drug prohibition essay

Prohibition: War on Drugs Essay

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When and why alcohol prohibition was passed in the United States

Prohibition of alcohol in the United States took place between 1920 and 1933. The reasons for this move were to minimize crime and exploitation, provide remedies to social issues, reduce revenue burden enhanced by prisons and shanties, and make health and hygienic standards in America better (Thornton 1). In short, it was thought that less drinking would lead to better lives.

Some scholars have referred to the ban as a prohibition experiment, rather than a law enforcement action. This is because compared to all other reforms, it is the only one that was intentionally and decisively repealed (Burham 1). Whereas this perspective regards prohibition as a total failure, others regard it as a success. Nevertheless, the lessons learned from prohibition are relevant and applicable to the contemporary world debate over the war on drug and substance abuse, abortion, gambling, and other issues.

Alcohol prohibition was a failure

According to Thornton (1), alcoholism declined shortly after Prohibition began. On the other hand, the Schaffer Drug Library (1) states that most indicators show alcohol consumption declined just before national prohibition began. However, by 1926, it had increased over its previous rates, leading to a rise in both crime and corruption that really strained the courts and prison systems.

There were also various newer problems; for instance, a drinking epidemic among children. The Introduction of Prohibition also triggered many drinkers into the use of other dangerous drugs such as opium, marijuana, and cocaine. This could not have taken place in the absence of the alcoholic prohibition.

In the workplace, Prohibition did not have positive effect on levels of productivity and absenteeism. American Labor Leader Andrew Furuseth spoke before Congress in 1926 and noted that just after prohibition began, there was a large change in the working population, but he also added:

“Two years afterwards I came through the same identical place, staying in Portland for about three days, and went to the very same place for the purpose of looking at the situation, and the condition was worse than it had been prior to the passage of the law” (Schaffer 1).

Prohibition did not only lead to a large loss in business revenue, it also affected the government spending. Primarily, tax revenues declined as alcohol traders closed shop or switched to underground market where the taxman could not reach them, while at the same time, production and distribution of alcohol business declined resulting to lower taxes.

In addition, as noted above, productivity and absenteeism at workplaces led to reduced income thus lower taxes to the government. In relation to government’s spending, large sums of money were spent on policy implementation and enforcement. In the perspective of its supporters, Prohibition related advantages were dependent on reduced quantity of alcohol consumption. Shortly after the ban, there were indicators that the quantity of consumption had indeed been lowered.

The iron law of Prohibition

The Eighteenth Amendment was the culmination of a long campaign by church and women’s organizations; they wanted an iron law that would keep people away from alcohol and its immoral behaviors.

Four conditions that indicate a reduction of alcohol intake: first, there must be a decrease in alcohol usage after Prohibition began. Although it was discovered that the amount of alcohol bought had declined some years before the ban, Prohibition did not exactly eliminate alcohol consumption as speakeasies became an underground sensation and gangsters ran liquor everywhere.

Secondly, although the drinking of alcohol had initially dropped, this did not hold in subsequent years as consumption eventually soared beyond its previous numbers. The annual degree of consumption had been reducing from 1910; however, it reduced greatly during the 1921 recession and shot up again after the ban in 1922. Even investment in enforcement resources showed little results such that, despite the 1933 repeal of Prohibition, alcoholic consumption levels exceeded the pre-prohibition period.

Thirdly, increase in enforcement resources were directly proportional (rather than inversely proportional, as they should have been) to alcoholic consumption. Therefore, this did not discourage consumption either.

The fourth condition is the most imperative in that, a decrease in alcohol consumption does not actually equate to a success of Prohibition. In this vein, the overall social implications of Prohibition must be analyzed.

Prohibition did not only have degenerating effects on alcoholic consumption, but also on its production and distribution, leading to unprecedented repercussions in the whole system. The most notable of those repercussions is “the iron law of Prohibition” which states that the more harsh the enforcement law, the more potent the prohibited product becomes.

Statistics reveal that prior to Prohibition, most Americans spent equally on beer and spirits; however, during Prohibition, beer became a liability because of its expense and bulkiness leading to increased consumption of both homemade and near beer.

Hence, the alcohol dealers turned their attention to cheaper and stronger liquors (whiskey) instead of beer in order to meet the needs of the consumers. The usual beer, wine, or whiskey was more highly alcoholic by volume during Prohibition than was during either pre-Prohibition or post-Prohibition (Thornton 4).

The production standards were compromised during Prohibition, resulting in largely non-uniform quality. Moonshine production by amateurs during Prohibition resulted to products that were detrimental to human health and contained dangerous ingredients. It was also reported that during Prohibition, the death rates due to consumption of toxic illicit liquor rose (Thornton 6).

Primarily, prohibitionists looked at alcohol related deaths as those occurring from cirrhosis of the liver. However, they did not count deaths stemming from other elements of prohibition drinking such as blood poisoning, fighting, car crashes, and other seemingly unrelated issues. These resulted in public relations constraints since the deaths were not necessarily accidental, though they were considered accidental.

In the 20’s there were no restrictions on the portrayal of drinking and smoking in film. Among the youth, the product became attractive due to its associated glamour. Young people gained interest in these vices by watching their parents and seeing glamorous stars drinking in the movies.

Apart from selling to the youth, the sellers successfully built up their businesses during Prohibition by selling to people who would not otherwise drink. Moreover, most old-fashioned Americans and new immigrants were unwilling to be left out making the whole period a moment when people drank more dedicatedly than at any other time.

One large deficit to Prohibition was that it changed the distribution pattern of alcohol. It eliminated the government-overseen bars and restaurants, replacing them with many covert speakeasies. In this, Prohibition increased the availability of alcohol such that, there were many places where people could buy alcohol from during this period than there were during pre-Prohibition.

