The White House released its 2026 National Drug Control Strategy on May 4, 2026.
Marie Nougier with the International Drug Policy Consortium (Marie Nougier, "Securitisation, narcoterrorism and a drug-free America: The US drug strategy takes a hard turn," IDPC, May 11, 2026) writes:
"This shift is not merely rhetorical. The announcement of the Strategy explicitly celebrates the recent military strikes in the Caribbean Sea and Eastern Pacific Ocean that killed more than 190 people suspected of ‘narcoterrorism’ as a successful effort to stop the flow of drugs into American territory. This ‘narco-terrorist’ narrative serves to dehumanise people involved in the drug supply chain and seeks to justify extreme violence, including extrajudicial killings. These operations have been condemned by the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB), the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), and the UN Special Rapporteur on counter-terrorism and human rights. The latter has been unequivocal in warning that conflating drug trafficking with terrorism is both legally and conceptually flawed, and risks seriously undermining international law and human rights protections."
She also notes:
"Perhaps one of the most concerning changes concerns health. The previous US drug strategy had explicitly endorsed evidence-based prevention, harm reduction, and voluntary treatment and care interventions. Harm reduction has almost disappeared entirely from the new Strategy. The only remaining reference aligned with this approach is the objective of ‘strengthening rescue and overdose response’, including expanding naloxone availability and overdose response training."