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Jackson Lane

Instructor Erin Reaume

ENGL 1301

14 April 2021

Deadly Diplomacy: An Argument Against the War on Drugs

For many years, communities across America have been battling a war. However, this

war does not involve enemy troops or a brutal dictator. The War on Drugs is a complicated and

widely debated topic among politicians and governments a like. It has a dark history built upon

racism, and an even darker future if it continues. While the politicians and lawmakers’ deliberate

millions of families are torn apart from drug addiction. Users that seek treatment for their

addictions are stigmatized by society, arrested, and ignored. Drug legislation is not fighting

against drugs, it is fighting against human beings. This ineffective war against addicts and others

must end due to the rise of overdoses due to extremely cheap fentanyl, racist roots that encourage

brutality and over-policing, and lack of safety-net services for addicts.

Psychedelic Drugs such as psilocybin mushrooms, peyote, and ayahuasca

(dimethyltryptamine) have been used by ancient cultures for thousands of years as an entheogen.

During the counter-culture sixties, indulging in drugs became staple of the hippie culture.

Hippies and other youth experimented with psychedelic drugs such as LSD, mescaline, and

marijuana. While some abused these drugs, most we are against the ongoing Vietnam War and

embraced socialist ideals. President Nixon and his cabinet labeled these rebellious but open-

minded teenagers exploring their own consciousnesses and ideals as threats. In 1971, President

Nixon declared a war on drugs by signing the Controlled Substances Act. The act defined certain

drugs as controlled substances. The Controlled Substances Act placed drugs on a 1-4 scale, 1
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being the most dangerous and 4 being the least dangerous. However, this system is broken. On

the DEA’s scheduling scale marijuana, LSD, and psychedelic mushrooms are presented as

schedule 1 with a high rate of addiction and no medicinal use. While there has been accidents,

there has never been a recorded overdose from marijuana, LSD, or psilocybin consumption.

Unlike heroin that is also schedule 1. Dangerous drugs with high addiction potential such as

methamphetamine and cocaine are ruled as schedule 2 or less dangerous than marijuana,

according to the DEA’s drug scheduling (“Drug Scheduling”). After the Controlled Substances

Act was passed, drugs in the United States became a black-market commodity. An unsafe black-

market commodity that people kill for and are killed by. From that point on, users could not seek

help for fear of being arrested. Desperate users became trapped in their own thoughts and

temptations, with cries for help falling on deaf ears.

Firstly, according to the Drug Policy Alliance’s page on Drug War Statistics, drug

offences are the leading cause of arrest in the United States with 1,558,862 arrests in 2019 alone.

Additionally, black people are 26% of those arrested despite only up 13.4% of the population.

This abnormally is due to over-policing practices in black neighborhoods (“Drug War Statistics”)

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s drug overdose data, in 2019

71,000 people died from a drug-overdose. Deaths from the extremely potent synthetic opioid

Fentanyl are currently on an exponential rise and have been the leading cause of overdose deaths

since 2015 (“Products - Vital Statistics Rapid Release - Provisional Drug Overdose Data.”)

Secondly, Drug laws are rooted in racism against minority groups. The first

commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics before it turning into the present DEA, Harry J.

Anslinger drafted the first law against marijuana, The Marihuana Tax Act of 1937. According to

an article by Timeline, Anslinger used vile and racist propaganda to win public support for his
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legislation. In the article, Anslinger is quoted saying, “Reefer makes darkies think they’re as

good as white men” and, “There are 100,000 total marijuana smokers in the U.S., and most are

Negroes, Hispanics, Filipinos, and entertainers. Their satanic music, jazz and swing result from

marijuana use. This marijuana causes white women to seek sexual relations with Negroes,

entertainers and any others” (Smith). A racist that demonized minorities to influence the passing

of drug legislation inspired laws like the Controlled Substances Act. When the Nixon

Administration signed the Controlled Substances Act of 1971 into law, his true intentions were

masked from the public eye. John Ehrlichman was the council and assistant to the President for

Domestic Affairs under the Nixon Administration. Ehrlichman is quoted by CNN as saying,

We knew we could not 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 (LoBianco).