Prohibition led to the elimination of alcohol production, location, and distribution regulations. Before Prohibition, the government had rules that could help deter selling alcohol; for example, near churches and schools on weekends and holidays.

However, during Prohibition, the regulations and oversight were eliminated while speakeasies opened up and dominated various areas that were initially dry. Following Prohibition, more Americans turned to increased intake of other forms of ‘legally’ distributed alcohol such as sacramental alcohol and patent medicines.

This happened despite existence of new regulations. Although the prohibitionists’ intention was to help people change from using alcohol to using dairy products, what was witnessed was an increase in spending on both alcohol and its substitutes. Apart from alcoholic medicine, those who could not consume alcohol switched to the use of other more addictive and dangerous drugs such as marijuana, hashish, and tobacco, to mention but a few.

The harmful consequences of the iron law of Prohibition proved more hindrance than benefit, thereby resulting to greater consumption. By these standards, it was only a mirage that alcoholic consumption decreased.

Prohibition was not a healthy initiative

Both American health and hygiene did not improve during Prohibition. This is indicated by the continued stream of deaths due to cirrhosis arising from increased intake of alcohol and other dangerous alcoholic beverages during the prohibition (Thornton 8). Those deaths, however, should not stand alone as indicators, since alcohol consumption went underground.

As noted earlier, there are other important indicators of drinking as well as cirrhosis. Contrary to the expectations of the prohibitionists that drunkards should be forgotten to let the young benefit from Prohibition, the health of young people was only at its best before Prohibition. For instance, during Prohibition, most young people’s lives were swept away due to increased alcohol intake.

Whereas it is medically proven that moderate alcoholic consumption is not harmful to one’s health but rather improves it, excess drinking on the other hand has devastating consequences on one’s health (Thornton 8). What took place during Prohibition was excessive alcoholism that had no positive impact on the American people.

Therefore, if the prohibitionists were concerned about the health of the public, they could have championed for moderate alcohol intake that has more health benefits, rather than banning alcohol as a whole. As we know now, to change the behavior of the people, one must change the sensibility of the culture.

Prohibition increased crime rate

The proponents of prohibition expected it to be a solution to all social evils (Thornton 10). Early reformers were right to assert that alcoholism led to poverty, broken homes, tax burden, and suffering. In this vein, America had registered a decline in crime rate towards the end of the 19 th century and at the beginning of the 20 th century (Thornton 10). That trend was disrupted by launching the prohibition on alcohol. Increased cases of homicide were noted during this time.

Records show that during this period, more funds were spent on police and many people were arrested for flouting prohibition regulations. Furthermore, although drunkenness and disorderly arrests increased, the rate of drinking did not decline. This meant that instead of helping to decongest prisons prohibition and its enforcement seemed to fill prisons. This in turn increased spending on police and prisons. Along with expected crimes, there were also increased cases of burglary, robbery, and murder during the prohibition period.

Prohibition raised corruption levels

Thornton points out that there was increased bribery among politicians and the police, as they dealt with the cottage industry of moonshine, speakeasies, and organized crime bosses and their families. There was also corruption inside the bureau of Prohibition itself, leading to an influx of cases in the courts regarding corruption and lessening the efficiency of the judicial system.

Prohibition was a success

To begin with, contrary to the views of many, the enforcement law was not all-embracing (Moore 6). The amendment banned the commercial production and distribution of alcoholic products; however, it did not ban both use and production of alcoholic beverages for personal consumption.

In addition, the enforcement was to be effected after one year in order to give people sufficient time to amass supplies. Secondly, Prohibition led to a decline in alcohol intake, reduction in deaths due to cirrhosis, and a reduction in admission to state hospitals for drinking psychosis.

In addition, alcoholic consumption declined leading to a drop in arrests that resulted from drunkenness and disorder (Moore 7). Thirdly, Prohibition did not contribute to organized crime because this existed before and after it. Moreover, other forms of crime did not rise dramatically during Prohibition (Moore 8). Fourth, after the repeal, there was increased alcohol intake. However, in the recent past, both thousands of motor vehicle deaths and homicides have been attributed to the use of alcohol (Moore, 10).

The modern war on drugs

Modern prohibition on drugs began in the nineteenth century due to a rise in production of both potent and habituating drugs from the medicinal industry (DuPont and Voth 3). Initially, drugs like cocaine were used for medical purposes, but later on, their use by public increased to unprecedented levels, resulting to distasteful consequences.

However, this period of carefree sale and consumption of illicit drugs ceased after the first two decades of the 20 th century (DuPont and Voth 4), with several acts requiring not only labeling but also prohibition of some drugs. This led to sparing sale of habituating drugs mainly for medical rather than addictive reasons.

This move by the social contract to regulate drugs of abuse also led to great reduction of drug abuse epidemic. Moreover, the United States drug control laws were internationally recognized and their enforcement led to a decline in use of habituating drugs between 1920 and 1965 (DuPont and Voth 7).

The non-use of both dangerous and alcoholic drugs continued until the culture of the ascendant youth who incorporated drugs as part of their life style. However, the use of hard drugs such as marijuana, cocaine and the hallucinogens resumed with increased calls for their legalization under allegations that they were better in comparison to alcohol and tobacco. This led to negative effects, a situation that continued until recent calls for legalization.

Lessons in relation to the current war on drug abuse

Prohibition, which failed to reduce alcoholism in America, can be likened to the modern war against drug abuse. However, repeal of Prohibition led to a dramatic decline in many types of crime and corruption (Thornton 15). The result of this was that, not only were jobs created, but also new voluntary actions came in to help alcoholics.

In addition, the lessons on prohibition should be used to suppress the desire to prohibit. Current prohibition of alcohol and other drugs may lead to a rise in crime rate, corruption and increased use of other dangerous substances that may be a threat to people’s health. It may also lead to increased government regulation on its citizen’s lives (Thornton 15).

