There is no issue where government policy diverges from American popular opinion – let alone popular American practice – as drastically as it does in the handling of illicit drugs. This book was written to embolden the people’s consensus and narrow the divide between the government and its citizens by presenting a history that casts doubt on the supporting tenets and presumed purposes of the so-called drug war.

It does so by offering an account of the federal government’s original approach to illicit drugs, a scheme of taxes and tariffs, and tracing its demise. This story reveals that the shift from a regulatory regime toward a punitive and prohibitive one was not dictated by a surge in illicit drug use, crimes associated with drug use, or changes in drug potency or price, although it is most definitely the case that the availability of drugs rose dramatically in the years following World War II. Nor was this move in favor of prohibition brought about by changes to the constitutional powers accorded to the federal government, even though it is perfectly true that changes in judicial readings of the commerce clause during the New Deal and World War II made possible the sweeping legislation of the 1960s and 70s that provide the legislative basis for today’s drug war.