On a June day in 1971, President Richard Nixon stood behind a podium by an American flag and declared drug abuse to be the United States’ “public enemy No. 1.”

“In order to fight and defeat this enemy, it is necessary to wage a new all-out offensive,” Mr. Nixon announced. “This will be a worldwide offensive dealing with the problems of sources of supply.”

The U.S. war on drugs, launched during that speech, has endured through Republican and Democratic administrations for more than five decades.

Why We Wrote This

Richard Nixon’s “war on drugs” has always entailed a degree of U.S. pressure on foreign allies. But the Trump administration’s strikes on suspected drug-smuggling boats off Venezuela charts a new course of noncooperation.

President Donald Trump has opened the most recent chapt

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