Police officers, judges, and prison guards opposed to drug prohibition gathered in Washington, D.C., Tuesday to mark an eye-opening milestone: the 40th Anniversary of President Richard Nixon’s War on Drugs. “America’s public enemy number one in the United States is drug abuse,” Nixon declared in a June 17, 1971 press conference. “In order to fight and defeat this enemy, it is necessary to wage a new, all-out offensive.” Just two years later he escalated his rhetoric yet again, asserting that “this Administration has declared all-out, global war on the drug menace,” and creating the Drug Enforcement Agency. Ever since we’ve been doubling down on the strategy. It has never succeeded, even when we’ve gone much fartherdown the “get tough” road than Nixon ever did.
Read more at The Atlantic