The War on Drugs is a global campaign led by the United States government with the aim of reducing the illegal drug trade in America, which was the world's largest consumer of illegal drugs by the 1980s, and remaining such for several decades; by 2016, 42.4% of Americans had used marijuana during their lifetime, while 16.2% had used cocaine. The "War on Drugs" involved the legal prohibition of drugs, military aid to US allies who were fighting against drug trafficking, and military intervention in narco-states such as Panama and Afghanistan. The global War on Drugs had the goal of destroying America's drug market, ending the trafficking of controlled substances into the USA, reducing drug-related violence, and decreasing drug usage in America. However, the War on Drugs was regarded as a policy failure by the 2010s, as the United States government's high spending on law enforcement and anti-drug policies had failed to eradicate America's lucrative drug market, decrease drug-related violence, or decrease demand in the USA. The War on Drugs instead produced negative side-effects such as the rise of for-profit prisons, mass incarceration, the disproportionate imprisonment of African-Americans and Hispanics for nonviolent drug offenses, and a rise in gang-related violence in major drug-producing countries such as Mexico, Colombia, and the Philippines.
History[]
Origins[]
The "War on Drugs" was initiated by President Richard Nixon in 1971 in response to increasing levels of drug usage in America. Marijuana, LSD, heroin, and other drugs had become widely popular due to the proliferation of the counterculture movement of the 1960s, and many Vietnam War servicemen had developed marijuana habits during the war; 15% of them used heroin. Nixon had previously attempted to crack down on cross-border drug trafficking from Mexico in "Operation Intercept" in September 1969, but the 20-day-long operation nearly resulted in a shutdown of the border as customs agents carried out intense inspections of travellers' luggage.
Rise of the DEA[]
Operation Intercept having failed, President Nixon decided to create a new government agency entirely dedicated to the war on drugs. The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) was created on 1 July 1973, and, starting in 1975, it began to work alongside the CIA and the Mexican government to crack down on cannabis production in the Golden Triangle region of Chihuahua, Sinaloa, and Durango in Operation Condor. The late 1970s saw the peak of disco culture, and with it came newer drugs such as cocaine and ecstasy. Much of America's cocaine came from South America (especially Colombia), where it was grown by local farmers and manufactured by powerful drug cartels such as Colombia's Medellin Cartel and Cali Cartel. The United States government teamed up with the Colombian government to crack down on Colombia's powerful drug lords during the 1980s, especially due to a rise in drug-related violence in America's inner cities during the widespread poverty of the 1980s. President Ronald Reagan and First Lady Nancy Reagan made the War on Drugs a priority, with Reagan focusing more resources on a nationwide programme of "law and order", while Nancy Reagan began the famous "Just Say No" campaign. Major American cities and ports of entry such as Miami, Los Angeles, and New York City became major cocaine hubs, with the Miami drug wars drawing US public attention towards the greater struggle against drug trafficking in the USA and overseas.
Expanding the war[]
A drug lab in the United States, 1980s
The DEA doubled its size in response to the murder of DEA agent Kiki Camarena by the Mexican Guadalajara Cartel in 1985, and the DEA worked with the US Coast Guard to shut down the Caribbean corridor, cracking down on the maritime trafficking of cocaine and other drugs. Crafty drug traffickers such as Juan Matta-Ballesteros and Amado Carrillo Fuentes used fleets of airplanes to traffick Colombian cocaine into the USA via Mexico, building a multi-billion dollar industry which led to the rise of major Mexican and Colombian cartels. During the late 1980s and 1990s, the crack epidemic plagued major cities across the United States, especially minority communities in "inner cities". Los Angeles and New York City saw notable increases in drug-related violence in relation to the crack epidemic, with murder rates skyrocketing. In addition, heroin - which had first become popular as a trafficked drug during the 1910s and 1920s - took on a dangerous new form as "speedball", a hybrid of cocaine and heroin which was often fatal, including in the case of famous comedian Jon Belushi in 1982. The HIV/AIDS epidemic of the late 1980s and 1990s was closely related to the heroin epidemic, as infected needles proved to be one of the main carriers of the virus. By the 2000s, an opioid epidemic swept rural and suburban America just as crack cocaine had plagued America's urban centers. The opioid epidemic remained a major concern into the 2010s, and President Donald Trump appointed the former Governor of New Jersey (an epicenter of the opioid crisis) Chris Christie to head a task force which tackled the growing opioid problem.
Drug wars[]
The destruction of confiscated cannabis during the Rancho Bufalo raid, 1984
The DEA succeeded in destroying the Guadalajara Cartel in Operation Leyenda from 1985 to 1989 and also took down Medellin boss Pablo Escobar in 1993 and Cali boss Miguel Rodriguez Orejuela in 1995, but the destruction of the major cartels only led to them splintering into smaller, independent, and more violent organizations. In Mexico's case, the splintering of the Guadalajara Cartel created powerful cartels such as the Sinaloa Cartel, Gulf Cartel, Juarez Cartel, Tijuana Cartel, Milenio Cartel, and other organizations, which led to rising crime rates in Mexico during the 1990s and early 2000s as the new gangs fought over turf and drug trafficking routes. From 2006, the Mexican government - with US "Merida Initiative" aid - responded to this violence with a militarized solution, the Mexican Drug War, which would leave 200,000 dead by 2015, and which would continue into the 2020s with no end in sight. The United States also took part in overseas anti-drug operations such as Operation Just Cause in Panama in 1989, and, to a degree, the Afghanistan War from 2001, during which the United States fought against the Taliban, who enriched themselves from the annual opium harvests. Afghanistan went from producing 19% of the world's opium in 1986 to 90% by 2006, and the United States and Afghan government burned opium crops to deny the Taliban a major source of their income.
Impact in the United States[]
Timeline and chart of mass incarceration in America, 1920-2013
Meanwhile, in the United States, vice squads were set up by local police departments to crack down on drug-related crime, working with the DEA and FBI. The US incarceration rate skyrocketed over the next several decades; the number of drug offenders in federal prison shot up from 41,000 per year in 1985 to 500,000 per year in 2010. By that same year, 31 million Americans (10% of the population) had been arrested on drug charges. The US government attempted to deter drug use with increased sentencing laws which disproportionately convicted ethnic and racial minorities, especially African-Americans and Hispanics, and the 1980s and 1990s saw the rise of for-profit prisons.
Money spent by the US government on the "War on Drugs" from 1971 to 2011
By 2008, 75% of Americans believed that the War on Drugs was failing, and, by 2014, 67% of Americans favored treatment for drug addiction, while 26% supported prosecution. By June 2011, the Global Commission on Drug Policy had declared the global War on Drugs a failure, and the progressive movement of the 2010s and 2020s made drug decriminalization (and the legalization of marijuana), ending for-profit prisons, ending the "school-to-prison pipeline", and releasing nonviolent drug offenders from prison major priorities. The George Floyd protests of 2020 drew increased attention to alternative policing methods and the War on Drugs, and many progressive activists pushed for the reallocation of police funds to public health and service programs such as drug rehabilitation centers, community programs, and other non-violent initiatives, while many activists also pushed for the demilitarization of America's police forces and an end to the mass, disproportionate incarceration of black men.