Prohibition was supposed to lead to reduced crimes, reduced alcohol consumption, cut in taxes and generally a boost in the moral and economic aspect. However, although some theorists claimed that alcohol consumption declined following prohibition, others claimed that the consumption was lower before prohibition, and further claiming that the actual result of prohibition was an increase in other social vices.

For instance, prohibition led to increased crime, corruption, and use of hard drugs. From another perspective, alcohol consumption per se did not decline, as people turned to underground market for cheap and illicit alcohol. Modern war on drugs has however had some impact mainly due to regulations that have set up to regulate sale of addictive drugs. In this case, due to the failure of prohibition, legalization has been incorporated in regulation to provide a viable solution to the problem of substance abuse and related vices.

Recommendations

America government has done a lot with regard to war against alcoholism drug use. This ranges from funding social initiatives that provide awareness on drugs to prohibition by establishment of laws through the office of National Drug Control. These efforts have not yet led to a drastic drop in the use of drugs as fighting drug use in most cases seems to attract violent war from dealers.

Neither prohibition nor legalization can end drug use as it will only aggravate drug usage, crime, death and other drug – use related consequences. The government reserves the right to protect its citizens from the adverse effects of drugs and alcoholism use. However, in regulating this, force should not be used as in prohibition.

In an attempt to regulate, two approaches are recommended. First, the government should devise policies that focused on drug harm reduction and in this way concentrate on dealers rather than users. This will allow production of drugs with reduced potency and toxic composition. Secondly, a policy permitting only doctors to prescribe drugs to addicts can be put in place.

Works Cited

Burham, John C. “ New Perspectives on the Prohibition Experiment of the 1920s .” Journal of Social History. 1968. Web.

DuPont, Robert and Voth, Eric. “ Drug legalization, Harm reduction, and Drug policy .” Annals of Internal Medicine . 1995. Web.

Moore, Mark. “Institute for Behavior and Health: Actually Prohibition was a success.” The New York Times . 2009. Web.

Schaffer Library of Drug Policy “ Did Alcohol Prohibition Reduce Alcohol Consumption and Crime? ” Staff Writer. Web.

Thornton, Mark. “ Policy Analysis: Alcohol prohibition was a failure .” Policy Analysis , No. 157. 1991. Web.

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Bibliography

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Against Drug Prohibition

More and more ordinary people, elected officials, newspaper columnists, economists, doctors, judges and even the Surgeon General of the United States are concluding that the effects of our drug control policy are at least as harmful as the effects of drugs themselves.

After decades of criminal prohibition and intensive law enforcement efforts to rid the country of illegal drugs, violent traffickers still endanger life in our cities, a steady stream of drug offenders still pours into our jails and prisons, and tons of cocaine, heroin and marijuana still cross our borders unimpeded.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) opposes criminal prohibition of drugs. Not only is prohibition a proven failure as a drug control strategy, but it subjects otherwise law-abiding citizens to arrest, prosecution and imprisonment for what they do in private. In trying to enforce the drug laws, the government violates the fundamental rights of privacy and personal autonomy that are guaranteed by our Constitution. The ACLU believes that unless they do harm to others, people should not be punished -- even if they do harm to themselves. There are better ways to control drug use, ways that will ultimately lead to a healthier, freer and less crime-ridden society.

Currently Illegal Drugs Have Not Always Been Illegal

During the Civil War, morphine (an opium derivative and cousin of heroin) was found to have pain-killing properties and soon became the main ingredient in several patent medicines. In the late 19th century, marijuana and cocaine were put to various medicinal uses -- marijuana to treat migraines, rheumatism and insomnia, and cocaine to treat sinusitis, hay fever and chronic fatigue. All of these drugs were also used recreationally, and cocaine, in particular, was a common incredient in wines and soda pop -- including the popular Coca Cola.

At the turn of the century, many drugs were made illegal when a mood of temperance swept the nation. In 1914, Congress passed the Harrison Act, banning opiates and cocaine. Alcohol prohibition quickly followed, and by 1918 the U.S. was officially a "dry" nation. That did not mean, however, an end to drug use. It meant that, suddenly, people were arrested and jailed for doing what they had previously done without government interference. Prohibition also meant the emergence of a black market, operated by criminals and marked by violence.

In 1933, because of concern over widespread organized crime, police corruption and violence, the public demanded repeal of alcohol prohibition and the return of regulatory power to the states. Most states immediately replaced criminal bans with laws regulating the quality, potency and commercial sale of alcohol; as a result, the harms associated with alcohol prohibition disappeared. Meanwhile, federal prohibition of heroin and cocaine remained, and with passage of the Marijuana Stamp Act in 1937 marijuana was prohibited as well. Federal drug policy has remained strictly prohibitionist to this day.

Decades of Drug Prohibition: A History of Failure

Criminal prohibition, the centerpiece of U.S. drug policy, has failed miserably. Since 1981, tax dollars to the tune of $150 billion have been spent trying to prevent Columbian cocaine, Burmese heroin and Jamaican marijuana from penetrating our borders. Yet the evidence is that for every ton seized, hundreds more get through. Hundreds of thousands of otherwise law abiding people have been arrested and jailed for drug possession. Between 1968 and 1992, the annual number of drug-related arrests increased from 200,000 to over 1.2 million. One-third of those were marijuana arrests, most for mere possession.

The best evidence of prohibition's failure is the government's current war on drugs. This war, instead of employing a strategy of prevention, research, education and social programs designed to address problems such as permanent poverty, long term unemployment and deteriorating living conditions in our inner cities, has employed a strategy of law enforcement. While this military approach continues to devour billions of tax dollars and sends tens of thousands of people to prison, illegal drug trafficking thrives, violence escalates and drug abuse continues to debilitate lives. Compounding these problems is the largely unchecked spread of the AIDS virus among drug-users, their sexual partners and their offspring.

