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What Was The War on Drugs? Part V

Charles Fain Lehman · 28 May 2025 · thecausalfallacy.substack.com ↗

3 korrents from this piece

Charles Fain Lehman did not write this page.

Every claim below was made in this piece, quoted word for word and numbered in the order the piece makes them, so you can read it there rather than take our word for it. The sentence above each quote is our reading of the claim, not their wording. Each quote was checked against a stored copy of the page at build time; where the two differ, the quote is the fact.

  1. Our reading

    The war on drugs is not the main cause of American mass incarceration, because drug offenders were never a large share of the prison population.

    Their wordsDrug offenders never accounted for a particularly large fraction of the U.S. prison population, peaking at about 22 percent of state prisoners in 1990.
    Interesting

  2. Our reading

    After two decades of the war on drugs, drugs were cheaper and more potent than when it began.

    Their wordsAfter two decades of the War on Drugs, in other words, drugs were much cheaper and more potent than they were when the War on Drugs began.
    Interesting

  3. Our reading

    Drug enforcement cut casual use and barely touched heavy users, who account for most of the drugs consumed.

    Their wordsBut by the available evidence, the War on Drugs was far less successful at reducing use among the “hard core” of users, mostly meaning people addicted to their drug of choice.
    Interesting