Written by Garrett Ainsworth
Drugs need no introduction. Human beings have used psychoactive substances for thousands of years. Whether it be recreational like alcohol, kava, or tobacco; ritualistic like ayahuasca, psilocybin mushrooms, or peyote cacti; or for beneficial effects, like caffeine, coca, or opium, drug use has been profuse across cultures, continents, and history. As the methods and knowledge of science have progressed, we have been able to derive drugs from their plant sources and create new drugs altogether. With this progress, drugs have become more readily available and varied. This has led to vast improvements in medicine, but it has also led to an increase in recreational use and misuse, and since drugs have become cheaper, more potent, and in some cases, more complex, there has been a widespread reaction by modern governments, led by the United States in the 20th century, to prohibit many and indeed most drugs, for their real and perceived dangers. Starting in the 1960s, the United States escalated this movement, spearheading an international war on drugs, in an attempt to prohibit, restrict, regulate, and control the trade and use of nearly all drugs. Needless to say, this has not succeeded; instead, what has resulted is a massive loss of life, waste of resources, and arguably some of the most pernicious socioeconomic issues the US and many other parts of the world are still facing today.
Drug laws have always been racially motivated, racially targeted, or applied disproportionately to racial minorities. The first drug laws passed in the US were opium laws that targeted Chinese immigrants specifically in the 1870s and 80s (Breecher). In the 1980s, during the crack epidemic, there was a 100-to-1 sentencing ratio for crack vs. powder cocaine, that is, 5 grams of crack would hold the same sentence as 500 grams of powder cocaine, even though they are the exact same substance (Elsner, 20). The only difference was that crack was commonly used by African Americans. This discrimination against racial minorities is merely part of the pattern of structural violence and oppression that minorities have faced since coming to America. However, the US’ hardline drug policy is particularly effective at creating an underclass and further oppressing them. When not simply put in prison, where inmates are 8 times more likely to have a substance use disorder, there are few free, no-strings-attached options for treatment and a vast amount of social stigma for those battling addiction, which is a disease (Prison Policy Initiative). Furthermore, addiction perpetuates poverty and poverty makes addiction worse; together they form a vicious cycle that can lead to conditions like homelessness, further mental health problems, diseases, and often death (Grinspoon) (Cohen et al.). In fact, 106,699 people died in the US from drug overdose in 2021 alone (National Safety Council). Fentanyl, responsible for 67,325 of those deaths, is a prime example of how black markets make drug use exponentially more dangerous (National Safety Council). Many common street drugs, not only opioids, are cut, or laced, with fentanyl because it is cheap, addictive, and potent (50 times more so than heroin) (CDC). However, a lethal dose of fentanyl being as little as 2 milligrams makes using unknown, unmeasured quantities combined with other drugs extremely dangerous (CDC). If unregulated, unethical illicit manufacturers and distributors were cut out of the equation through policy reform, those struggling with addiction would at least have access to a clean supply, and that alone would make addiction a far less deadly disease.
The war on drugs fuels these black markets in which cartels and drug lords perpetrate unimaginable violence and cruelty domestically and in Latin America. Mexico in particular has been engaged in a full-scale war with these cartels for decades now, relying on billions in US aid through programs such as the Mérida Initiative and resulting in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people and unprecedented levels of brutality. More than 350,000 people have died in Mexico as a result of the drug war and organized-crime-related homicides in Mexico. Cartels use what is called shock and awe tactics to spread fear among rival cartels and the general public. They do this by recording and posting extreme execution videos online, in which their victims are tortured, scalped, dismembered, burned – or worse – alive, as a threat and example to anyone who would cross them.
As with many foreign affairs, the US is far more involved in all of this than it may at first seem. Operation Intercept, Operation Just Cause, and Plan Colombia are all stories in their own right, but my personal favorite is the US-backed “aerial eradication strategy” in Columbia, in which hundreds of thousands of acres of coca cropland were sprayed with pesticides by air, from the mid-1990s until 2015, when it was discovered that, apart from the environmental impact, it “probably” caused cancer in humans, according to the WHO (Neuman) (Karath). The cocaine supply, meanwhile, did not decrease (Neuman). It is unclear how this violence will end if the US does not take the same lead in ending it as it did in creating it. But these are the indirect, international effects of US drug policy. Domestically, the war on drugs has created the privatized, for-profit prison system, with about 20% of people in prison right now convicted of drug charges, and 1 million more being arrested for the same reason every year (Prison Policy Initiative). And, of course, police and corrections spending have expanded to meet these needs (Urban Institute). These are the kinds of things that billions, if not trillions, in taxpayers’ dollars have gone to, all in a vain attempt to stop people from getting high. Is it worth it?
