The birth of the war on drugs:
This conversation between Nixon and White House Chief of Staff HR ‘Bob’ Haldeman was secretly recorded in the Oval Office by Nixon himself. Clip Citation: (Edited for Length) | Time: 10:03 am - 11:35 am | Oval Office Conversation: 505-4 - May 26, 1971
Richard Nixon started the drug war as a political ploy in order to disrupt and gain control over progressive anti-war protests in the 1970s. In the 1980s, President Regan leveraged this policy, blaming drugs for elevations in crime in America’s inner cities. He instituted harsh mandatory minimum sentences for low level non-violent drug crimes. Today, the cosmic sized fallout of the war on drugs has destroyed millions of people’s lives, most of them with black and brown skin. It has resulted in the mass incarceration of people of color and the destruction of families and communities all across the United States.
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