Those who benefit the most from prohibition are organized crime barons, who derive an estimated $10 to $50 billion a year from the illegal drug trade. Indeed, the criminal drug laws protect drug traffickers from taxation, regulation and quality control. Those laws also support artificially high prices and assure that commercial disputes among drug dealers and their customers will be settled not in courts of law, but with automatic weapons in the streets.

Drug Prohibition is a Public Health Menace

Drug prohibition promises a healthier society by denying people the opportunity to become drug users and, possibly, addicts. The reality of prohibition belies that promise.

No quality control. When drugs are illegal, the government cannot enact standards of quality, purity or potency. Consequently, street drugs are often contaminated or extremely potent, causing disease and sometimes death to those who use them.

Dirty needles. Unsterilized needles are known to transmit HIV among intravenous drug users. Yet drug users share needles because laws prohibiting possession of drug paraphernalia have made needles a scarce commodity. These laws, then, actually promote epidemic disease and death. In New York City, more than 60 percent of intravenous drug users are HIV positive. By contrast, the figure is less than one percent in Liverpool, England, where clean needles are easily available.

Scarce treatment resources. The allocation of vast sums of money to law enforcement diminishes the funds available for drug education, preventive social programs and treatment. As crack use rose during the late 1980s, millions of dollars were spent on street-level drug enforcement and on jailing tens of thousands of low level offenders, while only a handful of public drug treatment slots were created. An especially needy group -- low-income pregnant women who abused crack -- often had no place to go at all because Medicaid would not reimburse providers. Instead, the government prosecuted and jailed such women without regard to the negative consequences for their children.

Drug Prohibition Creates More Problems Than It Solves

Drug prohibition has not only failed to curb or reduce the harmful effects of drug use, it has created other serious social problems.

Caught in the crossfire. In the same way that alcohol prohibition fueled violent gangsterism in the 1920s, today's drug prohibition has spawned a culture of drive-by shootings and other gun-related crimes. And just as most of the 1920s violence was not committed by people who were drunk, most of the drug-related violence today is not committed by people who are high on drugs. The killings, then and now, are based on rivalries: Al Capone ordered the executions of rival bootleggers, and drug dealers kill their rivals today. A 1989 government study of all 193 "cocaine-related" homicides in New York City found that 87 percent grew out of rivalries and disagreements related to doing business in an illegal market. In only one case was the perpetrator actually under the influence of cocaine.

A Nation of Jailers. The "lock 'em up" mentality of the war on drugs has burdened our criminal justice system to the breaking point. Today, drug-law enforcement consumes more than half of all police resources nationwide, resources that could be better spent fighting violent crimes like rape, assault and robbery.

The recent steep climb in our incarceration rate has made the U.S. the world's leading jailer, with a prison population that now exceeds one million people, compared to approximately 200,000 in 1970. Nonviolent drug offenders make up 58 percent of the federal prison population, a population that is extremely costly to maintain. In 1990, the states alone paid $12 billion, or $16,000 per prisoner. While drug imprisonments are a leading cause of rising local tax burdens, they have neither stopped the sale and use of drugs nor enhanced public safety.

Not Drug Free -- Just Less Free. We now have what some constitutional scholars call "the drug exception to the Bill of Rights." Random drug testing without probable cause, the militarization of drug law enforcement, heightened wiretapping and other surveillance, the enactment of vaguely worded loitering laws and curfews, forfeiture of people's homes and assets, excessive and mandatory prison terms -- these practices and more have eroded the constitutional rights of all Americans.

Prohibition Is A Destructive Force In Inner City Communities

Inner city communities suffer most from both the problem of drug abuse and the consequences of drug prohibition.

Although the rates of drug use among white and non-white Americans are similar, African Americans and other racial minorities are arrested and imprisoned at higher rates. For example, according to government estimates only 12 percent of drug users are black, but nearly 40 percent of those arrested for drug offenses are black. Nationwide, one-quarter of all young African American men are under some form of criminal justice supervision, mostly for drug offenses. This phenomenon has had a devastating social impact in minority communities. Moreover, the abuse of drugs, including alcohol, has more dire consequences in impoverished communities where good treatment programs are least available.

Finally, turf battles and commercial disputes among competing drug enterprises, as well as police responses to those conflicts, occur disproportionately in poor communities, making our inner cities war zones and their residents the war's primary casualties.

Drugs Are Here to Stay -- Let's Reduce Their Harm

The universality of drug use throughout human history has led some experts to conclude that the desire to alter consciousness, for whatever reasons, is a basic human drive. People in almost all cultures, in every era, have used psychoactive drugs. Native South Americans take coca-breaks the way we, in this country, take coffee-breaks. Native North Americans use peyote and tobacco in their religious ceremonies the way Europeans use wine. Alcohol is the drug of choice in Europe, the U.S. and Canada, while many Muslim countries tolerate the use of opium and marijuana.

A "drug free America" is not a realistic goal, and by criminally banning psychoactive drugs the government has ceded all control of potentially dangerous substances to criminals. Instead of trying to stamp out all drug use, our government should focus on reducing drug abuse and prohibition-generated crime. This requires a fundamental change in public policy: repeal of criminal prohibition and the creation of a reasonable regulatory system.

Ending Prohibition Would Not Necessarily Increase Drug Abuse

While it is impossible to predict exactly how drug use patterns would change under a system of regulated manufacture and distribution, the iron rules of prohibition are that 1) illegal markets are controlled by producers, not consumers, and 2) prohibition fosters the sale and consumption of more potent and dangerous forms of drugs.

