When former U.S. President Richard Nixon addressed drug abuse as America’s Public Enemy No.1 on June 17, 1971, a new drug policy began in the United States in which law enforcement has played a significant role to control drug offences. Under this policy, whether drug offenders committed a violent act or not, they had to be penalized. The aim was to keep them away from society along with reducing the consumption of drugs. A decade later, Iran commenced pursuing an ambitious goal. Since 1981, Iran’s government has undertaken a war on drugs to supplant narcotic-related activities. Thus, smugglers and drug dealers have confronted the most severe penalties, including execution and lengthy imprisonment. During this war, the government amended the laws four times to adapt them to new challenges and correct previous flaws. Notwithstanding this, Iran General Policies on Anti-Drug Abuse (2006) bound “the government to fight comprehensively and crucially against all illegal activities such as production, importation, exportation, possession, and sale associated with drugs.”

The United States’ and Iran’s toughness against drug offenders has coincided with the increasing number of prisoners in both countries. One can hardly deny that the war on drugs is one of the factors in prison populations. A report highlights that “significant numbers are incarcerated for possession/use alone; far more are imprisoned for drug offending, overloading the criminal justice systems of countries all over the globe.” While some researchers recommend that it is time to decriminalize drug (ab)use and respect individuals’ freedom to choose whatever they want, governments endeavor to correct their war plans and enforce new methods. For instance, Iran’s government has repeatedly amended the current Anti-Drug Abuse Code to fight seriously and assertively against smugglers and drug users. Governments have never presumed that the war would be endless, costing people millions of dollars.

There are multiple constraints for drug offenders not to be released early or benefit from parole. These constraints are rooted in the risk of recidivism and the requirements of a disciplinary approach to disincline people. Nevertheless, the social and economic consequences of mass incarceration undermine the pure retributive position and require changes in the criminal justice system.

At the core of this article are predictive tools that anticipate detainees’ risk of recidivism rather than surveillance tools that help monitor individuals. The United States is taking AI risk assessment tools into account to rehabilitate incarcerated offenders by better assessing their risk for recidivism. AI facilitates the processing of collected data and provides one with a clear relevance of various factors along with some predictions. Although using AI risk assessment tools is at the preliminary stage in the United States, as proponents of such tools assert, it can play an efficient role in preserving criminal justice.

I begin this article with the old story of drug prohibition and the endless war on drugs. Governments such as Iran and the United States have deployed harsh sanctions against drug dealers and even those who carry or retain prohibited drugs. Although these countries’ legal systems and governance are different in toto, Iran and the United States are chosen because the former is one of the critical transit routes of drugs to other areas like the European countries, and the latter is the central market for producers in Latin America. In part II, this article focuses on the cost and effect of the drug war to contextualize where we stand. There are various types of punishments for drug offenders in Iran and the United States. Therefore, to avoid any ambiguity, this article hypothesizes a detainee who possesses 100 grams of methamphetamine for the first time and fails to distribute or sell it.

After elaborating on the war’s deficiencies by considering its cost and the minor tangible outcomes, Part III reaffirms that the war on drugs requires a radical change, particularly in Iran, which suffers from economic stagnation. It is presumed that decriminalization is not applicable in the current legal system of Iran, while it is plausible to lighten nonviolent drug offenders’ convictions by using AI risk assessment tools. The nonaggression principle protects nonviolent drug offenders from prolonged imprisonment and other deprivations resulting from the retributive approach. It appears that AI risk assessment tools could play a crucial role in reducing the number of incarcerated persons and provide nonviolent drug offenders with an opportunity for early release from prisons. Nevertheless, it is argued that policymakers in Iran and the United States ought to concede, at the very least, that the current war on drugs should not have targeted nonviolent offenders as well.