"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." — John Ehrlichman, to Dan Baum for Harper's Magazine in 1994, about President Richard Nixon's war on drugs, declared in 1971.

Ehrlichman supposedly said it in a private interview with Baum, and there was no public record of it for 22 years after it was said, and 17 years after Ehrlichman died.

It's very rare to hear such mea culpas from powerful, politically adept figures that cast their subjects in such a negative light. When they speak of their actions at all they tend to talk of them with plenty of room for interpretation and plausible deniability -- especially if they're lawyers, as Ehrlichman was.

So as much as I believe that the War on Drugs was in fact in great part a racist war and one greatly based on suppression of dissent and the 60's and 70's counterculture, I very much doubt that Ehrlichman ever confessed.

> NIXON: [...] Let's look at the strong societies. The Russians. Goddamn, they root 'em out. They don't let 'em around at all. I don't know what they do with them. Look at this country. You think the Russians allow dope? Homosexuality, dope, immorality, are the enemies of strong societies. That's why the Communists and left-wingers are clinging to one another. They're trying to destroy us. I know Moynihan will disagree with this, [Attorney General John] Mitchell will, and Garment will. But, goddamn, we have to stand up to this.

Is it really though? It seems like it would be the enemy of an uptight conservative society that only speaks of freedoms from the side of their mouth while limiting the freedoms to only those things which they agree.

It also is not accurate that the Nixon administration increased incarceration of drug use. That occurred under Reagan and Clinton.

However, Nixon was the first president to coin the term "war on drugs" but this was a rhetorical flourish. The Nixon Administration repealed the federal 2–10-year mandatory minimum sentences for possession of marijuana and started federal demand reduction programs and drug-treatment programs.

That is interesting information, thank you for commenting.

It shows that there was not a misinterpretation, as the article suggests, at least, not the initiators of the "War", but more of a well-calculated hidden agenda that had nothing to do with "drugs".

Most people in jail retain the right to vote, regardless of state.

People currently in prison on felony charges CANNOT vote in most states, but this is up to each state. In many states, you get your enfranchisement restored after completing your sentence.

https://www.thoughtco.com/where-felons-can-and-cannot-vote-3...

They may have the right to vote. Whether the facility lets it actually happen is another matter.

Edit: I stand corrected, this is true in some states but not others.

https://www.aclu.org/issues/voting-rights/voter-restoration/...

There are just a couple of states that allow that, but I learned that quite a few jurisdictions restore rights after incarceration, after probation, etc...

Not the opposite!

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Ehrlichman#Drug_war_quote

Harry Anslinger was actually one of the most influential figures in the beginning of the modern big-government war on drugs. The anti-marijuana movement was a marriage of convenience between sensationalist yellow journalism from the Hearst empire, and good old-fashioned racism.

"By the tons it is coming into this country — the deadly, dreadful poison that racks and tears not only the body, but the very heart and soul of every human being who once becomes a slave to it in any of its cruel and devastating forms. ... Marihuana is a short cut to the insane asylum. Smoke marihuana cigarettes for a month and what was once your brain will be nothing but a storehouse of horrid specters. Hasheesh makes a murderer who kills for the love of killing out of the mildest mannered man who ever laughed at the idea that any habit could ever get him."

"Reefer makes darkies think they're as good as white men."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_J._Anslinger

I don't doubt that the Nixon administration exploited the war on drugs for nefarious ends. However, I think the idea that the entire impetuous behind it was to target particular social groups is bordering on a conspiracy theory. It is a bit like suggesting that Democrats are pro immigration only because immigrants tend to vote Democrat. I'm sure it hasn't escaped the notice of Democratic electoral strategists that the party could stand to benefit from immigration. But it would be implausible to suggest that this is the only reason that Democrats tend to favor a more liberal immigration policy than Republicans.

It is, was and always will be a horrible mistake, maybe the worst sociopolitical action in the 20th century. The brutality we have seen as a result of these policies leaves little moral ambiguity.

Then theres the people lobbying for anti-drug laws to expand the prison population. Lawyers and respective district attorneys that were happy as well.

The drug war was basically a felony printer as well. This made all sorts of social problems including unemployment / housing even more problematic. It tore apart families and still does. Meanwhile other legal drugs (opioids in general) flourished.