During alcohol prohibition in the 1920s, bootleggers marketed small bottles of 100-plus proof liquor because they were easier to conceal than were large, unwieldy kegs of beer. The result: Consumption of beer and wine went down while consumption of hard hard liquor went up. Similarly, contemporary drug smugglers' preference for powdered cocaine over bulky, pungent coca leaves encourages use of the most potent and dangerous cocaine products. In contrast, under legal conditions, consumers -- most of whom do not wish to harm themselves -- play a role in determining the potency of marketed products, as indicated by the popularity of today's light beers, wine coolers and decaffeinated coffees.Once alcohol prohibition was repealed, consumption increased somewhat, but the rate of liver cirrhosis went down because people tended to choose beer and wine over the more potent, distilled spirits previously promoted by bootleggers. So, even though the number of drinkers went up, the health risks of drinking went down. The same dynamic would most likely occur with drug legalization: some increase in drug use, but a decrease in drug abuse.

Another factor to consider is the lure of forbidden fruit. For young people, who are often attracted to taboos, legal drugs might be less tempting than they are now. That has been the experience of The Netherlands: After the Dutch government decriminalized marijuana in 1976, allowing it to be sold and consumed openly in small amounts, usage steadily declined -- particularly among teenagers and young adults. Prior to decriminalization, 10 percent of Dutch 17- and 18-year-olds used marijuana. By 1985, that figure had dropped to 6.5 percent.

Would drugs be more available once prohibition is repealed? It is hard to imagine drugs being more available than they are today. Despite efforts to stem their flow, drugs are accessible to anyone who wants them. In a recent government-sponsored survey of high school seniors, 55 percent said it would be "easy" for them to obtain cocaine, and 85 percent said it would be "easy" for them to obtain marijuana. In our inner-cities, access to drugs is especially easy, and the risk of arrest has proven to have a negligible deterrent effect. What would change under decriminalization is not so much drug availability as the conditions under which drugs would be available. Without prohibition, providing help to drug abusers who wanted to kick their habits would be easier because the money now being squandered on law enforcement could be used for preventive social programs and treatment.

What The United States Would Look Like After Repeal

Some people, hearing the words "drug legalization," imagine pushers on street corners passing out cocaine to anyone -- even children. But that is what exists today under prohibition. Consider the legal drugs, alcohol and tobacco: Their potency, time and place of sale and purchasing age limits are set by law. Similarly, warning labels are required on medicinal drugs, and some of these are available by prescription only.

After federal alcohol prohibition was repealed, each state developed its own system for regulating the distribution and sale of alcoholic beverages. The same could occur with currently illegal drugs. For example, states could create different regulations for marijuana, heroin and cocaine.

Ending prohibition is not a panacea. It will not by itself end drug abuse or eliminate violence. Nor will it bring about the social and economic revitalization of our inner cities. However, ending prohibition would bring one very significant benefit: It would sever the connection between drugs and crime that today blights so many lives and communities. In the long run, ending prohibition could foster the redirection of public resources toward social development, legitimate economic opportunities and effective treatment, thus enhancing the safety, health and well-being of the entire society.

What You Can Do

You can help bring about drug policy reform:

• Demand candid discussion of alternatives to prohibition by public officials.
• Break the silence -- write letters to your elected representatives and letters-to-the-editor of your local newspaper.
• Support incremental harm-reduction measures like needle exchange programs and medical marijuana legislation.
• Use this briefing paper to raise the consciousness of your friends and co-workers.

Related Issues

• Criminal Law Reform
• Mass Incarceration
• Smart Justice

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The War On Drugs: 50 Years Later

After 50 years of the war on drugs, 'what good is it doing for us'.

During the War on Drugs, the Brownsville neighborhood in New York City saw some of the highest rates of incarceration in the U.S., as Black and Hispanic men were sent to prison for lengthy prison sentences, often for low-level, nonviolent drug crimes. Spencer Platt/Getty Images hide caption

During the War on Drugs, the Brownsville neighborhood in New York City saw some of the highest rates of incarceration in the U.S., as Black and Hispanic men were sent to prison for lengthy prison sentences, often for low-level, nonviolent drug crimes.

When Aaron Hinton walked through the housing project in Brownsville on a recent summer afternoon, he voiced love and pride for this tightknit, but troubled working-class neighborhood in New York City where he grew up.

He pointed to a community garden, the lush plots of vegetables and flowers tended by volunteers, and to the library where he has led after-school programs for kids.

But he also expressed deep rage and sorrow over the scars left by the nation's 50-year-long War on Drugs. "What good is it doing for us?" Hinton asked.

Revisiting Two Cities At The Front Line Of The War On Drugs

Critics Say Chauvin Defense 'Weaponized' Stigma For Black Americans With Addiction

As the United States' harsh approach to drug use and addiction hits the half-century milestone, this question is being asked by a growing number of lawmakers, public health experts and community leaders.

In many parts of the U.S., some of the most severe policies implemented during the drug war are being scaled back or scrapped altogether.

Hinton, a 37-year-old community organizer and activist, said the reckoning is long overdue. He described watching Black men like himself get caught up in drugs year after year and swept into the nation's burgeoning prison system.

"They're spending so much money on these prisons to keep kids locked up," Hinton said, shaking his head. "They don't even spend a fraction of that money sending them to college or some kind of school."

Aaron Hinton, a 37-year-old veteran activist and community organizer, said it's clear Brownsville needed help coping with the cocaine, heroin and other drug-related crime that took root here in the 1970s and 1980s. His own family was devastated by addiction. Brian Mann hide caption

Aaron Hinton, a 37-year-old veteran activist and community organizer, said it's clear Brownsville needed help coping with the cocaine, heroin and other drug-related crime that took root here in the 1970s and 1980s. His own family was devastated by addiction.

Hinton has lived his whole life under the drug war. He said Brownsville needed help coping with cocaine, heroin and drug-related crime that took root here in the 1970s and 1980s.

His own family was scarred by addiction.

