>>116019647Old moralizing rhetoric leftover from the crack and heroin booms (when at least those drugs really were a large societal ill). Also Americans in general are susceptible to "tough on crime" talk that ends up raising sentences for various crimes across the board. In states like Texas, the conservative-dominated judiciary drives it too.
But more so, mass incarceration (of which the War on Drugs is an integral part) is expedient. There's economic incentives to maintain prison populations at their current levels. The prison-industrial complex is a consistent source of employment for post-industrial towns struggling economically, so state representatives often support building new prisons as a way of creating jobs. That also means closing down a prison pisses off the state rep's constituents and fucks up the employment stats, which hurts them come next election, so once prisons are built they stay open. And since people serving time for low-level drug crimes constitute the majority of the incarcerated population, decriminalizing or legalizing drugs would throw a wrench in that whole system.