Anti-drug war image doesn’t paint complete picture

On April 20, the unofficial stoner holiday 4/20, supporters of legal marijuana and opponents of the U.S. “war on drugs” took to the internet. The words accompanying one widely shared image say in part: “More American police officers died during prohibition of alcohol than any other time in history. 300 died in 1930 alone. After prohibition ended, police deaths didn’t reach 200 a year again until the year Nixon declared war on drugs.”

Comparing Prohibition with the drug war is common in American culture. But is it also fair to compare police deaths during the two periods? That’s a little iffy.

The numbers behind the claim that “police deaths didn’t reach 200 a year again until the year Nixon declared war on drugs” are a bit off. Nixon began the war on drugs in 1971, but police deaths actually topped 200 the year before that, in 1970. And that wasn’t any sort of a spike. The number of deaths had been just below 200 all throughout the late 1960s. As for the number of officers who die each year during the war on drugs, in reality that’s only happened 12 times, and only twice since 1981. In fact, during most years from the 1990s until today, the number of officer deaths has been roughly the same as 100 years ago, when there were far fewer officers.

Our ruling

Police deaths have largely been on the decline for decades even as the drug war continues, and the number of officers has grown significantly. Since the image uses a semi-accurate statistic to make a misleading comparison, we rate this claim Mostly False.

“After prohibition ended, police deaths didn’t reach 200 a year again until the year Nixon declared war on drugs.” — Viral image on April 20 in posts on social media