President Nixon Declares a War on Drugs (1971)

President Nixon declared a war on drugs and launched a campaign that criminalized drug use and largely targeted those who protested the Vietnam War as well as people of color. Rather than approaching a rising drug problem with much-needed treatment programs, Americans were imprisoned on an unheard of scale. A disproportionately large number of those incarcerated were people of color.

Resource: Pearl, Betsy. “Ending the War on Drugs: By the Numbers.” Center for American Progress. Accessed June 6, 2020. https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/criminal-justice/reports/2018/06/27/452819/ending-war-drugs-numbers/