In the United States, various kinds of drugs have been available since the founding days of the republic. Despite this fact, American citizens’ attitudes in reaction to drugs and their own relationships with drugs have been marked by profound ambivalence and conflict. In a certain sense, drugs are a very important part of American culture, and as a nation we are heavily drug-dependent, perhaps more than any other country in the world (McNeece, 2003). We take drugs—legal, over-the-counter or prescribed drugs—to treat illnesses, both acute and chronic. It seems somewhat contradictory, then, that we also criticize and criminalize illicit drugs for precisely the same reason. Our culture has created a complex categorization scheme in which we divide drugs into groups that are acceptable—and which we therefore call medication—and those drugs that are unacceptable, which we refer to as illicit, illegal, or simply bad drugs. Underlying this obvious contradiction is a complicated psychological paradox. To a certain extent, drugs are permissible, but beyond a certain point, each individual should be tough, cope with pain, and not resort to drugs to dull or numb hurt. What is problematic, of course, is that the point at which one type of use is acceptable and the other is not is not completely agreed upon by all Americans. Indeed, this conflict is at least part of the reason why the war on drugs continues to rage on, with questionable success.

Our society’s demonization of drugs is a modern social invention (Inciardi, 1990). Significant “advances in chemistry and medicine, the discovery of new intoxicants, and a variety of social and political changes—all of which combined to make drugs readily available for the relief of many ills, both physical and psychological,” were the primary factor that gave politicians in the Nixon and post-Nixon era the ammunition they needed to shape and deploy the war on drugs (Inciardi, 1990, p. 1). Likewise, Inciardi (1990) remarked that the concept of addiction is relatively new; in fact, the advances in science and medicine permitted the notion of addiction to be identified and defined. Because this information was coming from the allegedly reliable and objective investigation made possible by scientific research, the United States began to view illicit drug use as a major social problem.

Not surprisingly, this perspective made it necessary to develop a framework for punishing people who violated the new social norms that the war on drugs was putting into place. The Drug Enforcement Agency and a host of other federal level organizations and agencies designed to support or provide ancillary resources for the DEA’s work were charged with the responsibility of determining how the flow of drugs into the country and their circulation around the nation could be controlled and, ideally, stopped. Drug traffickers, as some of the most visible figures to be demonized by the war on drugs, were punished, but drug users were also subject to new and increasing restrictions, in terms of acquiring drugs, and sanctions, which were applied when one was caught using drugs. The policies, programs, and initiatives that were put into place during this early period of the drug war have not abated by any means, though the frequency with which we hear about the war on drugs today is much less than it was in the 1980s. Yet the government remains preoccupied and committed to the war on drugs, and attacks the problem on many fronts, both in the United States and outside of it.

Returning for a moment to the historical period of Prohibition, we can begin to identify the emergence of the attitudes and ideas that would eventually come to characterize President Nixon’s war on drugs. During the decade of the 1920s, the federal government became increasingly interested in what was happening in the country with respect to alcohol. Gangs of alleged criminals and thugs were circulating liquor and making a lot of money in the process; the federal government felt compelled to step in and introduce controls in a totally unregulated and—in their view—increasingly dangerous business. The result was the legislation that led to the approval and passage of the 18th Amendment (McNeece, 2003). The 18th Amendment took an extreme approach. Rather than studying the problems related to alcohol more carefully, the 18th Amendment simply decided to make alcohol illegal in the United States, and stiff penalties would be applied to anyone who violated the new political, legislative, and social mandate.

