the year before where marijuana and cocaine were used openly. Bourne claimed he never touched the stuff, but his credibility evaporated.  With his enemies in full cry, he was run out of town.^[18]

A few weeks earlier, a radical change in marijuana policy had been almost a foregone conclusion.  Now it was out of the question. The administration itself had become vulnerable on the drug issue and Carter was forced to the right. There would be no more loose talk about legalization from the White House. 

Ronald Reagan didn’t need any instruction in marijuana politics. Using the drugs-and-crime issue as a battering ram, he flattened the Democrats with a masterful law-and-order campaign, and once in the White House he picked up the ball exactly where Nixon had dropped it.

Reagan had promised to get rid of the welfare state and cut big government down to size.  To do that he would have to convince everybody that the blame for social problems arose not from inequality, racism, and injustice as the Liberals maintained, but from the immoral acts of bad people—a distinct minority that simply needed to be cut from the body politic like a tumor. The government’s role, therefore, was not rehabilitation, but vengeance. In June of 1982, Reagan  reopened the War on Drugs with a broadside from the Rose Garden.  “We’re taking down the surrender flag that has flown over so many drug efforts. We’re running up a battle flag.”^[19]  This time, there would be no room for the wounded.  The federally funded drug treatment network, begun under Nixon and nourished by three administrations, got the ax.^[20]  Law enforcement was what the people wanted, and the firepower was about to be escalated dramatically.

As with all previous drug wars, this one began with a list of demands for tougher legislation and fewer restraints on lawmen.  Once again, extreme measures were required. The biggest problem was the fact that the bad guys had more money than the good