was timed badly for the president: Congress was debating appropriations for his drug war efforts, and 1972 was an election year. Ultimately, though, Nixon was able to sideline the report, avoid fallout, and continue with his War on Drugs. Having largely won the battle against Ray Shafer, Nixon pushed forward with his reelection campaign. His strategy was to use drugs as a wedge issue to stoke fear in voters and drive them to his cause, and he mentioned drugs in no fewer than twenty-four official statements between September 1 and Election Day. On October 28, 1972, less than two weeks before the election, Nixon held a campaign rally in Cleveland, Ohio, and claimed credit for dramatic reductions in drug use in the United States, attributing those successes to his administration’s efforts. He closed his speech by talking about what he wanted to do in the next four years, and with the typical din of dog-whistle politics told the audience, “By winning the war on crime and drugs, we can restore the social climate of order and justice which will assure our society of the freedom it must have to build and grow.”7
Eleven days later, Richard Nixon was reelected, winning more votes than any other president up to that point in history (over 47 million), carrying forty-nine states, and earning 520 electoral votes. In his second term, Nixon did not change the direction of his drug policy, nor mute its aggression. He devoted his first State of the Union Address in his second term exclusively to drug abuse prevention, closing the speech by singling out marijuana and powerfully opposing its legalization.8 Later that month, on March 28, 1973, Nixon took one of his last significant actions in the War on Drugs when he submitted to Congress a request to allow the “Reorganization Plan No. 2 of 1973” to go into effect. Congress acceded and on July 1, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) was established in the Department of Justice. This change in the U.S. government’s drug policy bureaucracy was the most significant in American history, both up to that time and since. The new agency would “absorb the associated manpower and budgets” of essentially all of the drug enforcement programs scattered throughout government departments and agencies: the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs, the portion of the Bureau of Customs portfolio “pertaining to drug investigations and intelligence,” the Office for Drug Abuse Law Enforcement, and the Office of National Narcotics Intelligence.9
The new agency’s jurisdiction, mission, manpower, and funding were substantial to begin with and would grow dramatically over time. In 1974 the DEA had 4,075 employees and a budget of $116 million ($557 million in 2014 dollars). By 1985 it had 4,936 employees and a budget of $362 million ($796 million in 2014 dollars). In 2014 it had 11,055 employees and a budget of $2.882 billion.10 The DEA would engage not only in domestic drug enforcement but would also act internationally, working closely with the CIA and other agencies to extend the War on Drugs beyond the U.S. borders, particularly into Latin America.
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