According to an article in April’s Harper’s Magazine, President Richard Nixon’s chief domestic advisor during the 1971 launch of the “war on drugs”, John Ehrlichman, admitted he invented the drug policies so that the administration could neutralize its enemies, specifically “the anti-war left and black people.”
This admission is nothing new for those that deeply study this nation’s criminal, social and economic history. The U.S. government has long used its far reach and considerable power to wipe out all manner of threats, both perceived and actual. The early 1970’s was an important period in this country’s history, coming off the Civil Rights Movement and the rise of the Black Panther Party. The Nixon administration held a strong belief that the “anti-war left” and the “black community” were enemies of the state and had to be controlled. In the article Ehrlichman says:
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.
These were the images on the evening news during this time period. And, it had a divisive impact on the nation. I’m certainly not a conspiracy theorist but I am aware of the lengths those in power will go to in order to maintain hold of said power. There is so much more to learn about the so-called “war on drugs” and its impact on society. If you’re interested you shouLd check out Michelle Alexander’s seminal opus, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness.