War on Drugs without Nixon(?)

If I remember correctly, Nixon's War on Drugs and the formation of the DEA was in response to the previous mechanism of making marijuana illegal (a catch-22 tax act) was ruled unconstitutional in the Supreme Court. So, I think it would really be a matter of whether RFK would care enough in 1968 to go through the motions of setting up a new system to keep weed (and other drugs) illegal.

Personally, I don't think he would. America in 1968 has bigger problems than hippies getting high, and RFK knows that. If he did, though, I can't see it being the same system Nixon used; it would probably look more like the decriminalization/tax and regulate system that NORML advocated for (and still does) OTL.
 
Bobby was a 'tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime' type, so I do think he'd go after the drug problem in conjunction with the poverty and racial problem in the country with the same sort of vigor, to quote his elder brother. :p

Of course this might mean a more effective drug war in that it would me policies more in line with the Japanese or South Korean wars on drugs (where Cannabis and other drugs are impossible to find) rather than the rather wimpy American war on drugs.
 
Absolutely: he would pursue a dual-tracked strategy. Legalization is not an option, you have to remember that RFK was far from a libertarian: as Tech calls him, a "civic authoritarian" and very socially conservative in our sense of the term.

Any war on drugs would be part of his domestic agenda, in line with all the other things that were enacted by Clinton IOTL: a version of the New Markets Initiative (EEZs with special harmonized corporate tax reductions), PRWO (Clinton's welfare bill, a carbon copy of which he'd advocated since '65) and the rest of it. The DEA might be created as part of an interagency task force similar to the organized crime one he ran as AG.
 
Yes, because urban affairs would dominate his first term. Long-term foreign policy initiatives, FTAs, red ink to black ink- all for the second term.
 
If Nixon lost 1968 and everything was OTL until that point, the CSA (or a similar bill) would be passed and the DEA (or a similar organization) would be created, no matter who was president (short of McCarthy somehow getting elected, which is most likely ASB on its own). The CSA was just unavoidable at that point in time, what with under 30% of Americans saying pot should be legal. Refusing to take action after the ruling on the Marijuana Tax Act would be politically tantamount to shoving a pistol in your mouth and begging the opposition to pull the trigger.
 
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