No Crack, as Well as Reagan's War on Drugs

I know earlier prezes fought against drugs, but I don't remember any of them being as publicized or in-your-face as Reagan. I could be wrong, Nixon could have been a raging anti-drugist.

So say that somehow the recipe for crack cocaine isn't discovered in the eighties. ASB would be it's chemically impossible, but that's not for here. Other than not hitting minorities and the poor like an 18-wheeler, how would the lack of a crack threat affect Reagan's war on drugs? Would he still be as aggressive, or would he focus on other things?

Speaking of which, was there any one particular narcotic that was the "driving force" or "last straw" that made Reagan and his administration start more aggressively going after drugs? Each drug is an epidemic, but crack ate up communities like wildfire.

And this is for just this time period. Crack could still be discovered later, but I'm just interested in the eighties/Reagan effects.
 
One thing to keep in mind is that certain Democrats played a pretty big role in pushing the War On Drugs as well. Tip O'Neill, for example, pushed for the tougher laws, including those against crack, after coming to the conclusion that his constituents were really upset about the death of Len Bias.

link

I suspect the War On Drugs would have happened anyway, given that Nancy Reagan was pretty fired up about it. Still, it's helpful to remember the bipartisan nature of it.
 
One thing to keep in mind is that certain Democrats played a pretty big role in pushing the War On Drugs as well. Tip O'Neill, for example, pushed for the tougher laws, including those against crack, after coming to the conclusion that his constituents were really upset about the death of Len Bias.

link

I suspect the War On Drugs would have happened anyway, given that Nancy Reagan was pretty fired up about it. Still, it's helpful to remember the bipartisan nature of it.
Right, no decision is made by just one party. Reagan being the face made it seem more one-sided.
 
Why were Democrats for it, and could they be turned against it? Drug use becomes a civil rights issue?

To stop 'Just Say No' could Nancy realize the hypocrisy considering her own drug use?
 
Why were Democrats for it, and could they be turned against it? Drug use becomes a civil rights issue?

To stop 'Just Say No' could Nancy realize the hypocrisy considering her own drug use?

The Democrats were for it the same reasons as the Republicans, people were dying. There were open gun battles in the streets in mid-afternoon in a lot of cities, people were overdosing at an alarming rate and the desperation of addicts caused a massive spike in crime.

It was something unprecedented in society and nobody knew what to do.
 
Wrapped up in the other anti drug advertising it had some effect. There was the 'This is you brain on drugs' image & variations of the 'I'm not a addict' image. But all that did not tip the balance & cut the numbers of new users to managable levels.

These slogans worked with the middle class white kids, & with certain subgroups in the Afro American or Hispanic demographics, but a large number of working class and poverty level youth had become to alienated, neglected, mislead to respond to billboard slogans.
 
Last edited:
Why were Democrats for it, and could they be turned against it? Drug use becomes a civil rights issue?

Both parties are trying to crack down on opioids right now. It's the knee jerk instinct. Politicians think more government is the solution to every problem.
 
... Politicians think more government is the solution to every problem.

Unfortunately more guvmint in this case was expanding prisons, manadatory maximum sentences & LE focus on drug enforcement. None of which solved the core problem of addiction. That was left to overworked hospitals, incapable families, fuzzy brained dogooders, faith based groups, and for profit businesses, among others.
 
Even ASB can't make crack a chemical impossibility. It's the free base form of cocaine, while powdered cocaine is the hydrochloride salt. If the hydrochloride salt can exist, the free base must exist as well. Unless, for some reason, it's chemically impossible for that to exist, and that necessitates changing the laws of the universe in a way that would probably make life impossible...

However, crack is relatively simple to make from a chemical point of view, and as a what-if I think it would be plausible to suppose it were "discovered" in the 1910s or 1920s. The social and political factors behind the 1980s crack epidemic would not have been in place, and crack would be more or less viewed as an alternate form of cocaine. It does carry additional risks and it is still extremely addictive, but it did not necessarily have to cause the situation it caused in the 80s.
 
Top