War on Drugs — Bunk History

"Just Say No" memorabilia at the Reagan Presidential Library.

White Suburbs and Drug Wars

To understand the racism of the drug war, we must look to the ways policymakers sought to protect white suburban youth.

by Max Felker-Kantor via Public Books on July 3, 2024

Image of a joint sticking out of the sidewalk in a suburban neighborhood.

The Suburbs Made the War on Drugs in Their Own Image

Matthew Lassiter’s history plays out in ranch houses, high school parking lots, and courtrooms from Shaker Heights to Westchester to Orange County.

by Claire Bond Potter via The New Republic on February 27, 2024

How Liberal Policymakers and White Suburban Parents Drove the War on Drugs

A Q&A with Matthew Lassiter about how liberal policymakers and white parents drove the escalation of the War on Drugs.

by Matthew D. Lassiter, Michan Connor via HNN on January 10, 2024

Ronald Reagan signing anti-drug legislation as Nancy Reagan and legislators look on.

America's War on Drugs Was Always Bipartisan—And Unwinnable

There was really only one big difference between liberal drug warriors and conservative ones.

by Matthew D. Lassiter via Made By History on December 7, 2023

From left: schoolchildren, their teacher, and Nancy Reagan look on as a police officer talks about the DARE program

The Kids Who Snitched on Their Families Because DARE Told Them To

The program was about education. But it was also about surveillance.

by Max Felker-Kantor via Slate on September 30, 2023

Police and bystanders at night.

Do Cartels Exist?

A revisionist view of the drug wars.

by Rachel Nolan via Harper’s on June 20, 2023

Woman holding packages of naloxone.

The Nixon-Era Roots of Today’s Opioid Crisis

The Nixon administration saw methadone as a way to reduce crime rather than treat addiction.

by Zoe Adams via Made By History on April 20, 2023

Protesters holding anti-War on Drugs signs with a red target printed over them

How the Drug War Dies

A few decades ago, the left and the right, politicians and the public, universally embraced the criminalization of drug use. But a new consensus has emerged.

by Maia Szalavitz via The Nation on March 21, 2022

Screen frame from the television program Home Improvement, depicting parents chastising their teenage son.

In the ‘90s the U.S. Government Paid TV Networks to Weave “Anti-Drug” Messaging Into Their Plot Lines

These storylines portrayed those addicted to drugs and alcohol as lunatics whose only cure can come from punitive measures, abstinence, and “tough love.”

by Gabe Levine-Drizin via The Column on December 27, 2021

Ronald Reagan and Nancy Reagan wave at inauguration in 1981

Reagan’s War on Drugs Also Waged War on Immigrants

Lawmakers are undoing the worst parts of 1980s drug legislation, but they have forgotten its ties to immigration enforcement.

by Alexander M. Stephens via Made By History on October 27, 2021

Richard Nixon speaking to the press in 1971

New Documents Reveal the Bloody Origins of America's Long War On Drugs

When President Nixon launched the war on drugs in 1971, it set off a bloody chain reaction in Mexico as new documents reveal.

by Benjamin T. Smith via TIME on August 24, 2021

Riot police clash with demonstrators in Medellín, Colombia, last week.

The U.S. War on Drugs Helped Unleash the Violence in Colombia Today

Efforts to combat narcotics and communism militarized the country's security forces.

by Kyle Longley via Made By History on June 8, 2021

Joe Biden Pushed Ronald Reagan to Ramp Up Incarceration – Not the Other Way Around

Biden convinced small-government Republicans to increase spending in the War on Crime.

by David Stein via The Intercept on September 17, 2019

Rainbow Farm: The Domestic Siege That Time Forgot

In 2001, two men were killed by the FBI at a farm in Michigan. Then, 9/11 happened.

by Jeff Winkler via The Outline on October 2, 2018

We’ve Spent a Century Fighting the War on Drugs. It Helped Create an Opioid Crisis.

