Drugs and Race

Abstract

The relationship between drugs and racism must be understood from multiple determinations in order to avoid establishing a mechanistic relationship between these two poles or drawing from overlapping contexts that do little to reveal the movements that constitute structuring elements of contemporary social reality. In this sense, the objective of this article is to demonstrate that the link between racism and the drug war is political, and depends on the performance of the State and the legal treatment given, whose logic is determined by the economy. In short, drug policy plays a fundamental role in the constitution of race as a means of power and domination; in other words, drug policy is one of the ways in which racism materializes in social life. In the first part of the article, we discuss the relationship between racism and drugs under the prism of political economy, connecting the links between the logic of materialistic reproduction of capitalist society and the mechanisms of social control. In the second part, we demonstrate how racism and the illegality of drugs are created by state intervention and manipulation of legal categories. Finally, we discuss the intersection between race and drugs and how it presents itself as a way of regulating capitalist social relations, especially in times of crisis.