Over the past four decades, the US has committed more than $1 trillion to the war on drugs. Drug use had become more public and prevalent during the 1960s due in part to the counterculture movement, and many Americans felt that drug use had become a serious threat to the country and its moral standing. Nixon inaugurated the war on drugs at a time when America was in hysterics over widespread drug use. But in that process, the drug war led to unintended consequences that have proliferated violence around the world and contributed to mass incarceration in the US, even if it has made drugs less accessible and reduced potential levels of drug abuse. Over the next couple decades, particularly under the Reagan administration, what followed was the escalation of global military and police efforts against drugs. "I am not prepared to accept this alternative." "If we cannot destroy the drug menace in America, then it will surely in time destroy us," Nixon told Congress in 1971. In the 1970s, President Richard Nixon formally launched the war on drugs to eradicate illicit drug use in the US.
But as prison populations and financial costs increase and drug-related violence around the world continues, lawmakers and experts are reconsidering if the drug war's potential benefits are really worth its many drawbacks. The US has been fighting a global war on drugs for decades.