October 27, 1970: Richard Nixon's War On Drugs

October 27, 1970: The U.S. Congress passes the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970. President Richard Nixon signs the bill into law, beginning the federal government's modern "War On Drugs."

In 1994, shortly after Nixon's death, John Ehrlichman, Assistant to the President for Domestic Affairs, who would be among those who were imprisoned for crimes falling under the umbrella term "Watergate," gave an interview where he admitted that the War On Drugs was a cynical way of going after Nixon's enemies:

The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: The antiwar left and black people. You understand what I'm saying? We knew we couldn't make it illegal to be either against the war or black.

But by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news.

Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.

And did Nixon, Ehrlichman, White House Chief of Staff Bob Haldeman, Attorney General John Mitchell, and all the rest, consider the possibility that drug use would get worse over the next 25 years? Apparently not.

*

October 27, 1970 was a Tuesday. Baseball season had ended 12 days earlier, with the Baltimore Orioles beating the Cincinnati Reds in the World Series. Football was in midweek. There were 3 games played in the NBA:

* The New York Knicks beat the Seattle SuperSonics, 117-104 at Madison Square Garden.

* The Milwaukee Bucks beat the San Diego Rockets, 126-113 at the Milwaukee Arena. In 1974, it was renamed the Milwaukee Exposition, Convention Center and Arena, or "The MECCA." Since 2014, it has been named the UW-Panther Arena. Bob Dandrige scored 39 points.

* And in a battle of expansion teams in their 1st month of play, the Portland Trail Blazers beat the Buffalo Braves, 119-108 at the Portland Memorial Coliseum.

There were 3 games in the American Basketball Association:

* The New York Nets lost to the Texas Chaparrals, 103-99 at the HemisFair Arena in San Antonio.

* The Pittsburgh Condors beat the Virginia Squires, 114-110 at the Civic Arena in Pittsburgh.

* The Memphis Pros beat the Denver Rockets, 102-94 at the Denver Auditorium Arena.

And 1 game was played in the NHL, and it was between their 2 new expansion teams: The Vancouver Canucks beat the Buffalo Sabres, 7-2 at the Pacific Coliseum in Vancouver.