Interestingly, though hardly surprisingly, Prohibition failed miserably in its effort to block alcohol use and its deleterious effects. Instead, Prohibition served to stoke the fires that made an underground, Mafia-controlled black market possible. Legislators and members of the executive branch of the federal government were profoundly embarrassed because they realized that the passage of the 18th Amendment had ultimately backfired. Rather than reining in the problems perceived as being related to alcohol, the government has lost any sphere of influence and control that it had had prior to the amendment’s passage. One of the aspects of the Prohibition era alcohol business that bothered the federal government was that the illicit businesses were lining the pockets of an allegedly criminal element. All the more frustrating, in the view of legislators, was the fact that the people making it rich were immigrants, and they were not paying taxes on their income. No laws existed to regulate their activity, and as a result, the government did not receive any portion of the economic benefits in the form of taxes. Just 13 years after its passage, the government decided that Prohibition laws were totally ineffective in achieving the target goal. As a result, the 18th Amendment was repealed.

Ever since Prohibition, the federal government has attempted to devise a variety of strategies intended to restrict and control drugs and alcohol in such a way that the benefits of legal drugs could be leveraged and enjoyed while the allegedly harmful effects—both physiological and social—of illicit drugs could be minimized. According to the government’s medically-based argument, federal policies must restrict drug use because the citizens’ health is at stake. The protection of the American people is the primary justification that has been promulgated for the war on drugs. A more subtle purpose, though, and one which becomes evident when one examines the literature carefully, is to control and exert certain national interests, especially those interests that are economic in nature. Drug trafficking must be restricted because it makes some people very wealthy and cuts the nation out of a significant source of income. It seems contradictory that the government spends so much money, then, on the drug war, but this war is tied to other issues which are more subtle still: the subjugation of the lower classes in this country, as well as the control of influence exerted by other countries, especially Latin American countries. While the government openly dismisses such claims, literature from the fields of sociology, social work, criminal justice, international studies, and other disciplines offer persuasive and convincing insights that support this idea.

Why have these issues relating to the war on drugs in America throughout history become so entangled with one another? Why would the United States government want to exercise social control over the lower classes in its own country or of citizens and governments in other countries? Numerous reasons have been proposed. First, it is important to understand how drugs have been identified as the precursor to or the cause of various other social ills, especially crime. This linkage, which has become standard in popular thought, can be traced back to the early twentieth century (Inciardi, 1990). Well-respected officials in the government promoted the idea that drugs were responsible for crime, and their rhetoric-laden comments served to concretize this notion in the mind of the public.

Harry J. Anslinger, who had served in the Prohibition Division of the Department of Treasury during the 1920s and who was the head of the Federal Narcotics Bureau from 1930 to 1962, considered drug users to be “confirmed criminals who endanger society by their anti-social behavior” (Inciardi, 1990, p. 71). Anslinger was also one of the first public officials to conflate drug problems with racial identity. He was particularly virulent, of course, towards African-Americans. In addition to Anslinger, there were a number of other high-ranking officials at local, state, and federal levels whose “expert” opinions about drugs were accepted by the public without question. Dr. Alexander Lambert, head of the New York City Mayor’s Committee on Drug Addiction around this same period of time, articulated similar concerns as Anslinger, testifying before Congress about his belief that heroin use destroyed the individual’s sense of responsibility to his community and country (Inciardi, 1990). Dr. Herman Bundessen, the Health Commissioner of Chicago, insinuated that drugs were the direct cause of prostitution and other criminal acts (Inciardi, 1990). It was rare that these charges were supported by empirical evidence of any sort, and because they were expressed by “experts,” they held a weight and authority which was rarely questioned (Inciardi, 1990).

In fact, one reason for the possibly spurious link between drugs and crime that has been proposed and explored extensively in the literature involves the immigration boom that occurred during the turn of the twentieth century. Inciardi (1990) wrote convincingly about the influence that xenophobia exerted over general perceptions of crime. With the massive influx of Italians, Irish, Chinese, and other immigrant groups, people who had deeper roots in the United States were territorial and almost paranoid about the effect that immigration might have on the country that they had worked so hard to build (Inciardi, 1990). In the case of African-Americans demographic shifts from rural to urban areas made this ethnic group more visible to whites who had previously had little contact with them; again, the same xenophobic paranoia operated.

