The Communal Impacts of Drug Criminalization in Maryland

the body of literature fails to challenge the underlying assumptions behind the systems of inequity and
overlooks the productive capabilities of communities that are implicated in drug criminalization. For
example, few papers highlighted the economic empowerment resulting from accessing illicit forms of
social capital among those who use and sell drugs, as a means of survival (63,64). A critical perspective
that acknowledges the social impacts of addiction stemming from the drug trade by focusing on the
underlying conditions leading to addiction in structurally oppressed Black communities is missing from
the research.
The scoping review provided an opportunity to reveal the gaps of the peer-reviewed literature. Most
notably, the research did not consider that communities are politically starved of the resources needed to
create alternatives to the drug trade and all that comes with it. This orients policy and scholarship toward
external sources of social capital as the solution to address drug-related harms, which presents a possible
trade-off with the investments needed for indigenous forms of social capital. The gaps underscore the
importance of centering discourse around scholarly works outside the academy when centering
restorative solutions in drug policy. The gaps also highlight the limitation that there is a vacuum of
research that integrates critical perspectives and co-produces knowledge with institutions impacted by
drug criminalization. Given that Black communities have been the most harmed by drug criminalization
as a vehicle of mass incarceration and social control, the body of research is not only insufficient for
informing restorative solutions to the War on Drugs, but it is possible it can block successful pathways
toward liberation
Historical Context of Drug Criminalization in the US and the
Criminalization of Blackness
A historical roadmap provides context into the repair that is needed to address the destruction caused by
the War on Drugs. Historical context aids in the interpretation of the research completed and the
recommendations offered for which new visions of drug policy and harm reduction will be received.
In the 1930s, the Federal Bureau of Narcotics (FBN) conjured racialized fears of marijuana resulting in its
criminalization and creating the threat of violence against Black communities (65). Baltimore’s own Lady
Day, Billie Holiday, was targeted by the FBN as she sang the famous song, “Strange Fruit,” in protest of
the lynching of Black Americans (66). Over the next few decades, political tactics around drug
criminalization took various forms (67). As civil rights activism for racial equality escalated and the Black
Power movement rose up, the Nixon administration declared a War on Drugs that enhanced anti-drug
efforts and saw the implementation of tough-on-crime federal policies such as mandatory minimum
prison sentences (A History of the Drug War). According to Nixon’s domestic-policy advisor, John
Ehrlichman, the War on Drugs was designed to target the enemies of the administration which included
Black Americans (68). Ehrlichman later shared in an interview:
“The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left
and black people. You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either
against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with
heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their
leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news.
Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.”
The Nixon administration, operating through the CIA, is recorded infiltrating drugs in Black communities
and conducting SWAT raids to target Black civil rights leaders and dismantle political mobilization
(16,69,70). Black Power organizations formed across the country to defend their communities and combat
the influx of drugs. In Louisville, Kentucky, Black civil society organizations such as the Black Committee
for Self- Defense (BCSD) and Stop Dope Now formed in response to concerns of drugs being used as a
method of social control in Black communities to repress political and social activity (71). These
organizations focused on creating educational materials warning against the harms of heroin and
provided harm reduction services. Stop Dope Now was later integrated with government treatment
programs which left it without community control or funding. The Black Panthers in Louisville were also
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