Drug Prohibition and the War on Drugs
By: Lauren K McCarthy
www.laurenkmccarthy.com
This academic essay examines the relationship between racism and drug prohibition.
One often hears the expression, “history repeats itself”. The expression does not
mean that history literally repeats itself; but rather, it draws our attention to the
importance of studying history when trying to understand contemporary social issues. As
such, understanding the contemporary “war on drugs” in Canada and the United States
could not be accomplished without studying the history of drug prohibition in North
America. I have chosen to study both Canada and the United States for several reasons:
(1) I would like to highlight Canada’s implication in the “war on drugs,” as Canada is
often perceived as “softer” than the United States in terms of being “tough on crime”, (2)
the United States has significant influence on Canadian policy and culture, and (3) both
countries share a similar history in terms of drug prohibition efforts and racial
discrimination. I argue that drug prohibition is a racialized project of class domination
(Gordon, 2006). I will explore how drug prohibition efforts are racialized and classed by
examining historical as well as contemporary “war on drugs” efforts. It is important to be
critical of prohibition efforts in North America because anti-drug laws affect a large
portion of the North American population, as more than a third of the population in
Canada and the U.S. have tried illegal substances at some point in their lives (Gaines &
Kraska, 1997). It is particularly important to be critical of drug prohibition efforts when
the “war on drugs” ideology understands the drug-crime relationship in a specific way
that inhibits practical solutions, and places particular people and communities as targets.
I would like to explore how drug prohibition is a racialized project of class
domination by examining the issue in two parts. I will begin by dismantling the “war on
drugs” ideology in the first half of the paper. In the second half, I will explore four
examples of drug prohibition efforts that demonstrate how drug prohibition has been, and
continues to be, based less about the drugs themselves, and more about the communities
who use and sell them (Gordon, 2006). The first two examples, the prohibition of opium
and marijuana, are historical examples of prohibition efforts that are explicitly raced. I
will then explore how contemporary drug prohibition efforts, the construction of the
black gang and the criminalization of khat, are embedded in moral discourses that attempt
to ensure the construction of the Canadian and U.S. state as white nations.
One could claim that there has always been a “war on drugs,” as from the
beginning of the 20th century, Canada and the United States have prohibited various
substances (Musto, 1997); however, when people refer to the “war on drugs,” they are
most often referring to an ideology made popular in the 1980’s by U.S. President Ronald
Reagan (Erickson, 1992; Jordan-Zachery, 2008). The “war on drugs” ideology from the
eighties was marked by an upsurge in “getting tough” on drugs; the primary emphasis of
the “war on drugs” being to punish drug offenders with mandatory sentencing laws
(Jordan-Zachery, 2008). The “war on drugs” ideology continues into the 21st century to
influence Canadian and U.S. law, culture, and policy. Let us first examine the “war on
drugs” ideology. The “war on drugs” ideology assumes the following: (1) all illegal drugs
are bad, and none are more dangerous than any other, (2) drug use equals drug abuse,
regardless of frequency and amount consumed, (3) taking or selling drugs is a socially
deviant act whose social and health consequences are sufficiently harmful to merit state
control and intervention, and (4) because drugs are illegal, taking or selling them
undermines the law and, by extension, the social order of laws; every illegal drug user
has violated societal norms and must be held accountable for doing so (Fagan, 1994;
Gaines & Kraska, 1997).
One of the major points of contention with the “war on drugs” ideology is that it
is unclear why some substances are deemed legal, and others illegal. While some drugs
are “bad,” in the sense that they may cause physical harm, mental harm, or harm to the
community, blanketing all drugs as “bad” skews the fact that each drug has different
chemical properties and different physical and psychological effects, some of which are
comparable to legal drugs (McBride & McCoy, 1997). While the effects of cocaine, such
as increased paranoia, may actually increase the likelihood of crime, the effects of
marijuana are more likely to inhibit, rather than entice, someone from committing an act
of violence (Gaines & Kraska, 1997; McBride & McCoy, 1997). Interestingly, the
psychoactive properties of alcohol, which is legal, are strongly associated with violent
crime (Gaines & Kraska, 1997). “More than half a million people [in the U.S.] die
[every] year due to alcohol and cigarette-related diseases, less than 2% of this number die
per year due to the use of all illegal drugs combined” (Gaines & Kraska, 1997, pp. 4).
This is not to say that illegal drug use is safer than the use of alcohol or cigarettes, but
these kinds of statistics highlight that both illegal and legal substances can be harmful.
The prohibition of particular drugs in North America is not based on safety.
Another point of contention with the “war on drugs” ideology is that the “war” is
lacking an end goal. The Canadian Anti-Drug Strategy is broken into three parts:
prevention, treatment, and enforcement (Canada Anti-Drug Strategy); however, none of
the strategies outline a realistic goal for success. Is the end goal to stop all drug use by all
Canadian and American citizens entirely? Is the goal to seize a portion of all illegal
drugs? The goal of drug elimination may be desirable, but complete elimination is
unattainable as it erases the fact that there is a demand for illegal drugs by Canadian and
American citizens (Erickson, 1992). The concept of demand seems to be ignored in the
“war on drugs” ideology as it assumes that if all drugs were to disappear, there would no
longer be a “drug problem” (Gaines & Kraska, 1997). One could argue that the purpose
of the “war on drugs” is to protect the public from drug-crimes and drug violence, in
particular; however, it is not the drugs themselves that are to blame for drug-crimes and
drug violence. It is the illegality of drugs that drives up the price of drugs, which, in turn,
increases other crimes such as robbery, to pay for inflated drug prices, and violence, as
people try and control an expensive, underground commodity (Gaines & Kraska, 1997).
The point here is not to start a drug legalization debate, but to illustrate the flawed
interpretation of the drugs-crime relationship that the contemporary “war on drugs”
ideology presents.
The “war on drugs” ideology understands the drug-crime relationship in a
particular way that inhibits practical or realistic solutions. The ideology presents
“innocents” seduced or propelled into criminal activity by their drug use, or presents
using drugs and committing crimes as a two way street for people with poor values and
low morals (McBride & McCoy, 1997). Both of these ways of interpreting the drugcrime relationship are flawed as they erase the possibility of external factors and place the
blame strictly on the individual. Research indicates that drug use does not directly cause
crime, nor does crime directly cause drug abuse (McBride & McCoy, 1997). Drug abuse
and criminal activity are part of a broader set of integrated deviant behaviours involving
crime, drug use, and, often, high risk sex that may be influenced by environmental factors
such as social class, availability of role models, family environment, and peer relations
(McBride & McCoy, 1997; Walters, 1994). Research also indicates that factors such as
class, race, and gender may affect the types of drugs people use, the frequency of drug
use, and the reasons people abuse drugs (Radosh, 2008). Women, for example, are more
likely to be influenced by spouses or sexual partners to use illegal drugs, are more likely
to abuse multiple drugs, and are more likely to abuse drugs as a coping method for
sexual, emotional, and physical abuse (Bennett & Holloway, 2007; Radosh, 2008).
Ignoring external factors and the complexity of the drug-crime relationship places the
blame solely on the individual and serves to justify the war on drugs’ “solution” of long
mandatory sentencing laws.
If a large portion of Canadian and U.S. citizens have tried illegal substances and
research has “disproved” many of the “war on drugs” philosophies, then how has the
“war on drugs” continued to persist? There are two common arguments that attempt to
explain the persistence of the drug war in North America. The first explanation claims
that the police, bureaucrats, and other players in the criminal justice system directly
benefit from the persistence of the “war on drugs” as it directs a considerable amount of
public funds their way (Gordon, 2006). The other explanation claims that the “war on
drugs” creates a moral panic in the public that politicians perpetuate and use to their
advantage to gain political support (Gordon, 2006). Yet, upon further scrutiny, both of
these arguments are flawed as police budgets do not stand or rest solely on drug
enforcement funding and politicians, although able to heighten public fear of drug use, do
not have enough power on their own to perpetuate a drug war which costs the public
billions of dollars a year (Gordon, 2006; Statistics Canada, 2009). We must interrogate
the persistence of the drug war from a historical perspective as “the war on drugs has
historically been a central feature of police efforts to produce bourgeois public order, and
has focused largely, but not exclusively, on immigrant communities” (Gordon, 2006, pp.
63).
In Canada in 1908, anti-narcotic criminal laws were initiated against the smoking
of opium (Erickson, 1992; Gordon, 2006). These efforts directly targeted Chinese
migrant labourers who came to Canada to work on the railroad (Erickson, 1992). “For
many white Canadians, particularly state officials, police, and moral reformers, opium
use and sale was emblematic of the Chinese ‘problem’” (Gordon, 2006, pp. 64). Opium
was described as the “Chinese evil,” and opium smoking by Chinese migrants was
perceived as an example of their inherent inferiority (Gordon, 2006). Chinese migrants in
Canada at this time, like many other groups of non-white people, were constructed as
dirty, evil, inferior people with low morals (Gordon, 2006). There was a perceived threat
of Chinese culture and values, including opium smoking, “spreading like a disease” to
white Canadians, particularly to “morally weak” white women (Gordon, 2006). Fear of
Chinese culture spreading called for state intervention, which took various forms ranging
from the opium anti-narcotic criminal law to the Chinese head tax (Gordon, 2006; Musto,
1997). These measures worked to symbolically and materially enforce white British
bourgeoisie public order in Canada (Gordon, 2006). A similar history can be told for the
United States.
