Graduation Year

2024

Document Type

Senior Thesis

Degree

Bachelor of Arts

Primary Major

History

Thesis Advisor

Jordan Lieser, PhD

Abstract

In the preamble of the 2024 presidential election seasons in both the United States and Mexico, there has been an increase in aggressive outspoken expression by national leaders regarding how to best handle the issue of drugs and drug use across the Western hemisphere. These types of sweeping policies are often credited to President Richard Nixon, who on June 18th, 1971, initiated his “War on Drugs,” a global policy campaign intended to address the production, distribution, and consumption of the illicit drug trade. Existing scholarship on this topic has extensively analyzed the early years of the American war on drugs during the Nixon administration and the institutionalizing effects of the “drug problem,” however, there is a gap of knowledge covering sanctions of administrative strategies between 1992-2012, specifically analysis on the power of the presidential rhetoric and, consequently, its influence on setting the agenda for domestic/foreign drug policy between the U.S. and Mexico. This is where my research will fill this gap through data collection of presidential remarks, addresses, and speeches, all while using a binational lens into the relationship of the two countries. Drug control is an enduring and evolving issue, with the presidential rhetoric surrounding narcotics constantly shifting to adapt to the political climate and to define social reality for its citizens. Using critical analysis on archived presidential public statements of Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Vicente Fox, and Felipe Calderon, along with historical context on narcotic reform in the United States and Mexico, this multi-national research argues that presidents utilize rhetoric in the contemporary war on drugs to shape punitive policy reforms.

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