[Reedx]

How would that really explain much, considering that decades of administrations beyond Nixon continued the war on drugs?

Both sides. Plus many other countries.

Furthermore, it's only been recently that the public has finally supported legalizing even marijuana[1]. So legislative action hasn't been in the cards until as of late, and sadly there still doesn't seem to be much of a push or actual policies aside from a few exceptions (Yang).

1. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/11/14/americans-s...

[pm90]

> considering that decades of administrations beyond Nixon continued the war on drugs?

There were unrelated reasons that lead to Urban decay and increase in crimes at the same time. The War on Drugs was a convenient distraction and an explanation for the ills that faced American society at the time. Only later did we realize the root causes of those instabilities were unrelated to drug use, and that the war on drugs actually made the problem worse.

This isn't all that surprising. Consider: the current POTUS and administration vilifies immigrants and blames them for all American societies ills.

This is such a common strategy of distraction, and the American public seem to fall for it repeatedly.

[nerdponx]

Don't forget, once the public came to associate marijuana with "bad things" then it was easy to get cheap votes by being "tough on crime" and correspondingly tough on drugs.

[watwut]

The point is Nixon was not outlier. His thinking was not exceptional, he just happen to be on tape and on charge.