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On Oct. 14, 1982, the president made an announcement. The former actor and part-time FBI informant was ready to declare war. This conflict wasn't against a country or even people. It was an old conflict first announced by his predecessor, Richard M. Nixon, back in 1971. Four decades ago, Ronald Reagan declared the War on Drugs.
Drug use was no longer a public health problem. It was a crime. In neighborhoods and places with few economic opportunities, the underground drug trade flourished. President Reagan ramped up efforts to get police patrolling neighborhoods of color, more prosecutors and draconian sentencing laws.
In the meantime, Nancy Reagan led a public relations campaign that was drilled into every kid who grew up in the '80s and '90s. How do we address the seemingly rampant explosion of drug use in the inner cities? Are these symptoms of decline or despair? The answer was three simple words: just say no.
On television, you'd think that the whole country went crazy over crack. It seemed to be the source of all things evil in the inner cities. Gangs, deaths, violence, overdoses, neglect -- all pointed to crack cocaine. Of course, the answer was the same: punish the user.
The casualties of the War on Drugs were everywhere. The law of search and seizure was one of them. The Supreme Court of the United States in the 1980s and '90s had justices ready and willing to water down doctrines established a generation earlier with the Warren Court. The court started siding with the government to justify all kinds of entrances into people's homes, cars and private places. It upheld drug convictions allowing thousands of people to be prosecuted and sentenced.
Then there were the sentencing laws themselves. The 1980s saw the start of state legislatures around the country forcing judges to impose harsh sentences -- prison terms as a minimum part of their sentence (hence the name "mandatory minimum") for offenses for certain drugs and amounts.
Some, mainly activists and scholars, pointed out that prison sentences for crack cocaine, the drug found more frequently in poorer neighborhoods, were exponentially longer than powder cocaine, the drug of choice among white and affluent people.
Their message was hard to counter the easier narrative of drug users being individuals who made bad choices or who purposely turned to drugs to make money when they should have worked harder at a legal job.
The War on Drugs has given us we now call mass incarceration. More and more people were sent to prison for decades. The costs skyrocketed. It didn't matter that we were incarcerating more people than any other nation on the planet. It did not matter that our police forces had become militarized with more and more destructive weapons and vehicles.
In 1988 -- well into Reagan's second term -- his war was going strong. He established the Office of National Drug Control Policy to coordinate its efforts to crackdown on drug use and the drug trade. In the process, it led to a crackdown on minorities and the poor.
The war never ended with Reagan. It continued well into the 1990s. President Clinton even made the head of Reagan's office on drug control a cabinet level position. It was Clinton and then-Sen. Joe Biden whose now infamous 1994 Crime Bill established harsh federal sentencing laws.
Hawai'i didn't escape this war either. Federal money funded police efforts to clamp down on cannabis cultivation on every island. Helicopters hovered over places like Puna on Hawai'i island and the North Shore of Maui searching for grow operations. Skilled officers rapelled down ropes to seize plants rivaling Christmas trees at the mall.
Cannabis gave way to crystal methamphetamine as the new reviled drug in the islands. Criminalizing its possession and sale remains a fixture in our criminal justice system. Although there have been strides in reducing prison sentences and specialty courts focused on treatment over punishment for users, it is still an unshakable policy to deal with society's drug problem as a crime -- not a public health problem.
Change has been slow. It started with cannabis. While Hawai'i did not take the lead, our state permits lawful use of cannabis for medical purposes and has decriminalized small amounts that mean no jail time.
Our police and prosecutors are still faithfully devoted to enforcing drug laws. The possession and sale of methamphetamine, heroin and unprescribed pills are still very much against the law. Our courts are full of cases involving drug enforcement with people facing decades in prison. The hysteria around new drugs like fentanyl is reminiscent of the hype over crack in the 1980s.
After four decades the War on Drugs is still going. With thousands of people in prison, eroded privacy rights and a militarized police force, it just seems that the drugs might be winning.
* Ben Lowenthal is a trial and appellate lawyer, currently with the Office of the Public Defender, who grew up on Maui. His email is 808stateofaloha@gmail.com.