The War on Drugs: America's Engine of Modern-Day Slavery
- USASO
- Jul 6
- 4 min read
Updated: 7 days ago
Since 1865, the United States has claimed to abolish Slavery — but the truth lies in the fine print. The 13th Amendment to the Constitution, which “abolished” Slavery, included one haunting exception: Slavery and involuntary servitude remain legal “as a punishment for crime.” This exception has been weaponized for generations — and besides Black Codes, Sharecropping, and Jim Crow laws, no government policy has exploited it more than the "War on Drugs."
Launched in the 1970s and escalated in the 1980s and 1990s, the so-called "War on Drugs" has devastated communities, stripped away rights, and filled America’s prisons with millions of people — the vast majority for nonviolent drug offenses. Backed by harsh laws and draconian sentencing policies like mandatory minimums, this war has never truly been about public health or safety. It has been about control, profit, and racial oppression.
How the Drug War Fuels Slavery
The "War on Drugs" did not evolve in a vacuum. It was deliberately crafted and enforced to target Black and Brown communities, creating a pipeline from over-policed neighborhoods to overcrowded prison cells.
“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.”
Cruel Inhumane Rules
Mandatory minimum sentencing laws, passed as part of this war, require fixed, often extreme prison terms for drug offenses, regardless of context or culpability. Judges are legally forbidden from using discretion, empathy, or justice. This system has:
Locked up millions of nonviolent drug offenders,
Ruined lives and families,
And driven an obvious inhumane Slave state system where prisoners are forced to work for corporations and state industries for pennies — or nothing.
This is Slavery. Legalized. Profitable. Ongoing.
Marijuana: A Tool of Mass Criminalization
Perhaps no single drug has been more politically manipulated than marijuana.
For decades, marijuana was demonized through racist propaganda and used as a pretext for sweeping arrests and incarceration. The result? Over tens of millions of marijuana arrests since 1970. Dozens of millions of citizens unjustly incarcerated and Enslaved in prisons since 1865.
Today, thousands of people remain behind bars — many serving decades-long sentences — or even life sentences, for conduct that is now completely legal in over half the country. In states where cannabis is now a billion-dollar industry, predominantly white entrepreneurs profit, while Black and Brown people still suffer in cages for selling or possessing the same plant. The injustice is staggering.
The 13th Amendment Loophole: A Legal Lie
The system was designed to criminalize Black existence after Slavery was "abolished." From Black Codes to the Convict Leasing System (which still continues to exist), and now through unjust mass incarceration, the state has maintained a steady supply of forced labor by simply redefining Slavery as “punishment.”
Mandatory minimums and the War on Drugs are the perfect tools to exploit this loophole — turning poverty, addiction, and survival into lifelong prison sentences, and turning incarcerated people into America’s modern-day Enslaved workforce.
The Call for Justice Is Now
At USASO, we support:
The complete repeal of mandatory minimum sentencing laws;
The retroactive release of all individuals incarcerated for nonviolent marijuana offenses; and other people who have blatantly received cruel and inhumane punishments
The federal legalization and equitable expungement of marijuana records;
An immediate end to unjust incarceration and forced prison labor;
And the abolition of the 13th Amendment’s Slavery exception.
The foundation of justice is freedom, due process, and equal protection under the law — not profit, punishment, or prejudice. It is time to free those who have been unjustly imprisoned, dismantle this racist system, and honor the dignity of every human life. Marijuana is healthier and safer than alcohol and tobacco, it clearly has been used as a tool of oppression, and it also has numerous critical medical benefits, which by default invalidate its very own categorization as a Schedule 1 drug. So obviously it is time for change, freedom, justice, and liberation.
What Can You Do?
📢 Educate yourself and your community about the 13th Amendment loophole.✊ Organize or join a local USASO chapter to take action.🖊️ Let your voice be heard as a citizen leader and demand clemency for nonviolent drug offenders.💸 Donate to fuel the fight for justice and liberation.🎤 Speak up. Be a voice for those silenced behind bars affected by Slavery and unjust incarceration.
Slavery did not end in 1865. It evolved.
Through cages, laws, and loopholes, it still thrives in plain sight.
The War on Drugs and mandatory minimums have done more to shackle human freedom than to protect it. It is time to choose justice. It is time to fight for freedom.
It is time to END WAR.
There is too much violence in America. Now is the time for peace, education, unity. Now is the time to be able to come together as a country, to collectively be able to acknowledge our mistakes as a country, to be able to create a new and good path forward.
United States Anti-Slavery Organization
Justice. Dignity. Liberation. Freedom.
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