The war on drugs officially kicked off in 1971 when president Richard Nixon addressed the nation in a press conference explaining how the recent passage of the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970 would provide the legal framework and material support for a new kind of war, the war on drugs.
“We must wage what I have called total war against public enemy number one in the United States, the problem of dangerous drugs.” –Richard Nixon, 1972
His address spoke of the need for a coordinated federal response that addressed both the demand side, and the supply side of the issue, noting that although America had the highest rate of heroin addicts in the world, the drug was not grown or sourced in the US The door was thereby opened for the destructive interventionist policies that have since greatly affected mostly Latin American nations.