The disastrous consequences of focusing on law enforcement and criminality.

by Matthew R. Pembleton via Made By History on August 31, 2017

The Suburban Imperatives of America's War on Drugs

Since the 1950s, disparities along class and racial lines have defined the nation's drug policy.

by Matthew D. Lassiter via Process: A Blog for American History on November 17, 2015

Man smoking marijuana among cannabis plants.

The Unlikely SF Community That Launched America's Weed Industry

Without the local San Francisco activists who risked their lives for it, today’s legal cannabis market might never have come to be.

by Lester Black via SFGATE on June 27, 2024

Sign on fence reading "This is a D.A.R.E. drug free school zone."

D.A.R.E. Is More Than Just Antidrug Education—It Is Police Propaganda

DARE lost its once hegemonic influence over drug education, but it had long-lasting effects on American policing, politics, and culture.

by Max Felker-Kantor via Public Books on April 17, 2024

Police officer sitting at the front of a classroom of kids.

Police Used the DARE Program to Get Inside of U.S. Schools

It was never very effective at preventing drug use.

by Max Felker-Kantor via Teen Vogue on April 4, 2024

Cannabis being harvested by farmers, with only their hands visible.

Withering Green Rush

California cannabis breeding is at a crossroads.

by Ali Bektaş via Los Angeles Review of Books on August 5, 2023

Cover of the book "When Crack Was King," and Donovan X. Ranmsey.

A History of the Crack Epidemic From Below

How documenting the history of the drug war is a “community project” and reflections on 1990s rap music's anti-crack hits.

by Donovan X. Ramsey, Naomi Elias via The Nation on August 4, 2023

A young Black boy pictured mid-flip, while his peers look on. In the background are a row of houses, one of which abandoned with the windows punched out.

What We Meant When We Said 'Crackhead'

“I’ve learned, through hundreds of interviews and years of research, is that what crack really did was expose every vulnerability of society.”

by Donovan X. Ramsey via The Atlantic on July 11, 2023

Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau on the phone, March 1985.

Calling Bob Morgenthau

The tensions between the Manhattan District Attorney and President George H.W. Bush.

by David Kurlander via CAFE on March 30, 2023

Banksy's Spy Booth depicting 3 spies listening in to a phone booth.

How the Drug War Convinced America to Wiretap the Digital Revolution

How the FBI's doomed attempt to stop criminal activity conducted via mobile phones shaped the regime of ubiquitous backdoor surveillance under which we live today.

by Brian Hochman via Humanities on January 6, 2023

Illustration of burning cannabis with helicopters overhead

The Cold War Killed Cannabis As We Knew It. Can It Rise Again?

Somewhere in Jamaica survive the original cannabis strains that were not burned by American agents or bred to be more profitable.

by Casey Taylor via Defector on January 11, 2022

Picture of a young woman with cannabis leaves.

The Pot to Prison Pipeline

How does a plant become a crime?

by Sophie Yanow, Zack Ruskin via The Nib on September 27, 2021

A woman standing in a field.

Drug Prohibition and the Political Roots of Cartel Violence in Mexico

Until both American and Mexican police forces stop treating it like a war, the violence of drug prohibition won't stop.

by Benjamin T. Smith via HNN on August 8, 2021

Two prison employees standing outside a prison cell.

The Truth About Deinstitutionalization

A popular theory links the closing of state psychiatric hospitals to the increased incarceration of people with mental illness. The reality is more complicated.

by Alisa Roth via The Atlantic on May 25, 2021

An Oral History of the Members Only Jacket

On the fixture of white yuppiedom and icon of post-ironic millennial hipsterdom.

by Andrew Fiouzi via MEL on March 7, 2020

Militarize, Destabilize, Deport, Repeat

Plan Colombia functioned like an ideological laboratory for forever war in the twenty-first century.

by Stephen D. Cohen via The Baffler on March 5, 2020

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