President Nixon War On Drugs

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George Brown Mrs. Audy Honors Sophomore English 10 May 2024 Disclosing the War on Drugs and Southern Strategy Drugs have been used for hundreds of years all over the world for many different reasons. Many are frowned upon, and can potentially end one's life, yet they are still used. President Nixon stated drugs to be “public enemy number one” to the United States in an attempt to help society from addiction. On paper, Nixon's plan had no flaws, but in reality, the War on Drugs was a mess. In 1971, President Nixon officially declared the War on Drugs to the public. Following this, people imprisoned in the US rose from 300 thousand people to roughly 2.3 million, and nearly two-thirds of these people were African American (Equal Justice Initiative). …show more content…
The Southern Strategy began with Barry Goldwater's 1964 presidential campaign, where he aimed to win white votes in the South. Nixon closely followed in his footsteps by using the War on Drugs as a way to win southern votes. This is where the racial aspect was questioned, throughout the War on Drugs many signs pointed towards Nixon's policies being racially motivated targeting African Americans. Although the war on drugs was proposed to be for drugs and drugs only, people across the country questioned Nixon's honesty. Accusations of Nixon being racist began to circulate, creating a long-lasting political feud that has continued to this day. Although Nixon's War on Drugs was intended to slow rates of substance abuse in the United States, it is intertwined with racial motives and political strategies that benefitted Nixon himself, while hurting African Americans all across the country. In the United States, substance abuse has been a long-lasting, major problem for all of society for years on end. President Nixon gave a speech in 1971, three years into his presidential term, where he declared drug abuse “Public Enemy Number …show more content…
First of all, Lopez wrote a detailed article covering both sides of the argument towards the War on Drugs. In his article, he stated that “Nixon’s policies may not have been directly intended to affect black people, but they ended up hurting the African American population much more than any other ethnic group” (Lopez). Lopez's statement shows that even if Nixon's intentions were not to harm black people, he still did harm blacks more than anyone else. However, his intentions were to target mostly African Americans, making the situation even more racist. In addition, an article from the Equal Justice Initiative titled “War on Drugs Was Designed to Criminalize Black People” displayed multiple statistics on the number of people who were imprisoned during Nixon's time as president. As stated before, the Equal Justice Initiative found that following the War on Drugs initiative in 1971, the number of people in jail rose from 300 thousand to roughly 2.3 million people, with nearly half of them being imprisoned for a drug offense, and 23 of the people being colored (Equal Justice
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