Who was most responsible for what we call the “War on Drugs”? This is a separate question than the wisdom of the war, but I have noticed that a lot of people like to point at Reagan, while others point at Nixon.
M. Simon aside, few contemporary political discussions mention the role of Harry J. Anslinger. Best known for marijuana criminalization via the reefer madness meme, he was way ahead of his time, and a legend in the world of drug enforcement. Earlier I stumbled onto a paper which credits him for transforming early drug enforcement into a multifaceted campaign against evil, fought in newspapers, classrooms, boardrooms, and in the international arena. Anslinger is described as a key “policy entrepreneur“:
…From 1930 to 1970, Harry Anslinger was the key in designing policy.[xvi] He headed narcotics bureaus (under different names), represented the US on international narcotics committees, and advised the President, the Congress, and the states on narcotics policy. According to Becker, Anslinger is an example of a moral entrepreneur.[xvii] Anslinger held that consumption, production and traffic of narcotics could be eliminated and deterrence achieved by strict enforcement and mandatory prison sentences. He portrayed drugs as immoral and evil, causing violence and insanity. He cultivated the press and Congress, lobbied professional and scientific associations, and provided them with illustrations on the hazards of drug use which at the time were not verified. Subsequent analysis has shown misrepresentation, pure fiction, and suppression of studies which did not support his views.[xviii]
No surprise there. The man was a master of his narrative, a bully, and of course a public relations genius. If you were with him he would help you, and if you were against him you were evil:
Anslinger’s willingness to adapt narcotics to the political goals of others made him a valuable ally. He was always willing to see narcotics politicized by politicians who wanted to win elections, just as he was willing to harness narcotics to the Cold War.[xix]
Harry Anslinger carved out a policy niche and had his preferences adopted as policy. Rarely did others have a reason to challenge them, and Anslinger’s approach suggested that those advocating alternative policies were disreputable, morally deficient, evil, or at best, naive innocents in a depraved world. After his retirement, no “moral entrepreneur” appeared, but the Anslinger’s organizational ethos continued.[xx]
I think there are still plenty of moral entrepreneurs who use the war on drugs to political advantage, except they’re more spread out.
What especially fascinates me about Anslinger is the way he developed an impenetrable meme of closed loop system of thinking I have discussed before. If statistics show improvement, it means we need to redouble the war effort in order to “win,” and if statistics show deterioration, it means we must redouble our efforts or else we will “lose.” (In other words, if it doesn’t work, that’s why we have to keep on doing it, so voila! The drug war’s dysfunctionality thereby becomes fuel for its self-perpetuation, almost like a computer virus.)
Organizational Politics
Some question the classification of Anslinger as a moral entrepreneur, and view him as the consummate organizational politico. He mounted a campaign using morality and frightening examples to gain public and official support, and resulted in an increase in the size of the narcotics bureaus and budgets larger than the amount initially requested.[xxi]
Anslinger developed a win/win strategy. If drug use or trafficking declined, the agency claimed their tactics were successful and needed more funding to “win the war.” If drug use or trafficking increased in magnitude, the agency said they needed more funding, more agents, tougher laws, and stricter penalties. An agency staffed with enforcement personnel and with an enforcement mission is not likely to advocate or support non-enforcement policies.[xxii] Anslinger’s view that anti-narcotic education would be dangerous and counter-productive in the US, became the hallmark of agency policy advice. [xxiii] Failure rarely results in re-examination or re-assessment.[xxiv]
I have to admire the sheer shamelessness of that man. He brought misery to millions, created a vast new playing field for criminal entrepreneurs, paved the way for the modern war on drugs — all in the name of building a better world.
And he was able to tap into the progressive liberal mindset and the conservative “lock ’em up and throw away the key!” mindset at the same time.
I marvel at the man’s talent, but I wish we weren’t stuck with his legacy.
Comments
10 responses to “Godfather of a dysfunctional but self-perpetuating legacy?”
Re: your comment at:
http://classicalvalues.com/2011/08/observing-the-mentally-ill/#comments
I had a similar thought!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rockefeller_Drug_Laws
They’ve been called “Rockefeller Laws” in NYS for as long as I remember.
As I commented on another post here, the morally confident or self-reighteous are often prone to introducing and supporting immoral violence. Their confidence in the rightness of their worldview blinds them to any other moral reasoning or imperatives. Ansliner is a prime example.
Drug warriors in general are like this. They are confident that the non-violent actions of drug users and sellers are deserving of punishment and therefore the use of force or threat of force needed to enforce the law is justified in their minds.
In fact, for zealots of any stripe, their willingness to use force to enact their ideas of a moral order reinforces their own beleifs of the rightness of their cause. They beleive that they themselves could never engage in or support the use of immoral violence. So if they sanction violent action, it has to be moral because they could never, in a million years, sanction immoral violence.
