In July 1973, President Nixon created the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) to coordinate federal drug enforcement efforts, consolidating the work of multiple agencies into a single, powerful entity. The DEA, headquartered in Arlington, Virginia, became the primary U.S. agency for combating drug trafficking, significantly expanding the federal government's role in the drug war and leading to increased surveillance, prosecution, and international cooperation.

The DEA's creation marked the militarization of drug enforcement, a theme that has been explored in crime fiction, memoir, and poetry. Writers like Don Winslow have chronicled the agency's tactics and impact in novels, while poets have used the DEA as a symbol of state overreach and the criminalization of addiction, reflecting a growing literary critique of the drug war's human costs.