"I've known my mom to be a drug user my whole entire life," Hinton said. "She chose to run the streets and left me with my great-grandmother."

Four years ago, his mom overdosed and died after taking prescription painkillers, part of the opioid epidemic that has killed hundreds of thousands of Americans.

Hinton said her death sealed his belief that tough drug war policies and aggressive police tactics would never make his family or his community safer.

The nation pivots (slowly) as evidence mounts against the drug war

During months of interviews for this project, NPR found a growing consensus across the political spectrum — including among some in law enforcement — that the drug war simply didn't work.

"We have been involved in the failed War on Drugs for so very long," said retired Maj. Neill Franklin, a veteran with the Baltimore City Police and the Maryland State Police who led drug task forces for years.

He now believes the response to drugs should be handled by doctors and therapists, not cops and prison guards. "It does not belong in our wheelhouse," Franklin said during a press conference this week.

Aaron Hinton has lived his whole life under the drug war. He has watched many Black men like himself get caught up in drugs year after year, swept into the nation's criminal justice system. Brian Mann/NPR hide caption

Aaron Hinton has lived his whole life under the drug war. He has watched many Black men like himself get caught up in drugs year after year, swept into the nation's criminal justice system.

Some prosecutors have also condemned the drug war model, describing it as ineffective and racially biased.

"Over the last 50 years, we've unfortunately seen the 'War on Drugs' be used as an excuse to declare war on people of color, on poor Americans and so many other marginalized groups," said New York Attorney General Letitia James in a statement sent to NPR.

On Tuesday, two House Democrats introduced legislation that would decriminalize all drugs in the U.S., shifting the national response to a public health model. The measure appears to have zero chance of passage.

But in much of the country, disillusionment with the drug war has already led to repeal of some of the most punitive policies, including mandatory lengthy prison sentences for nonviolent drug users.

In recent years, voters and politicians in 17 states — including red-leaning Alaska and Montana — and the District of Columbia have backed the legalization of recreational marijuana , the most popular illicit drug, a trend that once seemed impossible.

Last November, Oregon became the first state to decriminalize small quantities of all drugs , including heroin and methamphetamines.

Many critics say the course correction is too modest and too slow.

"The war on drugs was an absolute miscalculation of human behavior," said Kassandra Frederique, who heads the Drug Policy Alliance, a national group that advocates for total drug decriminalization.

She said the criminal justice model failed to address the underlying need for jobs, health care and safe housing that spur addiction.

Indeed, much of the drug war's architecture remains intact. Federal spending on drugs — much of it devoted to interdiction — is expected to top $37 billion this year.

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Drug overdose deaths spiked to 88,000 during the pandemic, white house says.

The U.S. still incarcerates more people than any other nation, with nearly half of the inmates in federal prison held on drug charges .

But the nation has seen a significant decline in state and federal inmate populations, down by a quarter from the peak of 1.6 million in 2009 to roughly 1.2 million last year .

There has also been substantial growth in public funding for health care and treatment for people who use drugs, due in large part to passage of the Affordable Care Act .

"The best outcomes come when you treat the substance use disorder [as a medical condition] as opposed to criminalizing that person and putting them in jail or prison," said Dr. Nora Volkow, who has been head of the National Institute of Drug Abuse since 2003.

Volkow said data shows clearly that the decision half a century ago to punish Americans who struggle with addiction was "devastating ... not just to them but actually to their families."

From a bipartisan War on Drugs to Black Lives Matter

Wounds left by the drug war go far beyond the roughly 20.3 million people who have a substance use disorder .

The campaign — which by some estimates cost more than $1 trillion — also exacerbated racial divisions and infringed on civil liberties in ways that transformed American society.

Frederique, with the Drug Policy Alliance, said the Black Lives Matter movement was inspired in part by cases that revealed a dangerous attitude toward drugs among police.

In Derek Chauvin's murder trial, the former officer's defense claimed aggressive police tactics were justified because of small amounts of fentanyl in George Floyd's body. Critics described the argument as an attempt to "weaponize" Floyd's substance use disorder and jurors found Chauvin guilty.

Breonna Taylor, meanwhile, was shot and killed by police in her home during a drug raid . She wasn't a suspect in the case.

"We need to end the drug war not just for our loved ones that are struggling with addiction, but we need to remove the excuse that that is why law enforcement gets to invade our space ... or kill us," Frederique said.

The United States has waged aggressive campaigns against substance use before, most notably during alcohol Prohibition in the 1920s and 1930s.

The modern drug war began with a symbolic address to the nation by President Richard Nixon on June 17, 1971.

Speaking from the White House, Nixon declared the federal government would now treat drug addiction as "public enemy No. 1," suggesting substance use might be vanquished once and for all.

"In order to fight and defeat this enemy," Nixon said, "it is necessary to wage a new all-out offensive."

President Richard Nixon's speech on June 17, 1971, marked the symbolic start of the modern drug war. In the decades that followed Democrats and Republicans embraced ever-tougher laws penalizing people with addiction.

Studies show from the outset drug laws were implemented with a stark racial bias , leading to unprecedented levels of mass incarceration for Black and brown men .

As recently as 2018, Black men were nearly six times more likely than white men to be locked up in state or federal correctional facilities, according to the U.S. Justice Department .

Researchers have long concluded the pattern has far-reaching impacts on Black families, making it harder to find employment and housing, while also preventing many people of color with drug records from voting .

In a 1994 interview published in Harper's Magazine , Nixon adviser John Ehrlichman suggested racial animus was among the motives shaping the drug war.

"We knew we couldn't make it illegal to be either against the [Vietnam] War or Black," Ehrlichman said. "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."

Despite those concerns, Democrats and Republicans partnered on the drug war decade after decade, approving ever-more-severe laws, creating new state and federal bureaucracies to interdict drugs, and funding new armies of police and federal agents.