This is, IMO, the main reason Christianity no longer has the moral authority in the USA that it once had. (Much to the frustration of social conservatives). Over the last 100 years or so, Christians in this nation have used their political power to create a criminal law regime that punishes acts that aren’t really crimes but are considered vices under their religious beliefs. Many may live by the Golden Rule personally, but in practice politcally, they mostly ignore it. More and more people have noticed this disconnect in Christians and Christian moral authority has suffered for it.
This failure of Christians to live up to the Golden Rule politlically is pointed out constantly to Christians, yet most can’t see it. After all, they believe in God and are faithful and therefore always right, and the other person has to be a sinner if he disagrees with me and sinners are always wrong.
And in other news, circular reasoning is circular.
[…] The most important aspect of this con game is to keep as many taxpayers as possible believing in the moral narrative. […]
Over the last 100 years or so, Christians in this nation have used their political power to create a criminal law regime that punishes acts that aren’t really crimes but are considered vices under their religious beliefs
I’m gonna disagree with you there.
Over the last 100 years we’ve been starting to ignore the laws against vices that Christians introduced because of their religion, the so-called “Blue Laws, like buying booze on Sundays or against sodomy.
I’m not making a judgement call on that, I’m saying that’s what is.
Drug laws are not “Christian” except in the very broad sense that most people in America were Christian so of course the people who introduced them were Christians.
So far as I know, Jesus was silent on drugs, we do know he like vino and had no problem with others drinking. He even encouraged it on occasion.
The Bible is generally silent on drugs (AFAIK), the Bible is specific on people making fun of those who get really drunk as we see in the Curse of the Children of Ham.
Before you say I’m saying this because I’m a Christian, I’m not. I don’t believe in any god.
The raft of drug laws aren’t Christian, they’re for the benefit of people who want power over others.
Veeshir
Either you don’t know many evangelical or fundamentalist Christians or you are hopelessly niave. Yes, there are libertarian or moderate Christians, but they seem to be a minority.
Yes, people seek power over others like they do in the WOD, but to what end? To stop drug use? Well, yes. But why stop drug use? Because less drug use makes the world more moral. At least that seems to be the reasoning.
You do realize that the standard complaint about libertarians from the socon Right is that libertarians want to legalize sin, don’t you?
Why do you think Anslinger was successful in his crusade? It’s because his crusade played up to the moral vanity and the moral fears of Christians. No one in this nation gets or keeps the power they seek without first convincing the vast Christian majority (practicing or cultural Christians) that the action is moral. It is less true today, but not in Anslinger’s time.
The average Christian beleiver wants their offspring to stay away from sin, to walk the narrow path. While they attend church and teach their children accordingly, they still might stray. For many, outlawing certain sins is a way to coerce their own children away from sin. If the only path available in life is the narrower one, and the wider path is punishable under the law, well, problem solved. (Of course, by forcing the narrow path on everyone under threat of punishment obliterates the meaning of walking the narrower path freely. But Christians don’t see this becauae in this situation, the ends do indeed justify the means. You get a lot more religious compliance when non-compliance can be punished by the state.)
The simple fact of the matter is that while Christian theology focuses on the individual’s choice to accept or reject Jesus as the Son of God/risen savior, the political actions of Christians have been authoritarian through the years.
The actions of many Christians through the years leads me to beleive that this is their message to the non-believer: Reject God/Jesus, that’s your business. Live your life outside of certain Christian norms, you better think again.
Much of our current political tension stems from the fact that more and more people are rejecting Christian notions of morality ensconced in the law, while conversely, large numbers of Christians fight tooth and nail to maintain those laws or re-enact vice laws that have fallen by the wayside.
Ironically, the people who want Christian morality removed from the law (vice laws) have a better understanding of the Golden Rule than their Christian opponents. At least IMO.
Sigh.
It’s about power.
Rockefeller wasn’t a theocrat, he was a NY politician.
Which means he’s all about power.
Reminds me of a book… “Villains by Necessity” by Eve Forward. (Eric, feel free to grab the Amazon link to it and edit this accordingly).
It’s a fun read. And takes on the ‘good doing evil and believing it good’ bit head on.
veeshir—
And when Rockfeller did what he did, did the Christians in NY try to stop him?
Why no, no they didn’t. In fact, they cheered him on. Why? Because these laws played to the moral fears and moral vanity of Christians.
You act as if the actions of politicians exist in a vaccum away from the popular will of the people. It doesn’t work that way.
Here’s something I read a while back, sorry but I can’t recall the provenance:
The common man believes religion to be true.
The wise man believes religion to be false.
The ruler finds religion useful.
Rockefeller showed his “moral” bonafides to Christians by coming down hard on those sinful drug users and sellers. Christians applauded.
Is this so hard for you to understand?
[…] was criminalized in 1937; what was the moral status of a marijuana user before that? According to Harry Anslinger (who lobbied for the Marihuana Act) marijuana users were degenerates. So what? Assume moral […]