Conor Friedersdorf: The War on Drugs Turns 40

Conor Friedersdorf is an associate editor at The Atlantic, where he writes about politics and national affairs. He lives in Venice, California, and is the founding editor of The Best of Journalism, a newsletter devoted to exceptional nonfiction.

Police officers, judges, and prison guards opposed to drug prohibition gathered in Washington, D.C., Tuesday to mark an eye-opening milestone: the 40th Anniversary of President Richard Nixon's War on Drugs. "America's public enemy number one in the United States is drug abuse," Nixon declared in a June 17, 1971 press conference. "In order to fight and defeat this enemy, it is necessary to wage a new, all-out offensive." Just two years later he escalated his rhetoric yet again, asserting that "this Administration has declared all-out, global war on the drug menace," and creating the Drug Enforcement Agency. Ever since we've been doubling down on the strategy. It has never succeeded, even when we've gone much farther down the "get tough" road than Nixon ever did....

As early as 2004, Barack Obama declared the War on Drugs an "utter failure" and promised the federal government would back off if states wanted to permit their residents to use medical marijuana. "What President Obama said during the campaign is now American policy," Attorney General Eric Holder declared shortly after Obama's 2009 inauguration. Alas, it hasn't worked out that way -- and that's a shame since federalism is one way that national politicians can dodge the drug question and give states room to show that pot for cancer patients or decriminalization of soft drugs can be implemented without doing net damage to society....