From 1908 until the 1960’s, Canada and the United States “got tough on drugs”
by classifying more substances as illegal and increasing drug penalties and sentences
(Erickson, 1992; Gordon, 2006; Lusane 1997). The prohibition of marijuana in the
1920’s and 1930’s, and eventual decriminalization of marijuana in some American states
in the 1970’s, paints a clear picture of racialized prohibition efforts (Lusane, 1997). In the
1930’s, marijuana was typically associated with blacks in the United States and
Caribbean immigrant communities in Canada (Lusane, 1997; Radosh, 2008). The public
feared marijuana not because of its effects in general, but because of its perceived effects
on black communities; marijuana was thought to give blacks “superhuman strength” and
“extraordinary and violent sexual desires” (Lusane, 1997). At this point in time, racism
against blacks was prevalent and explicit in North America (Lusane, 1997). Similar to the
fear of opium use spreading like a disease to morally weak white women, marijuana and
its supposed increased effects on inter-racial sexual desire, was a threat to the white,
bourgeoisie nations (Lusane, 1997). If marijuana was to be associated with blacks, then it
must be “dangerous” and require state intervention; however, marijuana was no longer
perceived as needing state control when the race of the marijuana user changed in the
1960’s (Musto, 1997). Events like Woodstock helped shift the perception of marijuana
users from “dangerous blacks” to a harmless youth subculture (Musto, 1997). This new
group of white, middle class youth using marijuana was not perceived as a threat to the
nation, and leniency towards marijuana in the 1970’s was reflected by the Canadian state
with the introduction of a “fine only” sentencing option for marijuana possession, and
was reflected by the U.S. state with marijuana being decriminalization in eleven states
(Erickson, 1992; Musto, 1997). Although marijuana became illegal again by the mid
1980’s, the history of marijuana prohibition illustrates the way that particular drugs are
perceived as a “threat” depending on the people associated with them (Gordon, 2006).
Marijuana was recriminalized in Canada and the United States during a period of
renewed prohibition spirit in the mid-late 1980’s. The “war on drugs” rhetoric was made
official with the announcement of the “drug epidemic” which coincided with new, harsh
mandatory sentencing laws. Although drug use was declining, U.S. President Reagan
announced, “Drugs are menacing our society […] there is no moral middle ground,”
followed two days later by Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, “Drug abuse has
become an epidemic that undermines our economic as well as our social fabric”
(Erickson, 1992, pp. 248). Framing the “drug problem” in moral terms made it difficult
for the public to contest the “war on drugs” ideology and drug enforcement strategies, as
embedded in the moral discourse was a history of whiteness and capitalism (Gordon,
2006). And although contemporary “war on drugs” efforts are not explicitly raced, the
results of contemporary drug prohibition efforts are (Klein & Maxson, 1994; Lusane
1997).
One example of contemporary “war on drugs” efforts is the construction of the
black/gang/crack relationship, which justified particular drug enforcement tactics. “Both
U.S. Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush declared that the “war on drugs”
was a war against crack” (Jordan-Zachery, 2008, pp. 233). Although the perceived
association between blacks and crack cocaine was originally an American construction, it
influenced Canadian culture as well (Gordon, 2006; Jordan-Zachery, 2008). The
sensationalist stories in the media in the late 1980’s constructed the black gang as crack
distributors and black mothers as crack users (Jordan-Zachery, 2008). The moral panic
was so prevalent that Time magazine made “crack” its main focus in its 1986 September
issue (Time Magazine). This panic was embedded in a discourse of race and motherhood,
which resulted in increased surveillance of black communities and black women’s bodies
(Jordan-Zachery, 2008). Newspaper reports constructed the “crack baby mother” as
young, poor, urban, on welfare, with several children, and black (Jordan-Zachery, 2008).
After the “crack baby moral panic” in 1986, women’s incarceration for drug offences
rose from one in eight women to one in three, with black women having the highest rate
of incarceration in the United States (Jordan-Zachery, 2008).
The public was told that gangs were to blame for crack distribution and inner city
violence (Lusane, 1997). A report by the California State Task Force on Drugs and Gangs
in 1989 illustrates the “gang” moral panic:
“Today’s gangs are urban terrorists. Heavily armed and more violent than ever
before, they are quick to use terror and intimidation to seize and protect
their share of the lucrative drug market. Gang members are turning our
streets and neighbourhoods into war zones” (Klein and Maxson, 1994, p.
44).