At times, the fight on America's streets resembled an actual war, especially in poor communities and communities of color.

Police units carried out drug raids with military-style hardware that included body armor, assault weapons and tanks equipped with battering rams.

President Richard Nixon explaining aspects of the special message sent to the Congress on June 17, 1971, asking for an extra $155 million for a new program to combat the use of drugs. He labeled drug abuse "a national emergency." Harvey Georges/AP hide caption

President Richard Nixon explaining aspects of the special message sent to the Congress on June 17, 1971, asking for an extra $155 million for a new program to combat the use of drugs. He labeled drug abuse "a national emergency."

"What we need is another D-Day, not another Vietnam, not another limited war fought on the cheap," declared then-Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., in 1989.

Biden, who chaired the influential Senate Judiciary Committee, later co-authored the controversial 1994 crime bill that helped fund a vast new complex of state and federal prisons, which remains the largest in the world.

On the campaign trail in 2020, Biden stopped short of repudiating his past drug policy ideas but said he now believes no American should be incarcerated for addiction. He also endorsed national decriminalization of marijuana.

While few policy experts believe the drug war will come to a conclusive end any time soon, the end of bipartisan backing for punitive drug laws is a significant development.

More drugs bring more deaths and more doubts

Adding to pressure for change is the fact that despite a half-century of interdiction, America's streets are flooded with more potent and dangerous drugs than ever before — primarily methamphetamines and the synthetic opioid fentanyl.

"Back in the day, when we would see 5, 10 kilograms of meth, that would make you a hero if you made a seizure like that," said Matthew Donahue, the head of operations at the Drug Enforcement Administration.

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"Now it's common for us to see 100-, 200- and 300-kilogram seizures of meth," he added. "It doesn't make a dent to the price."

Efforts to disrupt illegal drug supplies suffered yet another major blow last year after Mexican officials repudiated drug war tactics and began blocking most interdiction efforts south of the U.S.-Mexico border.

"It's a national health threat, it's a national safety threat," Donahue told NPR.

Last year, drug overdoses hit a devastating new record of 90,000 deaths , according to preliminary data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The drug war failed to stop the opioid epidemic

Critics say the effectiveness of the drug war model has been called into question for another reason: the nation's prescription opioid epidemic.

Beginning in the late 1990s, some of the nation's largest drug companies and pharmacy chains invested heavily in the opioid business.

State and federal regulators and law enforcement failed to intervene as communities were flooded with legally manufactured painkillers, including Oxycontin.

"They were utterly failing to take into account diversion," said West Virginia Republican Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, who sued the DEA for not curbing opioid production quotas sooner.

"It's as close to a criminal act as you can find," Morrisey said.

Courtney Hessler, a reporter for The (Huntington) Herald-Dispatch in West Virgina, has covered the opioid epidemic. As a child she wound up in foster care after her mother became addicted to opioids. "You know there's thousands of children that grew up the way that I did. These people want answers," Hessler told NPR. Brian Mann/NPR hide caption

Courtney Hessler, a reporter for The (Huntington) Herald-Dispatch in West Virgina, has covered the opioid epidemic. As a child she wound up in foster care after her mother became addicted to opioids. "You know there's thousands of children that grew up the way that I did. These people want answers," Hessler told NPR.

One of the epicenters of the prescription opioid epidemic was Huntington, a small city in West Virginia along the Ohio River hit hard by the loss of factory and coal jobs.

"It was pretty bad. Eighty-one million opioid pills over an eight-year period came into this area," said Courtney Hessler, a reporter with The (Huntington) Herald-Dispatch.

Public health officials say 1 in 10 residents in the area still battle addiction. Hessler herself wound up in foster care after her mother struggled with opioids.

In recent months, she has reported on a landmark opioid trial that will test who — if anyone — will be held accountable for drug policies that failed to keep families and communities safe.

"I think it's important. You know there's thousands of children that grew up the way that I did," Hessler said. "These people want answers."

A needle disposal box at the Cabell-Huntington Health Department sits in the front parking lot in 2019 in Huntington, W.Va. The city is experiencing a surge in HIV cases related to intravenous drug use following a recent opioid crisis in the state. Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post via Getty Images hide caption

A needle disposal box at the Cabell-Huntington Health Department sits in the front parking lot in 2019 in Huntington, W.Va. The city is experiencing a surge in HIV cases related to intravenous drug use following a recent opioid crisis in the state.

During dozens of interviews, community leaders told NPR that places like Huntington, W.Va., and Brownsville, N.Y., will recover from the drug war and rebuild.

They predicted many parts of the country will accelerate the shift toward a public health model for addiction: treating drug users more often like patients with a chronic illness and less often as criminals.

But ending wars is hard and stigma surrounding drug use, heightened by a half-century of punitive policies, remains deeply entrenched. Aaron Hinton, the activist in Brownsville, said it may take decades to unwind the harm done to his neighborhood.

"It's one step forward, two steps back," Hinton said. "But I remain hopeful. Why? Because what else am I going to do?"

• drug policy
• war on drugs
• public health
• opioid epidemic

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Race, Mass Incarceration, and the Disastrous War on Drugs

Unravelling decades of racially biased anti-drug policies is a monumental project.

• Nkechi Taifa
• Cutting Jail & Prison Populations
• Social & Economic Harm

This essay is part of the  Brennan Center’s series  examining  the punitive excess that has come to define America’s criminal legal system .

I have a long view of the criminal punishment system, having been in the trenches for nearly 40 years as an activist, lobbyist, legislative counsel, legal scholar, and policy analyst. So I was hardly surprised when Richard Nixon’s domestic policy advisor  John Ehrlichman  revealed in a 1994 interview that the “War on Drugs” had begun as a racially motivated crusade to criminalize Blacks and the anti-war left.

“We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or blacks, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin and then criminalizing them 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 in the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did,” Ehrlichman said.

