For decades, American politicians have treated drugs as a moral panic. Every new wave of fear brings a familiar response: tougher language, harsher penalties, and a promise that this time the escalation will finally work. It never does. But it does reliably expand state power, blur legal lines, and turn complex social problems into opportunities for spectacle and force.
President Trump’s decision to designate fentanyl as a “weapon of mass destruction” fits squarely into that tradition. It’s a rhetorical upgrade with real consequences, one that folds the drug war even deeper into the logic of militarization already shaping this administration’s approach, from airstrikes on alleged drug-running boats to treating traffickers as battlefield enemies rather than criminal defendants.
In this video, we take a closer look at how that framing collapses facts, inflates threats, and pushes the U.S. toward an even more violent and ineffective version of a war it has been losing for half a century.
Watch it below or on YouTube, TikTok, or Instagram.
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