The counter-narcotics force were presented as drug super-cops, stalking the underworld <\/blockquote> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>\n<\/div>
Yet Nixon\u2019s speech marked the begin- ning of a new era of drug policy. Before 1971, American drug laws had been harsh and oppressive, and they had been used to unfairly target minorities. (Witness the FBN\u2019s vicious hounding of jazz singer Billie Holiday.) But these laws were also rarely applied. Anslinger presented the FBN\u00a0as drug super-cops, stalking the drug underworld both at home and abroad.<\/p>\n
Read more | The year Mexico legalised drugs<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>
In reality, the organisation was seriously underpowered and chronically corrupt. And those jailed for drug crimes every year rarely reached into the tens of thousands.\nNixon\u2019s announcement sparked a new aggression and intensity in drug policing.<\/p>\n
It was spearheaded by a new agency \u2013 the Drug Enforcement Administration or DEA, which was 10 times the size of the old FBN. It was launched abroad in drug-producing countries such as Jamaica, Mexico<\/a> and Colombia, where DEA agents and local military forces descended on drug-growing zones, rounded up suspected traffickers\u00a0and then hurled them in jail. This aggression was pursued at home, too, as police forces started to use increasingly stringent drug laws to put away non-violent drug offenders for decades.<\/p>\n

Read more Why we should remember\u2026?<\/a><\/strong><\/h4>\n
Why we should remember the translation of Anne Frank\u2019s diary<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n
Why we should remember Target Zero Day<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n
Why we should remember the Amnesty Act of 1872<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>
<\/p><\/div>

$\""A\"$ <\/div><\/div> <\/div> <\/section>
It is a policy that continues to this day, and it is one that still marks the United States. Refined by Nixon\u2019s successors, the war on\u00a0drugs is the root cause of what we\u00a0now term \u201cmass incarceration\u201d.<\/p>\n
Today there are at least 1.8\u00a0million prisoners in the United\u00a0States. Most are on small-scale\u00a0narcotics charges. And they are disproportionately\u00a0African-American.<\/p>\n
Benjamin T Smith is a professor of Latin American history at the\u00a0University of Warwick. His latest book is The Dope: The Real History of the Mexican Drug Trade<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n
This article first appeared in the June 2021 issue of BBC History Magazine<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p><\/body><\/html>\n
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