Then there's the overdoses / poisonings because the source and distribution networks are utterly motivated to mess with the supply.

The truly stupid aspect is that drug use has not significantly decreased. The whole "war" aspect was a complete failure. So it wasn't a good investment anyway.

So many parallels with prohibition. Government poisoned that supply as well and killed thousands.

Just say no. Indeed.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bootleggers_and_Baptists

Don't forget: prevent people from voting (https://www.aclu.org/blog/smart-justice/sentencing-reform/ri...), funnel people into for profit prisons (https://www.axios.com/war-drugs-prison-america-e66ffe61-c876...), steal assets from citizens under the guise of civil asset forfeiture (https://drugpolicy.org/issues/asset-forfeiture-reform), all while targeting minorities (https://drugpolicy.org/issues/race-and-drug-war).

It's clear that this is very well calculated and understood.

Cannabis was made illegal because it was mostly used by Mexican immigrants. https://www.history.com/news/why-the-u-s-made-marijuana-ille...

Crack was sentenced at a 10x higher rate than cocaine because black citizens disproportionately used crack, while white users disproportionally used cocaine.

I would be surprised if the harms of smoked crack were worse than the harms of IV cocaine.

With regards to the differing penalties for crack and cocaine, there are logical (though fundamentally misguided) reasons for it that have nothing to do with race as well. Crack cocaine is designed to be smokable, which makes it far more potent and addictive than regular cocaine . In addition, due to these properties, crack is significantly more correlated to other criminal behaviors than cocaine.

>In 1983, Rangel became chair of the Select Committee on Narcotics, which solidified his position as a leading strategist on this perennially important issue to him Rangel kept the committee going, in the face of the usual pressure to disband special committees. He battled against proposed cutbacks in the federal anti-drug budget, and advocated increased grants to states and cities for better shelters for the homeless. Rangel's amendments providing increased funding for state and local law enforcement were included in the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986. He traveled to countries in Central and South America and elsewhere to inspect the sources of drugs and the law enforcement efforts against them; Ebony magazine termed Rangel "a front-line general in the war against drugs." Rangel said "We need outrage!", making reference to the slow reaction by both government and religious leaders to the epidemics of crack cocaine, heroin, PCP, and other drugs that hit American streets during the 1980s. He believed that legalizing drugs would represent "moral and political suicide". Nor did he refrain from criticizing those most affected by drugs, saying that Hispanic and black teenagers had no sense of self-preservation, and that drug dealers were so stupid that they had to eat in fast-food places because they could not read a menu. By 1988, Rangel was saying that President Ronald Reagan had not done enough in the war on drugs, but that First Lady Nancy Reagan's "Just Say No" campaign had been quite valuable. The narcotics committee itself was termed possibly the most important select committee of its time. The Washington Post said Rangel was "in a powerful position to shape policy on an issue at the top of the nation's agenda". He would remain as chair of the committee through 1993, when it was abolished along with other House select committees.

Rangel is far from the only black leader at the time who wanted harsh penalties for drugs. So while it is true that crack has harsher penalties that other drugs because black people use it, it isn't true that those penalties are because of racist white people. It was destroying black communities, and black leaders wanted a fix, and they thought harsh penalties would work.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_J._Anslinger

Simply by turning a blind eye to one group and continuing aggressive enforcement against another the USA can tilt the political balance of power in many smaller nations.

When you create a default state of War against most of the world, selective peace becomes your most powerful weapon. Destruction is so much cheaper than building value, it creates a wildly disproportionate incentive to cooperate.

This is a somewhat partisan issue and I'm far from unbiased, but reading his wiki page will convey most of the story better than a screed.

0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_J._Anslinger

Basically, the WoSD 'was' (still is?) a mechanism by which authoritarians could impose control on society by oppressing society's undesirables. Echos of the Nazis, engender a police state, control Black people, etc etc.

But the WoSD hasn't gone so well, so it (as the main phenomena) was been supplanted by the War On Terrorism (cue the Patriot Act...) That has gotten a bit stale (but is still in effect?), so now it's ... Russians? Covid-19 and all the relevant restrictions?

