The War on Drugs was introduced to us by President Richard Nixon in 1971 and was carried out even further by President Ronald Reagan. 50 years later, communities of color are still suffering from the impact of the proposals set in place by these two former presidents. I recently watched a docu-series titled “How to Fix a Drug Scandal” on Netflix and it spoke about the crimes two forensic drug lab scientists, Sonja Farak and Annie Dookhan, completed while they worked at two labs in Massachusetts. The gist of the story includes the fact that their crimes, which were Farak swapping out drugs for her own usage and improperly inputting the results of drug tests for people facing jail time, and Dookhan putting in false reports for people who were facing jail time for drug-related crimes as well. As a result of their crimes, many people were wrongfully convicted and placed in jail for years because of the false reports made by both of these women.
Over 20,000 cases had to be thrown out due to the falsified paperwork made by Sonja Farak. Watching this docuseries and hearing the news about what took place from her crime, it made me think about the hundreds of thousands of other people who are in jail right now due to drug-related charges and if their paperwork was filled out correctly or incorrectly, but they do not have the proper representation to help
them get out of jail or get their sentences reduced.
There are currently over 360,000 people incarcerated right now due to drug-related charges. The war on drugs not only incarcerated people who sold drugs, but it put them away from using drugs as well. When
President Raegan got into office, he made sure to make the war on drugs his biggest execution while in office, and we are still seeing the remnants of that today. What people do not seem to understand is
that when you institutionalize someone for their drug usage instead of getting them the help that they deserve for their problem, it does not help but only makes it worse. While coming down from consistent drug usage, your body will naturally go through a form of withdrawal.
Whether it is the person becoming physically sick or psychologically sick, the body undergoes a lot and without the proper harm reduction or drug treatment process taking place, it can cause more damage to
the person’s body. When people are in the habit of using drugs or selling drugs, there is a reason behind both stories. People are chasing a feeling that they cannot find in real life when using drugs.
Whether it be peace, a rush, quietness, or feeling like they are in the clouds, those feelings are what they feel can only be achieved by hard drug usage. While sellers don’t often use their own products, they are selling it to try and provide for their families or for their own personal gain. But how do you imprison people that you gave the blueprint to commit the crimes that you are sending them away for? Reagan’s campaign infiltrated the war on drugs and we as a community have not recovered since. When the war on drugs first started, Ronald Reagan along with his wife, First Lady Nancy Reagan, launched the “Just Say No” campaign, but what later came out to the public, he helped bring drugs into the United States, in particular cocaine, to be sold or used in the streets. Cocaine was labeled a “rich man’s drug” being used by wealthy white people until wealthy Black people got ahold of the drug and that is where the problem came in at. Once it got into the Black community, the value of cocaine went down, which led to the introduction of crack. When you have a product that isn’t accessible for everyone, that is when knockoffs come in.
In a document approved by the CIA, they admitted to being involved in the drug trade that happened from South America into the United States that started with the use of heroin which then transitioned into the over usage of cocaine and crack, which hit “urban ghettos and corporate highrises” according to the document titled “Covert Action:
The CIA and Drugs” which was produced by the CIA in 2010. So here we are 50 years later, still seeing the remnants of the war on drugs. Where we live in a world where the nuclear family is still not back to where it was, where Black men have been taken away from their families and stripped of their rights compared to men of other ethnicities and races who are awarded opportunities even after having the same convictions, where does that leave us? As a community, we have to learn to break the stigma and the chains that hold us back. It is hard to do that when this system was not designed for us to succeed, but it starts with us. It is hard for us to trust the government because of instances like this. 50 years later and we are still trying to recover families, children of products of the crack epidemic, seeing people still using crack and losing everything they’ve ever had. Systemically we have not recovered. Financially we have not recovered. What will the next 50 years look like for us as a community if we do not tackle the war on drugs within our communities, whether it be crack, cocaine, opioids, and now the newest drug: fentanyl, we will continue to see high numbers of incarceration for Black men and the constant break down of our families. And Ronald Raegan, one day you will pay for your crimes.
