Prof. David Farber, 'The War on Drugs'

“What makes one drug or another useful to politicians?”

David Farber asks.

At the seminar, Farber presented new work on the late twentieth-century “war on drugs” in the United States—what it was, how it functioned, and whether it has proven politically durable.

Focusing on the legislative process, he examines the 1986 Anti-Drug Abuse Act and its disproportionate criminalisation of crack cocaine, asking how and why the federal government came to wage such a “war.”

In this conversation, Farber sets out the questions that underpin his current research inquiry, focusing on three interlocking dynamics:

• The degree to which Black politicians, particularly at the federal level, supported the war on drugs in response to the acute impact of drug abuse in poor Black communities

• The electoral incentives driving policymakers to adopt punitive approaches, as voters demanded visible action against what was perceived as a widespread crisis

• The legislative process itself: how Congress attempted—or failed—to govern the issue, culminating in measures such as the 1986 Anti-Drug Abuse Act

David Farber is a historian of modern US history, democracy, political culture, the role of business in American society, social change movements, and drug use and policy. He is the Roy A. Distinguished Professor of History at the University of Kansas and a Bye-Fellow of Selwyn College, Cambridge.

He presented this paper on 3 November 2025 (Michaelmas term).

Two months—to the date—after we recorded this conversation, US military forces entered Caracas and arrested the incumbent Venezuelan president, Nicolás Maduro, and his wife, Cilia Flores, on charges related to “narco-terrorism.” The strike and seizure by US forces on 3 January 2026 was codenamed Operation Absolute Resolve. (⁠⁠⁠BBC News⁠⁠⁠)

“I thought in some ways the war on drugs had ended. It's just such a good tool for politicians. Here it is again in bizarre form, aimed at something totally distant from what the president's claiming. Yeah. This is a foreign policy initiative.” (Farber, November 2025)

Referenced in discussion:

[15:30] Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness (originally published in 2010 by The New Press).

Adapted into the multiple award-winning documentary 13th (Netflix, 2016). Its title refers to the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, abolishing slavery and involuntary servitude “except as punishment for a crime.”

Co-Hosts:

Dr Hugh Wood recently completed his PhD at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge. His research examines the relationship between private violence and American state-building in the second half of the nineteenth century.

Megan Renoir is a PhD Candidate at Homerton College, Cambridge. She studies the relationship between Western property institutions, state development, and violence against minorities, including Indigenous dispossession.

Production by Daisy Semmler (MPhil 2025)