Title: The Drug War as Race War
Headings: The following sections HAVE NOT moved yet:
Intersectionality, Worldwide and Other Pages


Content: While the drug war may have been initiated  out of political motives, this assessment does not tell the entire tale. To understand the origins of the War on Drugs in its entirety, we must  know what was going on in the cultural landscape that made it  politically advantageous to fight a war on drugs. When Reagan declared war on drugs, a broad cultural change was  underway in the United States. The country was moving from a period of  relative liberalism that included skepticism toward government and  authority and an emphasis on personal freedoms, to a period of relative  conservatism that included respect for government and authority and an  emphasis on personal responsibility. Reagan's very election to the  presidency was in large part a manifestation of this shift in attitudes. Reagan was the embodiment of a mainstream reaction to the counterculture  of the 60s and 70s. Part of this sea change in cultural attitudes was a  different perspective toward drugs. In 1982, when the drug war began, the recreational use of illegal  drugs was in decline. Tonry points out that in 1982, surveys conducted  by the National Institute on Drug Abuse showed significant drops in drug  usage over long periods for a wide range of age groups. This decline  impacted the use of both legal and illegal substances.