There's enough ignorance on the prohibition side. If you support drug policy reform, don't do ignorant shit like blame Nixon for everything. Drug prohibition at the federal level began with the Harrison Narcotics Tax Act of 1914. It was racially charged from the get-go, the first target being Chinese opium users. In the era of the well known "Reefer Madness" film, the federal effort was led by Federal Narcotics Bureau head from 1930 to 1962 Harry Anslinger, who openly used racial slurs and promoted messaging alleging marijuana turned black men (hard r-s being used) into insane violent rapists, and caused white women to go to jazz clubs, among many other insane racist propaganda hurled at various racial and immigrant groups. This is the era the famous Nixon staffer quote is talking about. He laments that you can *no longer* just say n n n, but need to use the more subtle language and policies they used.
Nixon certainly expanded the targeted groups and continued the slow rampup that started in 1914, but it's false that drug arrests hit an inflection point under his administration or the laws passed by it. They continued increasing close to the same rate.
The major inflection points, where the modern mass incarceration drug war began as arrest rates spiked, came later, from bills introduced and sponsored mostly by Joe Biden, who led the charge making it a bipartisan issue and outflanking Republicans from the right on it. If you're looking for what single individual is more responsible than any other for the modern drug war, the harm Nixon did doesn't hold a candle to the giant blazing dumpster fire Biden spent his early and middle career kindling.
