President Richard Nixon called a press conference on 17th June 1971 to declare a "war on drugs". Action was overdue. In addition to the rampant drug trade largely controlled by the Mafia, empowered by misguided US policy in Sicily at the end of the second world war, the Vietnam war had created a new generation of addicts and an additional illegal network to supply them.
www.history.com records that:
Nixon increased federal funding for drug-control agencies and proposed strict measures, such as mandatory prison sentencing, for drug crimes. He also announced the creation of the Special Action Office for Drug Abuse Prevention (SAODAP), which was headed by Dr. Jerome Jaffe. Nixon went on to create the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) in 1973. This agency is a special police force committed to targeting illegal drug use and smuggling in the United States. At the start, the DEA was given 1,470 special agents and a budget of less than $75 million. Today, the agency has nearly 5,000 agents and a budget of $2.03 billion.There may well have been eletoral motives for seeming to be strong on drugs. However, the institutions which Nixon created have remained, although it has to be said that the war was not over when Ronald Reagan came to power and the situation is no better today.
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