For more than forty years our country has had a problem with our southern border neighbor - Mexico. The issue with the increasing number of consumers of drugs along with the violence associated with the smuggling of narcotics can be traced back to 1954, during Eisenhower’s presidency (Suddath). When Eisenhower was president he realized that the rates of people using drugs was increasing, which is why he started a five member cabinet to stop the “narcotic addiction” (Suddath). Still this issue seemed to be a growing problem because in 1973 President Nixon founded the Drug Enforcement Administration (Suddath). His goal was to reduce the statistics of the illegal use of drugs by increasing the size of federal drug agencies (“A Brief History of the Drug War”). Another problem that arose during his presidency was whether or not to criminalize or decriminalize marijuana (“A Brief History of the Drug War”). During his presidency eleven states wanted to decriminalize marijuana stating that it could be used for medicinal reasons and lower the illegal consumption of drugs statistics (“A Brief History of the Drug War”). Nixon was set on decriminalizing marijuana but later this subject was abandoned as parents complained about the increasing number of teens abusing the use of marijuana (“A Brief History of the Drug War”). It is apparent that the presidents aid to stop the use of illegal drugs did little to help. When Ronald Reagan was sworn into presidency he decided to expand the drug war in hopes that it could alleviate the statistics of people consuming smuggled illegal drugs (“A Brief History of the Drug War”). His efforts, however, only made the incarceration rates increase, “ The number of people behind bars for nonviolent drug law offe... ... middle of paper ... ... we have to educate students and help them be successful so that they will never want to fall under the influence of drugs. Most importantly we have to recognize that this problem will not go away quickly, it will take a long time to stop these gangs that have infiltrated and terrorized people, but we have to keep on educating and providing resources so that people do not go under the influence of drugs. Works Cited “A Brief History of the Drug War.” Drug Policy Alliance. n.p. n.d. Web. 17 Feb. 2014. Archibold, C, Randal. The New York Times. Apatzingan Journal. 16 Jan. 2014. Web. 28 Jan. 2014. Faysett, Richard. Los Angeles Times. n.p. 7 Nov. 2013. Web. 5 Feb. 2014. Seper, Jerry. “Brutal Mexican Drug Gang Crosses Into U.S.” Washington Times. 19 April. 2011. Web. 30 Jan. 2014. Suddath, Claire. “The War on Drugs.” Time. Time Inc. 25 Mar. 2009. Web. 17 Feb. 2014.
America's War on Drugs: Policy and Problems. In this paper I will evaluate America's War on Drugs. More specifically, I will outline our nation's general drug history and look critically at how Congress has influenced our current ineffective drug policy. Through this analysis, I hope to show that drug prohibition policies in the United States, for the most part, have failed.
PRESTON, Keith (2001). “The Political Economy of the War on Drugs”, Free Republic,. Online at: < http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a3b1106274d1b.htm>, March 30th, 2004.
Winkle, Bethany. "Effectiveness of War on Drugs Being Questioned." Treatment Solutions. N.p., 3 June 2011. Web. 28 Feb. 2014.
EASLEY, J. (2011, June 19). The day the drug war really started. Retrieved from http://www.salon.com/: http://www.salon.com/2011/06/19/len_bias_cocaine_tragedy_still_affecting_us_drug_law/
Bush's “war on drugs”, an extension to Reagon's former battle, had “crowded the courts, filled the prisons, corrupted law officers, compromised ... civil liberties, and criminalized substantial sectors of American society.” 1 In comparison to the leniency experienced in the late 1960s under Nixon where a “specific sub-culture of some 68,088 identifiable heroin addicts” who, subject to arrest for the possession of the heroin, and successfully convicted, were “sentenced to treatment at the federal hospital in Lexington, Kentucy.”2
Alexander focuses on the War on Drugs to illustrate the drug war affects millions in today’s society. Although many will argue that the purpose of the War on Drugs is to protect society, Alexander utilizes facts and statistics to prove that this notion is false. First, the majority of those arrested are not charged with a serious offense. Alexander states, “In 2005, for example, four out of five drug arrests were for possession, and only one out of five was for sales”. This statistic illustrates that the drug war does help the nation get rid of big-time dealers. The only thing that the War on Drugs has achieved is the significant increase in the number of people incarcerated in the United States. From 1980 to 2000, the number of incarcerated individuals has increased from 300,000 to more than 2 million. Furthermore, Alexander points to the Fourth Amendment to illustrate how all
Bennett, William J. “Drug Policy and the Intellectuals.” Drug Policy 1989-90, A Guide. Ed. Arnold S Trebach and Kevin B. Zeese. Rpt. In Current Issues and Enduring Questions. Ed. Sylvan Barnet and Hugo Bedau. Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 1996. 358-64.
President’s Drug Policy (2004). National Drug Control Strategy. Retrieved on April 13, 2005 from www.whitehousedrugpolicy.gov
The drug war continues to be an ongoing issue in the US – and, to some extent, around the world. The contentious policy, since its inception, has been meticulously documented by historians and filmmakers alike. This paper will explore the failure of “War on Drugs” in the US by engaging with textual scholarly secondary sources to which will be supplemented by a relevant documentary, The House We Live In by Jarecki. It is the war on drugs, and not the drugs themselves, that are harming the nation. As this paper will show, the drug war is a failure on several accounts. Drug prohibition, and the later variation, “war on drugs”, attempt to internationally suppress the inherently complex global drug trade through simplistic means only exasperated the situation. Furthermore, at a national level, the “war on drugs” helped with the criminalization of millions of otherwise law-abiding citizens and legitimization of public policies that are insidious in disproportionate consequences to both race, and, ultimately, class; however, it is precisely these factors, as Jarecki argues in his film, that make the drug war successful in other respects.
Over the last decade, Southwest border violence has elevated into a national security concern. Much of the violence appears to stem from the competing growth and distribution networks that many powerful Mexican drug cartels exercise today. The unfortunate byproduct of this criminality reaches many citizens of the Mexican border communities in the form of indiscriminate street gang shootings, stabbings, and hangings which equated to approximately 6,500 deaths in 2009 alone (AllGov, 2012). That same danger which now extends across the border regions of New Mexico, Arizona, Texas, and California has the potential for alarming escalation. Yet, despite the violence, evermore-brazen behavior continues to grow, as does America’s appetite for drugs. Even though drug-related violence mandates that law enforcement agencies focus on supply reduction, the Office of National Drug Control Policy should shift its present policy formulation efforts to only drug demand reduction because treatment and prevention efforts are inadequate and strategy has evolved little over the last three decades.
Wolf, M. (2011, June 4). We should declare an end to our disastrous war on drugs. Financial Times. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com.proxy.consortiumlibrary.org/docview/870200965?accountid=14473
The war on drugs has continued to intensify in recent decades, and leaders of that war adopted better rules and ways of dealin...
Shannon, Elaine. “The War on Drugs: A Losing Battle.” Time.com. Time Magazine, 3 Dec. 2010. Web. 18 Dec. 2011. .
Walters, John P. "No surrender: the drug war saves lives." National Review 27 Sept. 2004: 41. Student Edition. Web. 19 Mar. 2014.
drugs to this day. One of the reasons the war on drugs is lasting so long is because of the cost; the war on drugs is a very expense war. In the past, the government has spent arou...