•HRES 747 IH 
Whereas, on June 18, 1971, President Richard Nixon de-
clared the War on Drugs, stating that drug abuse is 
‘‘public enemy number one’’; 
Whereas the Federal Government’s attitude toward drug use 
as a criminal problem only intensified with stricter drug 
laws, and the Government put little to no focus on treat-
ing those impacted; 
Whereas the War on Drugs was admitted to be a move by 
the Nixon administration to attack his political oppo-
nents, and in 1994, President Richard Nixon’s aide John 
Ehrlichman admitted in an interview that the War on 
Drugs was a tool to arrest and manipulate Blacks and 
liberals stating, ‘‘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.’’; 
Whereas, in 1986, the 99th Congress passed the Anti-Drug 
Abuse Act establishing, for the first time, mandatory 
minimum sentences for those convicted of having specific 
amounts of cocaine; 
Whereas, in 1989, drug czar William Bennett announced a 
$7,900,000,000 plan to combat the drug epidemic, but 
70 percent of that amount went to hiring more law en-
forcement personnel and building prisons; 
Whereas that money could have been better used to help pro-
vide treatment to those on heroin, cocaine, and other 
drugs; 
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•HRES 747 IH 
Whereas, in 1986, the 99th Congress increased the sentences 
for dealing and possessing crack cocaine, and in a few 
years, enhanced law enforcement presence loomed over 
and aggressively policed communities of color; 
Whereas, to this day, these laws greatly target communities 
of color, dramatically increasing the incarceration rate of 
these communities and imposing a stigma that people of 
color are the main users of drugs, despite White Ameri-
cans using drugs at a similar if not greater rate; 
Whereas Professor of Sociology at the University of Cali-
fornia, Santa Cruz, Craig Reinarman, and Professor of 
Sociology at Queens College, Harry G. Levine, studied 
the use of crack cocaine in the United States and later 
published in their book, entitled ‘‘Crack in America’’, 
which stated that, ‘‘In the spring of 1986, American poli-
ticians and news media began an extraordinary anti-drug 
frenzy that ran until 1992. Newspapers, magazines and 
television networks regularly carried lurid stories about a 
new ‘epidemic’ or ‘plague’ of drug use, especially of crack 
cocaine. They said this ‘epidemic’ was spreading rapidly 
from cities to the suburbs and was destroying American 
society. It is certainly true that the United States has 
real health and social problems that result from illegal 
and legal drug use. But it is certainly also true that the 
period from 1986 through 1992 was characterized by 
anti-drug extremism.’’; 
Whereas the use of opiates such as oxycodone, hydrocodone, 
methadone, heroin, and fentanyl has skyrocketed since 
the late 1990s and the amount of prescription opioids le-
gally sold nearly quadrupled from 1999 to 2010, despite 
no change in the amount of pain that Americans re-
ported; 
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•HRES 747 IH 
Whereas the National Center for Health Statistics suggested 
that there were more than 70,200 drug overdose deaths 
in 2017, and that a majority of these deaths come from 
synthetic opioids like fentanyl; 
Whereas these drug overdoses have become the leading cause 
of accidental death, surpassing car accidents; 
Whereas, on March 29, 2017, President Donald Trump 
signed an Executive order to establish the President’s 
Commission on Combating Drug Addiction and the 
Opioid Crisis, and in a preliminary report the Commis-
sion has recommended that the opioid crisis, among other 
things, should be ‘‘declared a national emergency under 
either the Public Health Service Act or the Stafford 
Act’’; 
Whereas many scholars, journalists, and civic leaders have 
addressed the strong contrast to the urgency of helping 
those impacted by opioids compared to those who were 
impacted by crack cocaine and other substances during 
the War on Drugs; 
Whereas the terminology used to describe those impacted by 
the opioid epidemic is ‘‘victims’’, and the terminology 
used to describe those impacted by the War on Drugs is 
‘‘criminals’’; 
Whereas if the concept of equity was considered, meaning 
that individuals fairly receive what they need in order to 
create a level playing field, the same funds and support 
going to help those impacted by opioids will also go to 
help those impacted by heroin, cocaine, and the other 
drugs classified in the War on Drugs; 
Whereas as stated by Georgetown University Professor Mi-
chael Eric Dyson, ‘‘White brothers and sisters have been 
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•HRES 747 IH 
medicalized in terms of their trauma and addiction. 
Black and brown people have been criminalized for their 
trauma and addiction.’’; 
Whereas after almost 50 years, the War on Drugs has yet 
to achieve its goal; and 
Whereas there has been no formal action by the United 
States Government to treat the epidemic of overall drug 
abuse and to treat the War on Drugs as a health issue: 
Now, therefore, be it 
Resolved, That it is the sense of the House of Rep-
resentatives that— 
(1) the War on Drugs has failed to achieve its 
goal of reducing drug use; 
(2) the War on Drugs has created conditions in 
the United States that have allowed the opioid epi-
demic to be as deadly as it is; 
(3) the War on Drugs is a racially charged pol-
icy that has led to the mass incarceration of millions 
of Americans, disproportionately affecting commu-
nities of color, has stigmatized these communities as 
the cause of the drug problem, and has economically, 
politically, and socially crippled these communities 
for decades; 
(4) the House of Representatives condemns the 
actions and role Harry J. Anslinger played in cre-
ating the War on Drugs; 
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•HRES 747 IH 
(5) in order to help those impacted, drug use 
has to be seen as a health issue and not a criminal 
issue; 
(6) the House of Representatives should imme-
diately halt any and all actions that would allow the 
War on Drugs to continue; 
(7) the House of Representatives encourages 
the creation of a select committee that would be 
tasked in reviewing all laws associated and con-
sistent with the War on Drugs and prioritizing effec-
tive, evidence-based health policy solutions for indi-
viduals and communities suffering from addiction; 
(8) the House of Representatives should pass 
legislation that would provide civil remedies and re-
storative justice for any individual who has been in-
carcerated or otherwise punished through the Fed-
eral criminal justice system due to laws associated 
and consistent with the War on Drugs; 
(9) the House of Representatives affirms that 
all individuals suffering from the disease of addic-
tion be treated humanely, and with the same respect 
as all people struggling with any other health mat-
ter; and 
(10) the House of Representatives hereby 
apologizes to the individuals and communities 
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