Who's to blame for America's drug problem?: The search for scapegoats in the “war on drugs”

This essay extends Burke's notion of victimage as a symbolic response to socially‐created guilt to analyze six years of political debate and action in the U.S. drug war (1986—1991). We use a Burkean/metaphorical framework to explore the characteristics of guilt‐based drug rhetoric and its ethical entailments. We argue that scapegoating rhetoric—the rhetoric of vilification in times of “war"—is “dialectically appealing”; in Burkean terms because it provides for common enemies, invites a community united against these foes, morally justifies public opinion, and offers guilt relief to a large number of people. Scapegoating in the drug war was problematic, however, because it misplaced blame for the drug problem, it circumscribed drug policy debate about alternative solutions, and it contributed to a frustrated and sometimes apathetic citizenry more often the victims of racism, vigilantism, and unfair drug sentencing than the beneficiary of medical attention and drug education. The essay concludes with a discussion of the desirability and limits of guilt as a rhetorical strategy.

Key concepts:

• U.S. drug war
• Burkean criticism
• metaphorical analysis
• guilt‐based rhetoric
• scapegoating/victimage