The War on Drugs and Marijuana: History, Costs and Where It Stands in 2026

By James Buddsey · Updated October 30, 2026

The war on drugs is still federal policy in 2026, but its marijuana front has shrunk dramatically: 24 states and Washington, D.C. have legalized adult use, federal marijuana arrests are rare, and in April 2026 the federal government moved state-licensed medical marijuana to Schedule III. Adult-use marijuana is still a Schedule I drug under federal law, and police still made more than 200,000 marijuana arrests in 2025, most for simple possession.

This site’s first post about the drug war ran in January 2011. At the time, marijuana was legal for adults nowhere in the country, police were making hundreds of thousands of marijuana arrests a year, and calls to end the war were coming from mayors, a United Nations-linked commission and a handful of members of Congress. Fifteen years later, much of what those critics asked for has happened, and some of it has been reversed. Here is the history, the costs and where things stand now.

The War on Drugs and Marijuana: Key Dates

How the War on Drugs Began

Federal marijuana prohibition predates the phrase “war on drugs” by more than three decades. The Marihuana Tax Act of 1937 taxed cannabis out of legal commerce, and the Controlled Substances Act of 1970 replaced it with a direct ban, putting marijuana in Schedule I alongside heroin.

The war itself began as a political campaign. At a White House news conference on June 17, 1971, President Richard Nixon called drug abuse “America’s public enemy number one,” according to the history of the war on drugs. A year later the commission Nixon appointed to study marijuana, led by former Pennsylvania governor Raymond Shafer, recommended that possession of small amounts no longer be a crime. Nixon rejected the advice.

A widely shared quote attributed to Nixon aide John Ehrlichman, published by Harper’s in 2016, claims the administration targeted Black Americans and antiwar protesters on purpose. Ehrlichman died in 1999, and his children and other Nixon officials have disputed the quote, so it should be read as contested rather than proven.

Escalation: The 1980s and 1990s

The war expanded sharply under President Reagan. The Comprehensive Crime Control Act of 1984 let local police keep up to 80% of the proceeds of assets seized in drug cases, and the Anti-Drug Abuse Act signed in October 1986 brought far harsher sentences, especially for crack cocaine, according to the same history. Marijuana arrests climbed through the 1990s and 2000s. Most were for possession, not sales. After 2001, police also gained sneak-and-peek warrants under the Patriot Act, which ended up being used mostly in drug cases.

The counter-movement started in the states. Oregon decriminalized small amounts in 1973, and California voters approved medical marijuana with Proposition 215 in 1996, with 56% support.

What the War on Marijuana Has Cost

Money

The annual federal drug control budget reached about $39 billion in 2023, and cumulative spending on the drug war since 1971 is commonly estimated at $1 trillion, as summarized in the war on drugs overview. That figure covers all drugs, not just marijuana, and excludes most state and local policing costs.

Arrests

Police made more than 6.1 million marijuana arrests between 2010 and 2018, and almost 700,000 in 2018 alone, more than 43% of all drug arrests that year, according to the ACLU’s analysis of FBI data. New York City was an extreme case, as Human Rights Watch documented in 2012. Arrests have fallen sharply since legalization spread. FBI figures compiled by NORML show at least 204,036 marijuana arrests in 2024, about 92% for possession, and at least 218,152 in 2025, with about 13% of agencies not reporting, according to NORML.

Racial disparity

Black and white Americans use marijuana at similar rates, but Black people were 3.64 times more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession, the ACLU found. A marijuana record can follow someone into job applications, housing, student aid and immigration proceedings long after any sentence ends. Some states also drug-tested people applying for benefits, as with Florida’s 2011 welfare drug testing law, which found few users and was struck down.

Has the War on Drugs Worked?

By its own stated goals, the record is poor. Marijuana remained widely available throughout prohibition, and decades of enforcement did not end use. In June 2011 the Global Commission on Drug Policy, whose members included former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and former presidents of Brazil, Colombia and Mexico, concluded that “the global war on drugs has failed, with devastating consequences for individuals and societies around the world,” as quoted in the war on drugs overview. The U.S. drug czar at the time, Gil Kerlikowske, rejected the report.

Alternatives have their own mixed records. Portugal made personal possession of all drugs an administrative offense in July 2001, sending users to dissuasion commissions instead of court. Drug-related HIV infections fell sharply and drug deaths dropped for several years, but researchers caution that a causal link “cannot be firmly established,” and some gains later faded, according to the review of Portugal’s drug policy.

Oregon tried something similar. Voters approved Measure 110 on November 3, 2020 with 58% support, making possession of small amounts of hard drugs a civil violation starting February 1, 2021. Amid a fentanyl crisis and public frustration, the legislature reversed course with HB 4002, and possession became a misdemeanor again on September 1, 2024, while treatment funding paid by cannabis taxes remained, according to the history of Measure 110. Marijuana itself was not affected; it has been legal for Oregon adults since 2015. See our Oregon marijuana laws guide.

Where the War on Marijuana Stands in 2026

• State legalization: 24 states and D.C. allow adult-use marijuana, with Ohio the most recent to start sales in August 2024, according to the legal history of cannabis in the U.S. Washington has been legal since 2012; see our Washington marijuana laws guide.
• Pardons: On October 6, 2022, President Biden pardoned federal and D.C. convictions for simple marijuana possession, and on December 22, 2023 he expanded the pardons to related offenses such as use and attempted possession, according to AP and the New York Times. Most marijuana convictions are under state law, which a presidential pardon does not reach.
• Rescheduling: In April 2026 a Justice Department and DEA final order moved FDA-approved marijuana products and marijuana held under a state medical marijuana license to Schedule III, published in the Federal Register. Adult-use and unlicensed marijuana remain in Schedule I. A DEA hearing on moving all marijuana ran from June 29 to July 15, 2026 and was stayed on September 29, 2026, and challenges to the April order are pending in the D.C. Circuit.
• Arrests continue: Even with legal stores in about half the states, marijuana possession arrests still made up nearly one in four drug arrests in the latest FBI data, NORML reported in August 2026.

Our federal marijuana law guide tracks rescheduling as it develops, and the cannabis laws hub covers each state. For the longer arc from colonial hemp to legalization, read our history of marijuana in America.

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For adults 21+ in legal states. General information, not legal advice.