Before the War on Drugs, explicit discrimination — and for decades, overtly racist lynching — were the primary weapons in the subjugation of Black people. Then mass incarceration, the gradual progeny of a number of congressional bills, made it so much easier. Most notably, the 1984  Comprehensive Crime Control and Safe Streets Act  eliminated parole in the federal system, resulting in an upsurge of  geriatric prisoners . Then the 1986  Anti-Drug Abuse Act  established mandatory minimum sentencing schemes, including the infamous 100-to-1 ratio between crack and powder cocaine sentences.  Its expansion  in 1988 added an overly broad definition of conspiracy to the mix. These laws flooded the federal system with people convicted of low-level and nonviolent drug offenses.

During the early 1990s, I walked the halls of Congress lobbying against various omnibus crime bills, which culminated in the granddaddy of them all — the  Violent Crime Control and Safe Streets Act  of 1994. This bill featured the largest expansion of the federal death penalty in modern times, the gutting of habeas corpus, the evisceration of the exclusionary rule, the trying of 13-year-olds as adults, and 100,000 new cops on the streets, which led to an explosion in racial profiling. It also included the elimination of Pell educational grants for prisoners, the implementation of the federal three strikes law, and monetary incentives to states to enact “truth-in-sentencing” laws, which subsidized an astronomical rise in prison construction across the country, lengthened the amount of time to be served, and solidified a mentality of meanness.

The prevailing narrative at the time was “tough on crime.” It was a narrative that caused then-candidate Bill Clinton to leave his presidential campaign trail to oversee the execution of a mentally challenged man in Arkansas. It was the same narrative that brought about the crack–powder cocaine disparity, supported the transfer of youth to adult courts, and popularized the myth of the Black child as “superpredator.”

With the proliferation of mandatory minimum sentences during the height of the War on Drugs, unnecessarily lengthy prison terms were robotically meted out with callous abandon. Shockingly severe sentences for drug offenses — 10, 20, 30 years, even life imprisonment — hardly raised an eyebrow. Traumatizing sentences that snatched parents from children and loved ones, destabilizing families and communities, became commonplace.

Such punishments should offend our society’s standard of decency. Why haven’t they? Most flabbergasting to me was the Supreme Court’s 1991  decision  asserting that mandatory life imprisonment for a first-time drug offense was not cruel and unusual punishment. The rationale was ludicrous. The Court actually held that although the punishment was cruel, it was not unusual.

The twisted logic reminded me of another Supreme Court  case  that had been decided a few years earlier. There, the Court allowed the execution of a man — despite overwhelming evidence of racial bias — because of fear that the floodgates would be opened to racial challenges in other aspects of criminal sentencing as well. Essentially, this ruling found that lengthy sentences in such cases are cruel, but they are usual. In other words, systemic racism exists, but because that is the norm, it is therefore constitutional.

In many instances, laws today are facially neutral and do not appear to discriminate intentionally. But the disparate treatment often built into our legal institutions allows discrimination to occur without the need of overt action. These laws look fair but nevertheless have a racially discriminatory impact that is structurally embedded in many police departments, prosecutor’s offices, and courtrooms.

Since the late 1980s, a combination of federal law enforcement policies, prosecutorial practices, and legislation resulted in Black people being disproportionately arrested, convicted, and imprisoned for possession and distribution of crack cocaine. Five grams of crack cocaine — the weight of a couple packs of sugar — was, for sentencing purposes, deemed the equivalent of 500 grams of powder cocaine; both resulted in the same five-year sentence. Although household surveys from the National Institute for Drug Abuse have revealed larger numbers of documented white crack cocaine users, the overwhelming number of arrests nonetheless came from Black communities who were disproportionately impacted by the facially neutral, yet illogically harsh, crack penalties.

For the system to be just, the public must be confident that at every stage of the process — from the initial investigation of crimes by police to the prosecution and punishment of those crimes — people in like circumstances are treated the same. Today, however, as yesterday, the criminal legal system strays far from that ideal, causing African Americans to often question, is it justice or “just-us?”

Fortunately, the tough-on-crime chorus that arose from the War on Drugs is disappearing and a new narrative is developing. I sensed the beginning of this with the 2008  Second Chance Reentry  bill and 2010  Fair Sentencing Act , which reduced the disparity between crack and powder cocaine. I smiled when the 2012 Supreme Court ruling in  Miller v. Alabama  came out, which held that mandatory life sentences without parole for children violated the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. In 2013, I was delighted when Attorney General Eric Holder announced his  Smart on Crime  policies, focusing federal prosecutions on large-scale drug traffickers rather than bit players. The following year, I applauded President Obama’s executive  clemency initiative  to provide relief for many people serving inordinately lengthy mandatory-minimum sentences. Despite its failure to become law, I celebrated the  Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act  of 2015, a carefully negotiated bipartisan bill passed out of the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2015; a few years later some of its provisions were incorporated as part of the 2018  First Step Act . All of these reforms would have been unthinkable when I first embarked on criminal legal system reform.

But all of this is not enough. We have experienced nearly five decades of destructive mass incarceration. There must be an end to the racist policies and severe sentences the War on Drugs brought us. We must not be content with piecemeal reform and baby-step progress.

Indeed, rather than steps, it is time for leaps and bounds. End all mandatory minimum sentences and invest in a health-centered approach to substance use disorders. Demand a second-look process with the presumption of release for those serving life-without-parole drug sentences. Make sentences retroactive where laws have changed. Support categorical clemencies to rectify past injustices.

It is time for bold action. We must not be satisfied with the norm, but work toward institutionalizing the demand for a standard of decency that values transformative change.

Nkechi Taifa is president of The Taifa Group LLC, convener of the Justice Roundtable, and author of the memoir,  Black Power, Black Lawyer: My Audacious Quest for Justice.

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