IV 
115TH CONGRESS 
2D SESSION 
H. RES. 933 
To acknowledge that the War on Drugs has been a failed policy in achieving 
the goal of reducing drug use, and for the House of Representatives 
to apologize to the individuals and communities that were victimized 
by this policy. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
JUNE 12, 2018 
Mrs. WATSON COLEMAN (for herself, Ms. BASS, Mrs. BEATTY, Mr. BLU-
MENAUER, Ms. CLARKE of New York, Mr. CLEAVER, Ms. FUDGE, Ms. 
GABBARD, Mr. HASTINGS, Ms. JACKSON LEE, Ms. JAYAPAL, Mr. 
JEFFRIES, Ms. EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON of Texas, Ms. KELLY of Illi-
nois, Mr. KHANNA, Mrs. LAWRENCE, Mr. LAWSON of Florida, Ms. LEE, 
Mr. LEWIS of Georgia, Mr. TED LIEU of California, Mr. MCEACHIN, Ms. 
MOORE, Ms. NORTON, Mr. PAYNE, Mr. POCAN, Mr. DAVID SCOTT of 
Georgia, Mr. SERRANO, and Mr. THOMPSON of Mississippi) submitted the 
following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Energy and 
Commerce, and in addition to the Committee on the Judiciary, for a pe-
riod to be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each case for con-
sideration of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the com-
mittee concerned 
RESOLUTION 
To acknowledge that the War on Drugs has been a failed 
policy in achieving the goal of reducing drug use, and 
for the House of Representatives to apologize to the 
individuals and communities that were victimized by this 
policy. 
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Whereas, until the early 1900s, most of today’s illegal sub-
stances were not regulated by the Federal Government, 
and there was no ‘‘War on Drugs’’; 
Whereas, in the 1930s, the first Commissioner of the Federal 
Bureau of Narcotics, Harry J. Anslinger, who was a 
strong opponent to marijuana, pushed a heavy propa-
ganda campaign to demonize marijuana use, stating that 
it caused people to be violent and criminals; 
Whereas much of this propaganda was racially charged 
against the Mexican-American community, for example as 
Commissioner Anslinger testified to the 75th Congress in 
1937 that, ‘‘I wish I could show you what a small mari-
juana cigarette can do to one of our degenerate Spanish 
speaking residents. That’s why our problem is so great; 
the greatest percentage of our population is composed of 
Spanish-speaking persons, most of who are low mentally, 
because of social and racial conditions’’; 
Whereas, in 1937, the 75th Congress passed the Marijuana 
Tax Act which criminalized marijuana, and laws passed 
during the following years were introduced to institute 
mandatory minimum sentences for those who bought, 
sold, and used the drug; 
Whereas over the course of the next few decades, studies con-
ducted by scientists did not find any connection between 
the use of marijuana and violent behaviors, and in 1973 
the Shafer Commission Report on Marijuana and Drugs 
concluded that, ‘‘The Commission believes that the con-
temporary American drug problem has emerged in part 
from our institutional response to drug use. . . . We 
have failed to weave policy into the fabric of social insti-
tutions.’’; 
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Whereas despite mounting evidence, the Federal Govern-
ment’s approach to the abuse of drugs continued to be 
one of criminalizing drug abuse instead of treatment; 
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; 
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Whereas that money could have been better used to help pro-
vide treatment to the victims of those on heroin, cocaine, 
and other drugs; 
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 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-
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gally sold nearly quadrupled from 1999 to 2010, despite 
no change in the amount of pain that Americans re-
ported; 
Whereas the National Center for Health Statistics suggested 
that there were more than 64,000 drug overdose deaths 
in 2016, 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 
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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 
medicalized in terms of their trauma and addiction. 
Black and brown people have been criminalized for their 
trauma and addiction.’’; 
Whereas, on October 26, 2017, President Donald Trump de-
clared the opioid epidemic a public health emergency, 
which allows access to the Public Health Emergency 
Fund at the Department of Health and Human Services, 
which has only tens of thousands of dollars; and 
Whereas there has been no formal action by the United 
States Government to treat the epidemic of drug abuse 
and 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 has 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, stigmatized these communities as the 
cause of the drug problem, and has economically, po-
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litically, and socially crippled these communities for 
decades; 
(4) in order to help those impacted, drug use 
has to be seen as a health issue and not a criminal 
issue; 
(5) the House of Representatives should seek to 
hereby reconsider all laws associated and consistent 
with the War on Drugs, and prioritizes effective, evi-
dence-based health policy solutions for individuals 
and communities suffering from addiction; 
(6) the House of Representatives should enact 
civil remedies and restorative justice for any indi-
vidual who has been incarcerated or otherwise pun-
ished through the Federal criminal justice system 
due to laws associated and consistent with the War 
on Drugs; 
(7) Congress affirms that all individuals suf-
fering from the disease of addiction be treated hu-
manely, with equity and respect as all people strug-
gling with any other health matter; and 
(8) the House of Representatives hereby apolo-
gizes to the individuals and communities harmed 
through the War on Drugs and acknowledges that 
actions by this body have demonized and criminal-
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ized addiction for more than 80 years instead of ac-
curately treating it as a health concern. 
Æ 
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