept this alternative" -- Nixon to Congress, 1971
3.) The counterculture movement of the 1960's brought drug use into the mainstream. This did not sit well with Nixon. In a posthumous interview published by Harper's Magazine in 2016, Nixon's domestic-policy adviser, John Ehrlichman, laid bare the true aim of the War on Drugs: to criminalize Nixon's "two enemies: the anti-war left and Black people." Ehrlichman went on to explain, "We knew we couldn't make it illegal to be either against the war or (to be) Black, but by getting the public to associate either the hippies with marijuana and Blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities." And they did.
4.) Not only did the War on Drugs criminalize drugs beyond what experts deemed necessary at the time, it also contributed to measures like mandatory minimum sentencing laws and no-knock warrants. Both of which continue to have a deeply negative impact on communities of color to this day.
5.) The War on Drugs started with Nixon, but it certainly did not end upon his leaving office. Enter Ronald Reagan and his wife, Nancy. In 1986, President Ronald Reagan passed the Anti-Drug Abuse Act through Congress, which pumped an additional $1.7 billion into the War on Drugs. This legislation also implemented 29 new mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenses, such as mandating a minimum of 5 years without parole for possession of 5 grams of crack cocaine versus the same sentence for 500 grams of powder cocaine. In the 80's, crack cocaine was being used in significant numbers in lower-income neighborhoods, as crack cocaine cost significantly less than pure cocaine. (Crack cocaine is cocaine that has been cut with water and baking soda). The crack epidemic hit, as it is commonly called, impacted Black communites across the country more than any other.
6.) What's more: Reagan'sechoes of Nixon's "tough on crime" approach to drugs fueled law enforcement's ability to target Black Americans at a much higher rate than whites. "If the (crack) addicts were predominantly white, instead of Black, we would have offered them treatment, as we do now." -- Robert M. Stutman, special agent in charge of the Drug Enforcement Administration's (DEA) New York City Office during the 1980's. Prior to the addiction of mandatory minimum sentencing for crack cocaine, the average federal sentence for Black Americans was 11% higher than for white Americans. Just four years later, that figure soared to 49% higher.
7.) Four years after Reagan left office, President bill Clinton and then-Senator Joe Biden produced the 1994 Crime Bill. The '94 crime bill imposed harsher prison sentences federally, provided funding for states to build more prisons, funded the hiring of 100,000 additional police officers, and encouraged those officers to make more drug-related arrests. It was a direct escalation of the War on Drugs that had already been taking a toll on the country. Many people argue that mass incarceration exists in its current form because of the 1994 Crime Bill, which has resulted in 450,000 people sitting behind bars because of nonviolent drug offenses.
8.) Some facts: Every 25 seconds, someone in America is arrested for drug possession. 456,000 individuals (1/5 of the incarcerated population in the U.S.)-- is serving time for a drug charge. 1.15 million people are on probation or parole for drug-related offenses. Black Americans are 4X more likely to be arrested for cannabis charges than their white peers. Black Americans are nearly 6X more likely to be incarcerated for drug-related offenses than their white counterparts, despite equal substance usage rates. One American dies every 5 minutes from an opioid overdose. Americans account for less than 5 percent of the world's population but consume 80 percent of all opioids produced globally. The United States has spent more than $1 trillion on the War on Drugs.
9.) The supply, use and sale of drugs within the U.S. have all increased over 300% since the beginning of the War on Drugs. In other words; Nixon's War on Drugs has failed. Nixon's war on minorities, however, is still going strong.
10.) Sources:
ACLU. "Marijuana Arrests by the Numbers." n.d. https://www.aclu.org/gallery/marijuana-arrestsnumbers.
Baum, Dan. "Legalize It All, by Dan Baum.'' Harper's, March 31, 2016. https://harpers.org/archive/2016/04/legalize-it-all/.
Dickinson, Tim. "Why America Can't Quit the Drug War." Rolling Stone, May 5, 2016. https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/why-america-cant-quit-the-drug-war-47203/
Drug Policy Alliance. "Making Economic Sense." n.d. https://drugpolicy.org/issues/makingeconomic-sense.
Ofer, Udi. "How the 1994 Crime Bill Fed the Mass Incarceration Crisis." ACLU, June 4, 2019. https://www.aclu.org/blog/smart-justice/mass-incarceration/how-1994-crime-bill-fed-massincarceration-crisis.
Prison Policy Initiative. "450,000 People Are Incarcerated for Nonviolent Drug Offenses on Any Given Day." https://www.prisonpolicy.org/graphs/pie2020_drugs.html.
Shahidullah, Shahid M. "Crime Policy in America: Laws, Institutions, and Programs." In Crime Policy in America: Laws, Institutions and Programs, 137-37. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, Inc, 2008.
Instagram caption
Happy 4/20 -- just a friendly reminder that The War on Drugs is a failed policy.
Image Description
The slideshow is primarily white and green, typed, with cutout images scattered across the slides. The images are mostly old black and white photos of politicians.
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Number of followers on account
2.9 Million
Citation
@so.informed, “The War on Drugs (April 2022),” Instagram Slideshow Archive, accessed May 2, 2024, https://instagramslideshows.omeka.net/items/show/15.
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