A perfect illustration of the bullheaded, futile stupidity of drug prohibition is Prohibition itself. When alcohol was prohibited in 1920, the cheapest forms of alcohol became the most potent and thus the most dangerous – think moonshine. Prohibition disproportionately affected low-income individuals and minorities (“Prohibition in the United States). Black markets allowed organized crime to flourish, and an increase in crime rates followed suit (Britannica). The government had to spend millions of dollars restricting the import of alcohol and enforcing the new law, not to mention hundreds of millions lost in tax revenue and hundreds of thousands of jobs (“Prohibition in the United States). For all of this, alcohol consumption only marginally decreased (“Prohibition in the United States”). This has been almost exactly the result of the current war on drugs, except on a much broader scale. Almost 14 years later, the 21st Amendment repealed the 18th Amendment and Americans were again trusted to “drink responsibly,” despite alcohol being considered by many metrics one of the most harmful drugs and the second most deadly behind tobacco, which is ironically legal and naturally occurring as well. Of course, many will not drink responsibly, but we had the wisdom 100 years ago to realize that this inevitability was only exacerbated by Prohibition. And then, a couple of years later, cannabis was prohibited. Let’s hope it won’t take another century for our politicians to achieve enlightenment.
(Authorities overseeing the pouring of seized liquor into the sewer in New York City during Prohibition)
There has been some progress on this front: 23 states have legalized the recreational use of cannabis and 8 have decriminalized it; Oregon has decriminalized possession of small amounts of almost all drugs; and entheogenic plant decriminalization has slowly seen more and more adoption. In fact, Ann Arbor, which has been a hub of drug policy protest since 1972 with Hash Bash, is one of the few places in the US which has decriminalized the use of entheogenic plants. This shows lawmakers are beginning to take a step back and realize prosecuting people for drugs that are not actively harming them or anyone else, like cannabis and psilocybin mushrooms, is pointless. The final step will be when they realize that prosecuting those who are suffering from the harmful effects of more dangerous drugs is not only pointless, but cruel and unjust, and perpetuates a system of war, violence, disease, and death.
Works Cited:
Brecher, Edward M., and the Editors of Consumer Reports Magazine. “Opium Laws.” Consumer Reports Magazine, 1972,
www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/library/studies/cu/cu6.htm. Accessed Oct. 17, 2023
Prison Policy Initiative. “Drug Policy.” Www.prisonpolicy.org, www.prisonpolicy.org/visuals/drug_policy.html. Accessed 17 Oct. 2023.
Elsner, Alan, and Internet Archive. Gates of Injustice : The Crisis in America’s Prisons. Internet Archive, Upper Saddle River, NJ : FT Prentice Hall, 2004, https://archive.org/details/gatesofinjustice00elsn/page/20/mode/2up. Accessed 17 Oct. 2023.
Grinspoon, Peter . “Poverty, Homelessness, and Social Stigma Make Addiction More Deadly.” Harvard Health, 28 Sept. 2021, www.health.harvard.edu/blog/poverty-homelessness-and-social-stigma-make-addiction-more-deadly-202109282602. Accessed 17 Oct. 2023
Cohen, Aliza, et al. “How the War on Drugs Impacts Social Determinants of Health beyond the Criminal Legal System.” Annals of Medicine, vol. 54, no. 1, 19 July 2022, pp. 2024–2038, www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/07853890.2022.2100926, https://doi.org/10.1080/07853890.2022.2100926. Accessed 17 Oct. 2023.
National Safety Council. “Drug Overdoses – Data Details – Injury Facts.” Injury Facts, 2018, injuryfacts.nsc.org/home-and-community/safety-topics/drugoverdoses/data-details/. Accessed 17 Oct. 2023.
CDC. “Fentanyl Facts.” Www.cdc.gov, 10 Nov. 2021, www.cdc.gov/stopoverdose/fentanyl/index.html#:~:text=Fentanyl%20is%20a%20synthetic%20opioid. Accessed 17 Oct. 2023.
Neuman, William. “Defying U.S., Colombia Halts Aerial Spraying of Crops Used to Make Cocaine.” The New York Times, 15 May 2015, www.nytimes.com/2015/05/15/world/americas/colombia-halts-us-backed-spraying-of-illegal-coca-crops.html. Accessed 17 Oct. 2023.
KARÁTH, KATA. “Pandemic Upends Colombia’s Controversial Drug War Plan to Resume Aerial Spraying.” Science.org, 11 June 2020, www.science.org/content/article/pandemic-upends-colombia-s-controversial-drug-war-plan-resume-aerial-spraying#:~:text=Earlier%20this%20year%2C%20the%20Colombian,of%20aerial%20spraying%20raised%20alarm. Accessed 17 Oct. 2023.
Urban Institute. “Criminal Justice Expenditures: Police, Corrections, and Courts.” Urban Institute, 20 Oct. 2020, www.urban.org/policy-centers/cross-center-initiatives/state-and-local-finance-initiative/state-and-local-backgrounders/criminal-justice-police-corrections-courts-expenditures. Accessed 17 Oct. 2023.
Pardo, Luis, and Íñigo Arredondo. “Una Guerra Inventada Y 350,000 Muertos En México.” Washington Post, The Washington Post, 14 June 2021, www.washingtonpost.com/es/post-opinion/2021/06/14/mexico-guerra-narcotrafico-calderon-homicidios-desaparecidos/. Accessed 17 Oct. 2023.
Britannica. “Prohibition.” Encyclopædia Britannica, 3 Aug. 2018, www.britannica.com/event/Prohibition-United-States-history-1920-1933. Accessed 17 Oct. 2023.
“Prohibition in the United States.” Wikipedia, 11 Oct. 2023, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prohibition_in_the_United_States#cite_note-:0-149. Accessed 17 Oct. 2023.