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Ethan Nadelmann: The War on Drugs is Racist | Big Think

Big Think | January 24, 2026



Ethan Nadelmann: The War on Drugs is Racist
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Inevitably drug laws will be disproportionately enforced against the poor, younger and darker-skinned members of society.
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ETHAN NADELMANN:

Ethan Nadelmann is the founder and executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance, a New York City-based non-profit organization working to end the War on Drugs.

Nadelmann was born in New York City and received his BA, JD, and PhD from Harvard, and a master’s degree in international relations from the London School of Economics. He then taught politics and public affairs at Princeton University from 1987 to 1994, where his speaking and writings on drug policy—in publications ranging from Science and Foreign Affairs to American Heritage and National Review—attracted international attention. He authored Cops Across Borders, the first scholarly study of the internationalization of U.S. criminal law enforcement, and co-authored another book entitled Policing the Globe: Criminalization and Crime Control in International Relations, published by Oxford University Press in 2006.

In 1994, Nadelmann founded the Lindesmith Center, a drug policy institute created with the philanthropic support of George Soros. In 2000, the growing Center merged with another organization to form the Drug Policy Alliance, which advocates for drug policies grounded in science, compassion, health and human rights. Described by Rolling Stone as “the point man” for drug policy reform efforts, Ethan Nadelmann is widely regarded as the most prominent proponent of drug policy reform.

You can connect with Ethan Nadelmann and the Drug Policy Alliance here:

www.drugpolicy.org
www.twitter.com/ethannadelmann
www.facebook.com/ethannadelmann
www.twitter.com/drugpolicynews
www.facebook.com/drugpolicy
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TRANSCRIPT:

Ethan Nadelmann: If you ask the question why are some drugs legal and others illegal. Why are cigarettes and alcohol legal and pharmaceuticals in the middle and these other drugs – marijuana and, you know, other ones illegal? You know, some people sort of inherently assume well this must be because there was a thoughtful consideration of the relative risks of drugs and, you know – but then that can’t be because we know alcohol is more associated with violence than almost any illegal drugs. And cigarettes are more addictive than any of the illegal drugs. I mean, heroin addicts routinely say it’s harder to quit cigarettes than it is to quit heroin.

So, it’s not as if there was ever any kind of National Academy of Science that a hundred years ago decided that these drugs – these ones had to be illegal and those ones legal. And it’s not as if this is in the Bible or in the Code of Hammurabi. I mean, nobody was making legal distinctions among many of these drugs back in – until the twentieth century essentially.

So if you ask how and why this distinction got made, what you realize when you look at the history is it has almost nothing to do with the relative risks of these drugs and almost everything to do with who used and who was perceived to use these drugs, right. So there’s – you know, back in the 1870s when the majority of opiate consumers were middle aged white women, you know – throughout the country using them for their aches and pains and for their, you know, the time of the month and menopause and there was no aspirin. There was no penicillin. You know, lots of diarrhea because of bad sanitation and nothing stops you up like opiates. I mean, millions – many more – a much higher percentage of the population back then used opiates than now.

But nobody thought about criminalizing it because nobody wanted to put, you know, auntie or grandma behind bars, right. But then when the Chinese started coming to the country in large numbers in the 1870s and 80s and, you know, working on the railroads and working in the mines and working in factories and, you know – and then going back home at the end of the night to smoke up a little opium the way they did in the old country. The same way White people were having a couple of whiskeys in the evening.

And that’s when you got the first opium prohibition laws. In Nevada, in California in the 1870s and 80s directed at the Chinese minorities…

Read the full transcript at https://bigthink.com/videos/ethan-nadelmann-on-race-and-prohibition

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Comments

This post currently has 37 comments.

  2. @jimmiewomble416

    January 24, 2026 at 12:20 am

    Harry Anslinger , Richard Nixon, and I can't remember the third, all came right out and said it. We couldn't make it illegal to be against the (Vietnam) War, but by associating the Hippies with Marijuana, and the Blacks with Heroin, and criminalizing both heavily, We could disrupt those communities.

