Drugs Won The War

[Intro — radio static] “Public enemy number one…” Lock the doors. Build the cells. Save the country. Ring the bells. [Verse 1] Nixon stood behind a desk in nineteen seventy-one, Declared a war against a thing that never held a gun. He drew a target on the poor, then called the target crime, While whiskey poured in Washington at taxpayer-funded time. They kicked the doors, they filled the courts, they fed the prison floor, Every bag they confiscated only manufactured more. Cut one route, another opened; jailed one king, then two appeared— They weren’t killing the demand, they were fertilizing fear. [Pre-Chorus] More money! More cages! More names upon the wall! The harder that they swung at it, The richer it became through it all! [Chorus] The drugs won the war! Tell me what the body count was for! You built the cells, militarized the law— But the drugs won the war! The drugs won the war! Now they’re cheaper than they ever were before! You kicked down every goddamn door— And the drugs won the war! [Verse 2] Then Reagan rode in smiling with a flag behind his head, Said, “Just say no,” while mandatory sentences were spread. Crack brought years, while powdered wealth received a softer hand— Same chemical, different neighborhood, different promised land. Nancy made a slogan; Congress made a human mill, Judges lost discretion while the graveyards gained their fill. Police received the weapons, private prisons learned to grow, And every frightened parent heard another dealer say hello. [Pre-Chorus] More money! More agents! More funerals and raids! You cannot bomb a hunger Or arrest the pain away! [Chorus] The drugs won the war! Tell me what the body count was for! You built the cells, militarized the law— But the drugs won the war! The drugs won the war! Every shipment found another shore! You made the risk become the profit— Then you wondered why there’s more! [Verse 3 — rap-rock] You chased Colombian powder, got a laboratory flood, Burned the farmer’s little field, never touched the nation’s blood. Every border interdiction made the winning cargo gold, Economics did the killing while the speeches all grew old. Then the pills came clean and legal with a doctor’s name attached, Corporate dope wore neckties, so the handcuffs stayed unlatched. When the patents lost their grip and prescriptions disappeared, Fentanyl filled the vacuum that prohibition engineered. Cannabis grew stronger underneath forbidden light, Growers traded living genetics through the middle of the night. Now the same old politicians smell the taxes and applaud— Selling licenses for flowers they once buried people for. [Breakdown — half-time] You can jail a man. You can’t jail despair. You can burn a crop. You can’t burn demand. You can ban a molecule. You can’t ban the reason Somebody needs to leave themselves To make it through the evening. [Bridge — dark gospel call-and-response] Who built the prisons? (You built the prisons!) Who filled the graves? (You filled the graves!) Who got the contracts? (The rich got paid!) Who stopped the drugs? (Nobody! Nobody!) [Final Chorus] THE DRUGS WON THE WAR! After fifty years, what was it for? Broken homes and profits by the score— Yeah, the drugs won the war! THE DRUGS WON THE WAR! They survived each president and czar! You fought the symptom, fed the scar— And the drugs won the war! No victory parade, No treaty ever signed, Just another generation Doing mandatory time. The drugs won the war— But people paid the price. Maybe healing human suffering Would have worked better than your fight. [Outro — radio deteriorating] Public enemy number one… Was never powder. Never smoke. Never pills. It was pain— And pain was never On the list Of things They tried to kill.