Amid Trump threats, what has the US’s ‘war on drugs’ achieved in 50 years?

Al Jazeera looks at how years of punitive measures cost billions, filled prisons and did little to curb violence.

More than 50 years ago, in the summer of 1971, US President Richard Nixon declared drug abuse “public enemy number one” and announced what would soon be known as the country’s “war on drugs”.

The policy promised to cleanse streets across the United States of narcotics, dismantle trafficking networks and deliver a safer environment for Americans.

Instead, decades of punitive policing and militarised crackdowns left the US with record overdose deaths, one of the world’s highest incarceration rates, and more than $1 trillion spent with little measurable impact on drug availability or demand, according to estimates by the Center for American Progress.

In the US, the war on drugs helped reshape policing and criminal justice, disproportionately sweeping Black communities into prisons. Abroad, it fuelled a parallel conflict across Latin America, where US-backed operations deepened cycles of corruption and organised crime.

Today, overdose deaths driven by fentanyl have reached historic highs and many states have moved to legalise cannabis.