  3. @VeganWithAraygun

    January 24, 2026 at 12:20 am

    Harry Anslinger 💩 – racist, hypocrite, social construct fascist, fear monger, destroyer of lives and those with a love of living, hater of non conformists, jazz musicians, stifler of medical research, and since the prohibition of marijuana left a legacy that increased the black male prison population with lasting harmful consequences to them and their families.

  4. @MOliva-p5q

    January 24, 2026 at 12:20 am

    But now you see that it’s not. If you have laces drug policies in South America the effects run into the United States. If we don’t look at race and just look at zones and laws in those zones we can rationally see that it isn’t race. Just because they had lax enforcement of drug laws in certain areas because of race and low income doesn’t mean that it’s racism what’s racist is they would ship the drugs to the black communities and then arrest people afterwards at the point of sale. They never stopped them at the point of origin and for some reason it was always most highly distributed in certain areas just like predatory loans. That’s called diffusion or flux if you look at areas and zones. How come there was less resistance to the flow of drugs in certain areas. Then it’s a flow problem. Why was the crack pipeline running to the black areas.

    What’s that pipeline that Biden stopped. Instead hunter built wanted to build a crack pipeline. He was a piplibe project experts.

  10. @martymiller7522

    January 24, 2026 at 12:20 am

    Ah, thank God for this righteous man. The ol’ scholar is certainly giving us all blessed insight here, but he is indubitably misguided on this topic.
    The war on drugs was waged by greedy people of various walks of life who see these prohibition measures as profitable to their respective way of living. The Guardian reports that Big Pharma spent $18.7 million last year making commercials and lobbying the government in order to keep cannabis illegal in various places in America alone. How much are they spending globally?
    They used racism and lies to keep the general public deceived about many plant based and unpatentable drugs that compete with the drugs they sell. Also, some report that illegal drug dealers are also bribing the government to keep drugs illegal because black market prices are much higher. This deception works for uneducated people, growing up in central California, I was told as a young lad that Chinese men used opium to enslave women to be their rape slaves in opium dens where Chinese men would smoke opium till they were so weak they couldn’t smoke any more.
    Being deceived, I said, “that’s terrible,” and I never investigated.
    I tell you, my beloved neighbors, i know that God’s unseen enemy tempts all people to do what is immoral, and because they hate God, Jesus Christ, they want these drugs to be illegal because they know how profitable drugs like diacetylmorphine(heroin) and methamphetamine are for people when used correctly.

    One more thing Dr. Nadleman is making a mistake on, he calls drug use a “vice.”
    I think today he would not say this as he is probably wiser today than he was then. Drug use is not a vice, this lie will inspire the people to make another mistake with drugs, mandating that people who get caught with stigmatized drugs go to rehab for treatment. I pray that this doesn’t happen.
    If you’re still with me, please hear what I have to say to a person who judges users of illegal drugs, If I have LSD or MDMA(to name a couple of the divine blessings from God that Satan has made illegal through lies, hypocrisy, ignorance and greed) do I need rehab, jail, or do I need some glow-sticks and a glass of fresh squeezed organic orange pineapple peach juice?
    The Lord Jesus Himself would bless you if you blessed me with the latter 2 items.

    Lo, why don’t you just leave us alone, you who don’t think these substances are safe? Look and see that we who use them righteously are being safe and wise. I am not hurting you, why do you want to hurt me? Prove scientifically that I should not use these things that have been scheduled by liars at the DEA and FDA
    Go educate yourself about what these things really are and about how shameful and deeply involved Big Pharma’s leaders have been in regards to the war on drugs.

    The war on drugs is arguably the most shameful and erroneous act that human beings have ever accomplished in world history.
    Every day people suffer without the medicines they need, and this wickedness is wide spread, and odious.

  13. @GenghisCohen257

    January 24, 2026 at 12:20 am

    A major example of the confusion is the harsh penalties for drug crimes, especially crack cocaine. Black legislators and black citizens said "We need help here. Don't forget about us. Please do something, like enact stiff penalties for drug crimes." They helped push for the stronger laws, and then later the laws were called racist. Unfortunately the law enforcement is damned if they do, damned if they don't.

