The government actually helped create the drug smuggling business

The lead-up to the War on Drugs that no one talks about

T.J. Chavez, chief of the New Mexico State Police Narcotics Unit, proudly oversees the incineration of a giant stash of confiscated marijuana which he was burning at the State Police Academy in Santa Fe, New Mexico, circa 1973. (Buddy Mays/Corbis via Getty Images)

Richard Nixon made the War on Drugs official in 1971, but the battle had begun long before, starting with the criminalization of narcotics in individual states in the 19th century. That criminalization led to a massive explosion in trafficking. Just take the case of marijuana.

While weed was made illegal in California in 1913, there was little concern about marijuana on a state level for the first three decades of the 20th century. In fact, a government commissioned report in 1926 found pot harmless:

“Marijuana Smoking Is Reported Safe,” New York Times, 1926

People were already smoking it recreationally, but because it wasn’t heavily criminalized, they were mainly using local stuff—getting high on their own supply. There was no need to transport it across state lines, as it could be grown anywhere without hassle. And it wasn’t expensive, because it wasn’t very hard to obtain. Here’s an article from 1931 about how nonexistent marijuana trafficking was:

“Government Will Ask States to Ban Growing of Marijuana,” New York Times, 1931

But over the next five years, states started to criminalize weed, under pressure from the federal government. As a result, trafficking exploded — if you couldn’t grow it in your own backyard, you’d most likely need to get it from someone who had ties to organized crime. In this 1936 article, notice how marijuana trafficking went from nonexistent to “widespread” just five years later:

“Narcotic Addicts Reduced in Nation,” New York Times, 1936

The next decade saw a rapid increase in marijuana busts and prosecutions around the country. By 1950, authorities were seeing arrests rising by percentages in the double digits:

“Narcotics Arrests Show Sharp Rise,” New York Times, 1950

By 1956, international trafficking had grown into a wildly lucrative business.

“Marijuana Ring Broken,” New York Times, 1956

As of 1965, a few years before Nixon’s declaration of war, one thing was certain:

“Narcotics Trade Pays: The Markup Is Terrific,” New York Times, 1965

One wonders how “terrific” the markup would be if Americans had been able to grow and smoke the plant without interference all along. It seems the war on drugs actually went a long way toward creating the very market it was meant to crush.

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