Nixon's adviser has explained that the War on Drugs was orchestrated by Nixon to suppress his political opponents.
Nixon viewed his political opponents as hippies and blacks and so he orchestrated the War on Drugs.
Conveniently, since then we have continued the War on Drugs, then there was the War on Crime in the 1990's with George Bush Sr., when they started to give crack cocaine addicts 30 years in prison, and now they have come up with the War on Terror.
It is interesting to note that Obama called preppers, christian fundamentalists, constitutionalists, and sovereign citizens terrorists and those kinds of people were also his political opponents since he is a communist.
It is also interesting to note that Trump has taken the War on Drugs in a new direction by raiding an Obama estate in Tailand and seizing it with all sorts of drug paraphernalia. He has also started bombing George Bush Sr's heroin facilities in Afghanistan and his poppy fields. That is the stuff I have heard about. I am sure that there will be many more revelations.
It looks to me like George Bush Sr., and Clinton, and probably George Bush Jr., were orchestrating the War on Drugs to keep the price high and eliminate any competition.