  15. @RsRj-qd2cg

    January 24, 2026 at 12:20 am

    Don't forget that this gets goes the other way, too. The British pushed Opium on certain classes in China in the mid-late 1800s. The US at various times supported alcohol use amongst Native Americans to make them easier to remove. In the 1900s various liquors and of course menthol cigarettes were marketed to African Americans. Then in the 80s the government almost certainly facilitated the sale of crack to African American and Hispanic communities. The same groups who criminalize drug use often, but not always, are involved in selling drugs as well.

  18. @rs72098

    January 24, 2026 at 12:20 am

    Cigarettes are not more addictive than heroin. Heroin is much more deadly than alcohol according to weight. This guy is making things up or just downright lying.

  22. @dab9548

    January 24, 2026 at 12:20 am

    Just stop taking drugs. If you want to blow your brains out so you can hardly even think straight by the time you're in your fifties, sure, take drugs. The idiocy. Let's blame Nixon for drugs being harmful. Let's blame Nixon for the stupidity of people taking drugs. What should we do? Legalise drugs? You must be joking. They are dangerous, they are harmful and they are what is damaging the black community, not the laws against them.

  31. @StAlchemyst

    January 24, 2026 at 12:20 am

    There is no doubt that drug laws of THE PAST were founded on propaganda, lies and racism. If we are talking pre 1980 then yes. You can definitely make a case for that. One statistic I hear all the time is that a disproportionate amount of blacks are incarcerated on charges involving crack cocaine and the sentences are harsher for that drug. Yes this is true. IT's because more black people are involved with crack cocaine ans it has bee an epidemic for decades now (it also diminishing presently too) It's not targeting them because their black and it's not racist and here is your proof. There is a drug that has elevated sentences VERY similar to crack cocaine that an overwhelmingly amount of white people are incarcerated on charges of. That would be METH! The charges are just as harsh and the percentage of WHITES arrested ad convicted are just as lopsided. The argument of "crack cocaine is more severely punished cause blacks" is totally false.

  35. @rs72098

    January 24, 2026 at 12:20 am

    I see so the ban on ecstasy is a conspiracy against upperclass white college students? The ban on Meth and Oxycotin was a conspiracy against Republican southerners, the ban on Krokadil is a conspiracy against Russians. The ban on bath salts was a conspiracy against zombies. Whoever is in charge of these conspiracies must be a hybrid alien.

  36. @Gnarmarmilla

    January 24, 2026 at 12:20 am

    Mr. Nadelman is missing some important facts in this story, that the men who were telling people these things also had a financial interest in banning these drugs, creating a black market where high prices and monopolies could be established. They also sought to get rid of these plants which when legally cultivated would compete with their products, like paper, rope, and pain medicine.

  37. @sherlocksmith6931

    January 24, 2026 at 12:20 am

    No psychoactive drugs/substances/chemicals should be prohibited-and-propaganded against including psychoactive pharmaceutical drugs/substances/chemicals these draconian laws and punitive punishments/penalties or tighter laws and tougher punishments/penalties initiated-and-implemented policies-and-programmes of a by-gone era and no I acknowledge that the traditional immediate nuclear family and communities suffer the hardest in relation to dependence/addiction and this bears a broader economic cost besides purely a financial cost since it has a flow-on effect on the complete-and-whole total-and-utter economy but cultured vices such as alcohol marijuana and tobacco are cultured herbal/botanical substances are restricted which includes marijuana and tobacco alongside herbal/botanical/nutritional/dietary supplements various gangs within the black-market have become cartels just as various companies within the white-market have become corporations clinicalising/sanitising their production (manufacturing) distribution (smuggling/trafficking/dealing) to avoid-and-avert the state/government/public-sector the dichotomy/paradigm presented of supply-and-demand producer/distributor-and-consumer dealer-and-user seller-and-buyer predator-and-prey hunter-and-hunted pusher-and-puller perpetrator-and-victim if you notice the verbal slight of hand employed by emotionally-charged dogmatic prohibitionist conservatives bootleggers-and-baptists white-market crony corporate capitalists work in-conjunction in an un-holy alliance with black-market crony cartel capitalists through-and-under the state/government/public-sector

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