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That doesnt make sense. If it was done for attrition purposes the effects wouldnt benefit Nixon until well after he is out of office. If done simply as an excuse to target leaders, then those people werent drug users. Which means the drug charges were made up, which means there was no need to make drugs illegal to do it, you could have just as easily made up a similar heinous charge and used that to justify the arrest.
The logic here makes absolutely no sense.
@freemo @MelodyCooper Because you're looking at it from a legal perspective.
If you assign drugs to someone, and say the drugs are what made them bad, then going after those people to get the drugs gives you cover ('what, shouldn't we go after heroin? look at how bad it is? The black people aren't to blame, it's the heroin! Are you a racist?').
It's assigning emotional reaction, then using that as cover. Anything bad done by a hippy or a black person was drugs. You need to stop the drugs.
Dude the narrative itself is a lie, the idea that Nixon criminalized narcotics isnt true. It was already criminalized heavily and completely 44 years earlier.
Under Nixon he passed a law that actually made drugs **less** criminalized, causing simple possession to go from a felony to a misdemeanor.
Literally not only does the reasoning in the post not make sense, but the stated facts are bald faced lies too that can easily be checked.
@freemo
While I agree the "banned drugs" conclusion isn't supported by Erlichmann's quote (or legislative history (from what I understand,) the broader concept of "associating" certain drugs with those groups ostensibly provided cover for unbalanced enforcement of existing laws (persecution). "Plausible deniability" is par for the course in the Nixon administration, when it comes to racism, among other tactics/goals. @Oggie @MelodyCooper
If someone just made the general argument that the "war on drugs" has been used immorally to and disproportionately to attack and lock up peaceful minorities, then absolutely. As long as there is racism in a society there will always be unfair application of laws, particularly laws that outlaw nonviolent acts. So no doubt there.
Only thing i call BS on is the specific content of this post and the quote provided. The content of the quote is factually and logically wrong and clearly not a truthful interpretation of the genesis of drug laws.
@freemo I see. I think the closest I can come to reconciling the legislation and the quote is that it includes the campaign, and the strategy of the administration as a whole, which may be in contrast to what was actually enacted. The intention was there, in pursuit of attacking certain groups.
@Oggie @MelodyCooper
That still doesnt reconcile the quote. Drugs like those mentioned were already illegal 44 years before Nixon's election. In fact Nixon explicitly did pass an act related to drugs, and it **reduced** the penalty, not increased it like the quote states (changing possession of drugs from a felony to a misdemeanor).
You cant reconcile something that is the literal opposite of what actually happened.
@freemo
For what it's worth, I see the veracity of the quote is contested:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Ehrlichman#Drug_war_quote
YeaI was fairly certain it was a fake quote.. it makes no sense the quote would be real.
@freemo
To play devil's advocate one last time, the quote could be real, and Erlichman could have been just plain wrong. (But not about the racism in the Nixon administration.)
@Oggie @MelodyCooper
Sure, in theory that could be possible. The reason I dont suspect that to be the case is simply because I would expect the guy to have the common sense not to say something that is so obviously not true and so easily verified as not true. Surely he knew those things had been illegal for many years prior.
Knowing Nixon, he probably recorded it, he did record a lot of things in the Oval Office. 
That said, while Nixon himself didn't criminalizing cannabis or heroin, he did create the DEA for the sole purpose to heavily enforce existing drug laws (aka War on Drugs), but by the time the DEA officially started, Watergate had happened and Nixon was getting drunk, yelling at paintings, so the enforcement lingered until Regan came along in 1980.
Yes Richard Nixon formed the DEA,**and** reduced the penalty for possession of drugs. So the idea that he did for the "sole purposely to heavily enforce"... when the same act that created it **reduced** penalties seem to be statements at odd with each other.
@freemo
While he did reduced "simple possession" from a felony to a misdemeanor in 1970, it still carried up to a year in prison, increased penalties for those who the police considered "trafficking" and introduced "no-knock" entry to peoples homes without warning.
Remember too, he said "getting the public to associate" and then "criminalizing both heavily"
It was always going to be a long term plan, but by 1972 Watergate happened and that plan fell apart until Regan.
@gnate @Oggie