The War on Drugs was not started because of drugs, it was started to target minorities and anti-

war activists.

Thirdly, some may think decriminalizing all drugs is too radical and may cause more

harm to society. However, some countries have already decriminalized drugs and have already

seen a decrease in overdose deaths and HIV/AIDS infections. According to an article by Time

Magazine, in 2001 Portugal became the first country to decriminalize all drugs. Portugal made
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the radical move after two decades of drug enforcement failed to squash the grip of the country’s

heroin epidemic. Since decriminalization, Portugal has seen overdose deaths five times lower

than the E.U. average. After decriminalization, HIV/AIDS infection rates in Portugal dropped

from 104.2 cases per million in 2001 to 4.2 cases per million in 2015. Instead of prison Portugal

sends its addicts to doctors, lawyers, and a social worker to learn about options for treatment.

There is no drug scheduling, or distinction between “hard” or “soft” drugs. The country has also

set up facilities where users can have their drugs tested for substances such as Fentanyl and

consume their drugs in a safer environment with medical professionals (Bajekal).

Finally, Hundreds of communities across the United States are in the grip of an opioid

epidemic. According to an article from NPR, fentanyl has killed over 37,000 people in 2019

alone (Feng). Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid 100 times more potent than morphine. Often, street

dealers put fentanyl into other drugs they sell their customers such as heroin and MDMA. The

epidemic has grown worse during the COVID-19 pandemic. An influx of extremely cheap

fentanyl analogs being shipped from Chinese vendors has contributed to the rise of deaths. The

only way to reduce overdose deaths is to create safe spaces for users and addicts to have their

substances tested before consuming. Facilities must be put into place that allow users to have

their drugs tested for substances such as fentanyl before consumption. Individuals should have

the choice to be supervised by a doctor to safely dose and administer Naloxone (Narcan) in the

case of an overdose. Done at a mass scale, overdose deaths would be reduced by a fraction of

what it is currently. Addicts must not be stigmatized by society and should have access to

rehabilitation and medical services without fear of arrest.

In conclusion, The War on Drugs must end due to its ineffectiveness, rise of overdoses,

racist roots, and lack of safety-net services for addicts. As new generations grow, and old
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generations windle our meaning of right and wrong is often challenged. Prejudice values and

laws must be supplemented with laws that aid instead of hate. These laws attack the primitive

curiosity instilled into every human to explore their own mind, ideas, and spirituality. A country

that jails its citizen for consuming a substance is not free at all. The founding fathers declared

independence and established the United States as a rebellion against tyranny and persecution

from British rule. If they could see the current state of the nation, they would think they lost the

rebellion.
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Works Cited:

Bajekal, Naina. “Want to Win the War on Drugs? Portugal Might Have the Answer.” Time, 1
Aug. 2018, time.com/longform/portugal-drug-use-decriminalization/. Accessed 14 April
2021.

“Drug Scheduling.” DEA, www.dea.gov/drug-scheduling.

“Drug War Statistics.” Drug Policy Alliance, drugpolicy.org/issues/drug-war-statistics.com.

Feng, Emily. “'We Are Shipping To The U.S.': Inside China's Online Synthetic Drug Networks.”
NPR, 17 Nov. 2020, www.npr.org/2020/11/17/916890880/we-are-shipping-to-the-u-s-
china-s-fentanyl-sellers-find-new-routes-to-drug-user. Accessed 14 April 2021.

LoBianco, Tom. “Report: Aide Says Nixon's War on Drugs Targeted Blacks, Hippies - CNN
Politics.” CNN, 24 Mar. 2016, www.cnn.com/2016/03/23/politics/john-ehrlichman-richard-
nixon-drug-war-blacks-hippie/index.html. Accessed 14 April 2021.

“Products - Vital Statistics Rapid Release - Provisional Drug Overdose Data.” Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention, 17 Mar. 2021, https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/drug-
overdose-data.htm. Accessed 14 April 2021.

Smith, Laura. “How a Racist Hate-Monger Masterminded America's War on Drugs.” Timeline,
28 Feb. 2018, timeline.com/harry-anslinger-racist-war-on-drugs-prison-industrial-
complex-fb5cbc281189. Accessed 14 April 2021.