While the correlation between ethnicity and crime was dangerously stereotypical, and remains so, it has always held a certain appeal, and has often been promoted as the only logical reason that could explain the concurrent increases in crime and drug use in the United States. It seems that Americans were unable to separate ethnicity from the fact that the sheer population density had increased, and resources—jobs, housing, food, and the like—were increasingly scarce because of The Great Depression. A much more convincing argument can be made for the fact that an increased number of people—irrespective of their ethnicities—will always result in increased conflict, competition for resources, and drug use, and, quite obviously, crime. In short, immigrants were convenient scapegoats, especially because they had rarely developed the language or cultural skills to be able to defend themselves against such abusive and damaging stereotypes.

Immigrants were also typically, at least in the earliest stages of their arrival to the country, members of the lower socioeconomic class. They were joined, of course, by African-Americans, whose own socioeconomic status was little better despite their citizenship. As with race and ethnicity, lower social classes have typically been associated with drug use, stereotypes that has persisted over time and up into the present moment. One of the reasons why the perception of drug use as a lower class affliction continues to be prevalent today is because most federally-funded studies about drug use—and hence, most publicity and policy crafted and promoted based on those studies—typically focus on and draw their research subjects from the lower socioeconomic strata. This erroneous approach to devising a thoughtful methodology skews our knowledge base, and reinforces the stereotypes of drug use as a pandemic that is almost exclusively lower-class in nature. According to this view, then, we must create and enforce policies that are designed to control these unruly classes, who are somehow different from those middle- or upper-class educated white Americans who occupy preferred racial, intellectual, and socioeconomic categories. The notion of the “Other” is the concept that is operating at the heart of America’s war on drugs, whether the “Other” is a member of a marginalized social, economic, racial, or intellectual class.

Similarly, the literature makes a clear case for the United States government’s interest in controlling other countries and their citizens, especially those of Latin America, our closest neighbors with darker skin. Much of US foreign policy and US drug policy has been focused on Latin America. One reason, of course, is that the border we share with Mexico and the proximity of Central American, Caribbean, and South American countries facilitates the relatively easy transfer of drugs from sites of production, such as Colombia, into the United States (McNeece, 2003). The exportation of drugs, albeit illegal, from Latin American countries to the United States is a lucrative business, and one which directly enriches Latin American politicians and governments through elaborate systems of bribery and other forms of corruption. These systems are a concern to the United States because they threaten basic democratic ideals and social stability; the United States has always had an interest in extending the reach of democracy around the world, and into Latin America in particular. The War on Drugs, in fact, has taken place as much on Latin American soil as it has on American territory (McNeece, 2003). On more than one occasion, the United States has been charged with egregious violations of other countries’ sovereignty in its energetic pursuit to control drug manufacturing in other countries, especially in Mexico and Colombia (Zaid, 1997). In fact, the United States has been severely criticized by other nations, including those as distant as Denmark, Iran, and China, for actions which the United States has identified as drug interdiction efforts, but which the global community has often viewed as violations of international law (Zaid, 1997).

We can see, then, that the war on drugs in the United States is a problem both of complex origin and of complex solutions. To date, the war on drugs has been fought through policy and punishment, but it has also been fought through language. The biggest problem with the war on drugs in the US is that we have demonized a social activity without coming to understand it fully. The social consequences for our society are complex, and have likely not been felt fully yet.

References

Baraka, E. (2005). Kola is God’s gift: Agricultural production, export initiatives & the kola industry in Asante & the Gold Coast, 1820-1850. Athens, OH: Ohio  University Press.

Hurley, D. (1989, July-August). Cycles of craving: Society’s drugs of choice appear to come in waves. Psychology Today, 23.

Inciardi, J.A. (1990). Handbook of drug control in the United States. Westport, CT:Greenwood Press.

McNeece, C.A. (2003).  After the war on drugs is over: Implications for social work education. Journal of Social Work Education, 39(2).  193.