These gangs were not comprised of multiracial groups, they were constructed as black,
and consistent images of black youth being arrested in the media appeared to confirm the
myth (Lusane, 1997). “If a certain segment of the population is disproportionately
scrutinized, they are more likely to be found with a prohibited substance and relatively
more of them will be charged than would be the case for groups receiving far less police
attention” (Gordon, 2006, p. 69-70). Blacks were receiving an unjust amount of police
attention; after Canadian Prime Minister Mulroney announced a drug epidemic in 1986,
the number of blacks charged for drug trafficking increased 1,164% over a five-year
period (Gordon, 2006). The Ontario Commission on Systemic Racism in the Criminal
Justice System found that blacks detained for drug possession are less likely than whites
to be released by police or the courts, and that blacks are three times more likely than
whites with a similar criminal record to be refused bail and ordered detained before trial
(Gordon, 2006). The threat of gangs was used to justify the increased incarceration of
blacks in both Canada and the United States (Jordan-Zachery, 2008).
Gangs were perceived to be the ideal distribution network for drugs, particularly
for crack cocaine, as gangs are supposedly tight-knit groups with strongly shared norms,
values, and organizational loyalties (Klein and Maxson, 1994). Gangs are also imagined
as being highly structured and controlled, with the oldest and strongest member in a
leadership position, but research on street gangs found that the internal structure of gangs
actually proves to be less than conducive to drug selling (Klein and Maxson, 1994). “In
real street gangs, multiple cliques, dyads, and triads are the common units of
companionship, each responsive to its own age peers rather than to powerful (or older)
leaders” (Klein and Maxson, 1994, p. 45). Research also found that gang members are
not as loyal as the media constructs them to be; gangs have relatively high and consistent
turnover rates (Klein and Maxson, 1994). And although there is evidence of gang
violence, this violence is not always related to drug selling, as many violent street gangs
exist that do not sell drugs (Klein and Maxson, 1994).
The association between crack and black women on welfare helped justify drastic
cutbacks to public assistance programs in the United States in the 1990’s. In 1996, the
Personal Responsibility ad Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) was
passed, which denies “welfare benefits, cash assistance, and food stamps, to persons
convicted of a state or federal felony offence, for using or selling drugs. Anyone
convicted on a felony drug charge is denied benefits for life” (Jordan-Zachery, 2008, p.
237). Although not all states in the U.S. have implemented this exact version of the act,
twenty states have (Jordan-Zachery, 2008). In the same year the PRWORA was passed,
the Public Housing Drug Elimination Program was introduced, which gave housing
authorities the right to evict an entire family from public housing for a three year period,
if it determines that any individual, or their guest, is engaged in the sale, or use, of illegal
drugs (Jordan-Zachery, 2008). Two year later, additional restrictions to public assistance
were enacted; the Higher Education Act was amended to suspend eligibility for student
loans for anyone convicted of a drug offence (Jordan-Zachery, 2008). These restrictions
are problematic, one must wonder the effect these kinds of restrictions have on rates of
recidivism and on low-income communities. Although the removal of access to the
welfare state is unique to the United States, we must remain cautious that Canadian antidrug strategies do not follow suit.
The final example of contemporary racialized drug prohibition I will examine is
the criminalization of khat in Canada. In the late 1980’s and early 1990’s, Canada
experienced an influx of Somali immigrants as the political instability in Somali
continued to rise (Gordon, 2006). Somalis encounter housing and employment
discrimination, like most non-white immigrant communities in Canada (Gordon, 2006).
Somali culture, generally speaking, is different than white Canadian culture, as Somalis
practice different cultural traditions, one example being the use of khat in social
situations (Gordon, 2006). Khat is a plant indigenous to East Africa and parts of the
Middle East, where users chew on the shoots of the plant for a “buzz” that is similar to a
strong caffeine rush (Gordon, 2006). Despite weak medical evidence that khat is unsafe,
khat was criminalized in Canada in 1997, essentially criminalizing a significant portion
of the Somali community (Gordon, 2006). The criminalization of khat has served as a
convenient pretext for police intervention in Somali communities; there are reports of
police bursting into homes in warrantless searches for khat, violently assaulting its
occupants, and leaving without laying any charges (Gordon, 2006). The use of khat was
understood by the Canadian state to represent difference, this difference being so
threatening that it required police and state intervention. The increased presence of police
in Somali communities on the pretence of drug enforcement symbolizes the perceived
need to control and intervene in immigrant communities to ensure the production of
Canadian culture and order.
Examining the history of drug prohibition in Canada and the United States helps
paint a clear picture as to how and why the “war on drugs” continues to persist, despite an
inherently flawed ideology. Drug prohibition efforts both historically and in its
contemporary form are based in the construction of the nation as white and capitalist.
Any bodies or activities that may conflict with the white, bourgeoisie nation, signals a
call for state intervention and control. It is this white-bourgeoisie-nation rhetoric that
influences anti-drug enforcement strategies, which, in turn, results in the
overrepresentation of people of colour and the poor in Canadian and U.S. federal and
state/provincial criminal justice systems. We must recognize the extent to which ideas
about nationhood and belonging have on our understandings of the drug-crime
relationship if we are to pursue an equitable criminal justice system.
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