Or the GOP has decided to stop being indirect and now is going blatantly full out towards overt authoritarianism using The Big Lie as the mechanism? In some parallel universe, liberals are now being rounded up and put into FEMA re-education camps on President-For-Life Trump's orders because they tried to steal the election (and every future one as well).

There is no one Single True Motivation to this sort of social phenomena - they are all different expressions of the sociopaths in charge's drives for power.

[0] https://www.amazon.co.uk/Drug-Warriors-Their-Prey-Police/dp/...

(Primarily used by drug legalization advocates, presumably to convey the arbitrary distinction between legal and illegal drugs.)

They may not have minded the side benefits, but it's reasonable to believe they had a genuine public health concern.

And militarize the police.

Will this ever be achieved in the US in the next... 5 years? 10 years? 20 years? 50 years?

https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/what-does-science-tell-us-abo...

Personally, I think a great amount of harm reduction could be achieved by legalizing at least one recreational drug in every class, determined by which has least relative harm to the user. If there was a clean, legal and affordable option, I believe demand for the more-harmful drugs in the class would be significantly reduced. i.e. "stimulant" demand is somewhat elastic, and by making the least harmful stimulant (not sure if that is Khat or not) easily available, demand for Meth would be significantly reduced and market effects would make its availability much less widespread

Psilocybin is the first possible candidate that comes to my mind, but I'd rather have us use a sound framework of harm-minimization than to favor/disfavor any particular drug.

Speak for yourself. My methhead sister-in-law is in prison and I certainly feel safer. Addicts cannot be trusted and bring families down.

People raised away from addicts (read: white liberals) don’t understand how destructive they can be to a community.

But your parent comment said "my methhead sister-in-law is in prison and I certainly feel safer", not "my methhead sister-in-law is in prison and she certainly feels safer."

"War on drugs" was actually genius marketing because it conceals the fact that the government is actually doing as little as possible as cheaply as possible by just chucking people in prison instead of sending them to rehab.

Inpatient treatment is more expensive per day than jail, sure. But not all treatment is inpatient, and it doesn’t make a lot of sense to compare per day, anyway. There’s plenty of studies showing that treatments saves money compared to (and especially in) criminal justice.

However, no, I don't agree that alcohol is "just the same". People rarely commit robbery and murder to get another hit of alcohol. Conversely, many drug addicts are unable to stop themselves from taking desperate measures to get their next hit when it is not easily accessible.

Go hang out in a liquor store in a less-advantaged area of any U.S. city and tell me the sad sacks coming in for singles of rotgut are fine, upstanding citizens who’ve never broken a car window or traded an EBT card for cash and let their kids go hungry.

I don’t propose a solution for this—I’m a programmer, not a social policy maker. But if you could buy clean amphetamines cheaply and OTC, the way you can with booze, the problems of meth use would look quite different.

[0] https://mafiamembershipcharts.blogspot.com/2017/01/chicago-u... (and this is just gangs)

This is mostly because shoplifting is a thing, and possibly because you can do things like steal from family and your food budget can generally keep you drunk enough that you don't care if you eat. Vodka can be really, really cheap.

Addicts with enough money to afford their addiction rarely commit robbery or murder, by the way, as evidenced by the politicians, entertainers, and sports players that wind up having addiction issues. Small towns still generally have low murder rates, and have addiction.

I'd argue that folks rarely commit robbery and murder for their other addictions, too - we just hear about them on the news, the same one that draws attention to things that hook into your fear and sensationalizes it. In any case, I'd need sources to see if it is really a cause in anything but a tiny number of addicts. I'm guessing more get caught for public intox or possession.

Do you you think drug-related robbery and murder would decrease if we simply provided free drugs to anybody who wanted them?

Weird. Almost like making it legal, relatively cheap, and easily accessible makes it so you don't have to resort to desperate means.

I think the question of legality muddles the argument. Its illegal to drive under the influence yet many do and some end up in horrific accidents.

We're stewards of the next generation. We're their parents, teachers, role models. Our aim should be to reduce the use of crystal meth, and other drugs that cause self-harm. No different than promoting exercise, knowledge, healthy lifestyles, etc.

Making something illegal is a powerful disincentive - but we don't expect it to work 100% perfectly. Its important to recognize when something isn't working - but lets not throw the baby out with the bathwater. Government policies are like supertankers and once they're operating at speed, they're hard to stop/steer.