16. The creation of anti-drug propaganda
Since its inception, a main focus of the War on Drugs has been driven by moral issues, hidden under a blanket of propaganda. Long before the War on Drugs was announced by Richard Nixon the film Reefer Madness was released, funded by a religious organization. In the 1970s the film was re-released, widely regarded as a satire. Reefer Madness was just one of a multitude of films which were made to demonstrate the moral and physical destruction wrought by the use of illegal drugs, including cannabis, which was depicted as not only the gateway to the use of other drugs but also to moral decline. It presented cannabis as physically and psychologically addictive. The film originally was marketed under several different titles dependent on the region of the country in which it was screened.
The crack epidemic of the 1980s and the cocaine fueled lust of black men in the Deep South were other forms of anti-drug, or rather pro-drug control, propaganda which was used to fuel anti-drug sentiment during the War on Drugs. Crack in particular was presented in the media and by the government as instantly addictive and deadly, though its addictive properties are no different than that of powder cocaine according to most pharmacologists. The explosion of its use in the 1980s had more to do with its cheapness, though the desire to continue to use it did contribute to its becoming a significant factor in the rise of urban crime. Crack was a leading component in the emergence of gangs and turf wars in the 1980s, and the punishments for its possession and use were a significant factor in the dramatic rise of incarceration rates which began during the 1980s.