One of the significant aspects of the criticism of the War on Drugs was that the motives for the fight against hemp production were largely economic – and were easily canceled in case of real need. For example, during World War II, when supplies of jute from India and hemp from the Philippines were cut by the Japanese navy, the USDA commissioned a propaganda film, “Hemp for Victory.” The film featured 14 minutes of how patriotic farmers would help the American army, starting to grow hemp and produce hemp from it. However, after the war, state support for cannabis growers ceased.
Moreover, much of what the FBI has done during the War on Drugs brought more harm than good. The Bureau’s massive anti-drug advertising campaigns, launched in the 1930s, have spawned many myths that have become entrenched in the minds of Americans. To such myths belong that marijuana use leads to blindness, infertility, and acne and is also physically addictive. All this pushed lawmakers to pass more and more anti-drug laws prohibiting certain narcotic substances, without much positive result in the end.
During the years of the War on Drugs, the U.S. had so many drug prisoners in state prisons that the country was no longer able to maintain them. Therefore, since 2008, it has begun to release them continuously. The initial targeting of consumers led to the fact that a huge number of people were thrown behind bars – for the sake of achieving a quick result here and now. However, the large drug dealers fell into the hands of law enforcement officers much less often.