Chris Strohm writes in Drugged:

It's hard to unpack the extent to which the war on drugs detracted directly from the war on terrorism before 9/11. Government spending, after all, is complex, and it's hard to prove that drugs and terrorism were locked directly in a zero-sum game. But the Commission's staff report argued that government officials who wanted to prioritize counterterrorism faced choices about whether to divert experienced agents and scarce resources from criminal or drug cases.

(via Hit & Run)