With the War on Drugs being hailed as an overwhelming failure worldwide, why is it still waging on? US President Donald Trump and US Attorney General Jeff Sessions have thrown the media into a whirlwind by reconfirming their commitment to the failed policies, whilst other countries such as Portugal, Czech Republic, the Netherlands and Uruguay now have longitudinal data available to prove that none of what the fear-mongers have said has any statistical validity. Legalization and de-criminalisation of illicit substances is a solution that is not perfect but is proving better than the current strategies.
This report discusses the foundation of drug law worldwide and shows a brief overview of what has happened since.
Drugs and Billie Holiday
In 1939 the beautiful jazz singer Billie Holiday became one of the first celebrity targets for the unofficial war on drugs. The lately defunct department of prohibition became the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, with Harry Anslinger at the helm. What followed was symptomatic of a country at war with itself. The Holiday story exemplifies how drugs became a conduit to continue the war on black people in America and pass under the bar of civil rights. This was the war on drugs before there was one.
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