How the War on Drugs Targets Black Americans - and Why It Needs to End

The national conversation about race in America has become more complex, as we are, partly thanks to the Black Lives Matter (“BLM”) movement, finally starting to address the institutionalized racism in the criminal justice system. The “war on drugs” has especially been criticized for its racist impact as a failed approach to stopping the drug crisis. This discussion has become even more complicated as America grapples with the heroin epidemic. Today, it is important that, as we think carefully about solutions to the issue of drug abuse, we don’t further perpetuate the systemic racism of the “war on drugs.”

Recently, President Nixon’s policy advisor, John Ehrlichman, admitted that Nixon invented the drug war to quell the anti-war left and the black community by associating “hippies” with marijuana and African-Americans with heroin, and criminalizing both drugs heavily. Nixon declared this drug war in 1971, and this approach to combating drug abuse has continued to the present. In the 1980s, during the crack-cocaine epidemic, President Reagan declared a drug war that targeted poor black communities under the perception that violence related to the drug was especially prevalent there. Not only that, but law enforcement has targeted these communities with military-style tactics in the name of the drug war. This has resulted in tense relations between the police and the black community and has created an environment that allows for a situation like Ferguson to occur and, arguably worse, also allows for the mass incarceration of black men. Currently, there are around 745,000 black men behind bars, mostly for nonviolent drug crimes. In some states, African-Americans make up 80-90% of imprisoned drug offenders, and despite the fact that five times as many whites use drugs as African-Americans, African-Americans are imprisoned at ten times the rate of whites. The drug crisis is an undeniable issue, but the current method being used to solve it is costly, ineffective, and life-ruining. Incarceration is not a rehabilitation for behavior, as two thirds of prisoners will reoffend, and can ruin the lives of those convicted, as drug offenders can be stripped of rights such as public housing.

Now, with the presidential race and the BLM movement gaining traction, it’s time to take advantage of this opportunity to both implement solutions to the heroin epidemic and consider the importance of reforming the criminal justice system. Instead of imprisoning addicts, we need to be offering strong treatment that will allow them to live healthy lives beyond their addiction. In a time ripe for change, it’s time to stop tolerating the systemic racism that have targeted black men because of this harmful approach to the drug epidemic. It’s time to speak up and end the “war on drugs.”