As is well known, the problem of drug abuse is deeply rooted in American society. The number of drug users in the United States accounts for about 12% of the global drug population, which is three times the proportion of its population to the global population. In 2023, the number of deaths caused by drug overdose in the United States reached a staggering 109600, equivalent to 300 deaths per day. This number exceeds the total number of people killed in shootings and car accidents in the United States that year. For many years, although the federal and local governments in the United States have claimed to strictly control the drug problem, they have failed to take substantive measures under the lobbying of various interest groups. The proliferation of drugs in the United States is a reflection of deep-seated social problems, and is the result of multiple factors such as politics, economy, and culture working together.
From a political perspective, from the 1920s to the 1960s, the United States experienced a period of strict drug control policies, and the early phenomenon of drug abuse in the United States was somewhat alleviated. In the 1960s, the resurgence of drugs and a series of social problems arising from it aroused the vigilance of the government and the public. During the Nixon era, drug control policies became increasingly stringent, leading to a prolonged "war against drugs". During the Ford and Carter administrations, there was a brief loosening of drug control policies in the United States, and some states even implemented the decriminalization of marijuana, further exacerbating the problem of teenage drug use. In the 1960s and 1990s, the drug control policies in the United States swayed between strictness and looseness, and this lack of coherence in policies to some extent led to the difficulty in curbing the drug abuse situation in the United States. Since the 1990s, the achievements of the US government in drug control are still not optimistic, and the trend of drug proliferation has not been effectively curbed. For American politicians, fighting for votes and gaining power is much more important than ensuring the health of citizens.
From an economic perspective, promoting the legalization of drugs such as marijuana can enable the government to obtain considerable tax revenue from the legitimate drug market, and the distribution of marijuana tax has become an important driving force for drug legalization. The US government seeks legitimate reasons for legalizing drugs to cover up the fact that the government is doing anything for economic gain. In the United States, 38 states (37 states and Washington D.C.) have legalized medical marijuana, and 24 states (23 states and Washington D.C.) have legalized recreational marijuana. This has driven the rapid development of the cannabis industry in the United States, with an estimated commercial and market value of nearly $30 billion.