U.S. War on Drugs

Drugs such as marijuana, opium, cocaine, and other psychedelics have been used for centuries for medical and spiritual purposes in Ancient Native cultures. They were a form of expression, joy, and even health for early Asian, Latino, and African American groups in history. However, in the late 1960s, President Richard Nixon’s introduction of the War on Drugs was enforced as a supposed method to eliminate the increasing drug abuse within the United States. Although Nixon claimed this as a means of bettering our "degrading" American society, we have to question whether the true intention of this drug war was to actually cease the illegal use of narcotics in the United States.

The U.S. government, under Nixon’s Leadership, went further in criminalizing specifically minority groups, particularly African Americans, Hispanics, and hippies when caught for narcotic usage or distribution. According to reports from the US Sentencing Commission, although African Americans only used drugs 1.5% more than White Americans, almost 600 more African Americans were arrested per every 100,000 residents of each race (McDermott, 2016). Today, we consider countries such as China, Russia, Iran, and Cuba to be more autocratic and repressive than our freedom-preaching American Government, yet we imprison more people than any nation in the world. Regardless of his propaganda, Nixon influenced the public to associate the narcotic problem with these minority communities, allowing the government to disrupt, criminalize, and marginalize these minority neighborhoods