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 …show more content…
In the early 20th century in the United States, opium was legal; however, it became illegal in the west of US then the east. The correlation, or rather causation, behind this move was that the Chinese largely immigrated to the the west, and these immigrants were infamous for their opium drug habit. Prohibition acted as a clever buffer for the white Americans by not having to arrest the Chinese for being “Chinese” -- animosity developed due the immigrants, such as the Chinese, for taking the white man's job – but having them arrested for the drug habit that was exclusively bound to them. Similarly, the Blacks weren't arrested for being “black” but they they were arrested for a drug habit that are exclusive to them: crack. For the Mexicans; marijuana. Essentially, any threat the economic establishment for the White men were targeted and effectively dealt with in the United …show more content…
The war's cost was approximately $11 billion in the 1991 budget. Despite the claims by the Bush administration of the success of the war on drugs by using surveys, the war on drugs and the entailing policy of repression was a failure. These surveys where people would volunteer information regarding the drug usage were not an ideal way of collecting accurate information.12 In fact, the emergence of contrary information clashed with these claims. Relying on objective data in the 1990, Senor Joseph Biden's Judiciary Committee discovered that cocaine related deaths went up by 10 percent since 1988; the casual use of by “hard core addicts” also increased by 15 percent.13 According to the National Household survey, the daily cocaine user population went from 292,000 in 1988 to 336,000 just by two years later. Drug-positive urine samples, according to the Washington DC police, went from 10 percent in October 1990 to 26 percent in July 1991. In just mere months between March and July, the heroin prisoner population increased from 7 to 17
In one portion of the documentary, we see an excerpt from one of President Richard Nixon’s speeches on how he feels about America’s ongoing battle with drug abuse. In the speech, he declared that this so called “war” with drug addiction needed to be handled while proclaiming that drug abuse was “America’s public enemy number one”. Years later, the war on drugs has only become even more of a controversial issue in the United States with the consequences spanning and reaching particular groups and hinting that they are more so involved than others.
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.
When societies finally become comfortable with reality, they begin to abandon the murderous laws that impede their growth. Currently, the social stigma and legislated morality regarding the use of illicit drugs yield perhaps the most destructive effects on American society. Drug laws have led to the removal of non-violent citizens from society- either directly by incarceration or indirectly by death - which is genocidal in quantity and essence. I base my support of the decriminalization of all drugs on a principle of human rights, but the horror and frustration with which I voice this support is based on practicality. The most tangible effect of the unfortunately labeled "Drug War" in the United States is a prison population larger than Russia's and China's, and an inestimable death toll that rivals the number of American casualties from any given war, disease or catastrophe.
As described in novel The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference the course of any trend, movement, social behavior, and even the spread of a virus has a general trend line that in essence resemble a parabola with 3 main critical points. Any trend line first starts from zero, grows until it crosses the first tipping point, and then spreads like wildfire. Afterwards, the trend skyrockets to its carrying capacity (Galdwell, 2000). Then the trend gradually declines before it reaches the next tipping and suddenly falls out of favor and out of memory. Gladwell defines tipping points as the “magic moment when an idea, trend, or social behavior crosses a threshold, tips, and spreads like wildfire” (Gladwell, 2000).
The U.S. government has instituted the following ways for enforcing its foreign drug policy: interdiction, eradication, legislative reform. Interdiction is the attempt to stop drugs as they are en route to the United States. This remains to be a formidable task; because of the enormous size of the United States, policing its vast borders has proven to be extremely difficult. For example, the United States has over 12,000 miles of shoreline, through 300 ports of legal entry, and over 7,500 miles of border with Canada and Mexico. The jurisdiction of these border points fall under all of the above mentioned agencies and military branches. Herein lays the first problem of foreign policy on drugs, determining which agency/branch has rightful control over which part of the border. The DEA and FBI have overlapping roles in when it comes to enforcing drug policy. Miscommunication often happens when attempting to interdict drugs because of overlapping jurisdiction between two government agencies. According to the Drug Policy Alliance, the United States has spent over $25 billion on s...
The War on Drugs is believed to help with many problems in today’s society such as realizing the rise of crime rates and the uprooting of violent offenders and drug kingpin. Michelle Alexander explains that the War on Drugs is a new way to control society much like how Jim Crow did after the Civil War. There are many misconceptions about the War on Drugs; commonly people believe that it’s helping society with getting rid of those who are dangerous to the general public. The War on Drugs is similar to Jim Crow by hiding the real intention behind Mass Incarceration of people of color. The War on Drugs is used to take away rights of those who get incarcerated. When they plead guilty, they will lose their right to vote and have to check application
The New Jim Crow is the direct consequences of War on Drug. That aimed at reducing, preventing and eradicate drug usage in America through punitive means. The effect of the war on drug policies returned de jure discrimination, denied African Americans justice and undermined the rule of law by altering the criminal justice system in ways that deprive African Americans civil rights and citizenship. In the “New Jim Crow” Alexandra argues that the effects of the drug war policies are not unattended consequences but coordinated by designed to deny African Americans opportunity to gain wealth, excluded from gaining employment and exercise civil right through mass incarceration and felony conviction.
“The fact that war is the word we use for almost everything—on terrorism, drugs, even poverty—has certainly helped to desensitize us to its invocation; if we wage wars on everything, how bad can they be?”- Glenn Greenwald. The use of drugs through out the United States has gotten worse and worse every year, and I know that in the U.S. it is both a health problem and a crime problem. But I feel like that we should treat the abuse of illegal drugs as a matter of public health. It should be treated as a matter of public health over a matter of criminal justice because we can help people that abuse drugs and are addicted. Also well be able to get their lives on track so they won’t have to use drugs again which makes dealers go away because no one is buying their drugs anymore.” The origins and nature of the appeal of anti drug claims must be confronted if we are ever to understand how “drug problems” are constructed in the U.S.”(pg.92) –The Social Construction of Drug Scares
“[The war on drugs] has created a multibillion-dollar black market, enriched organized crime groups and promoted the corruption of government officials throughout the world,” noted Eric Schlosser in his essay, “A People’s Democratic Platform”, which presents a case for decriminalizing controlled substances. Government policies regarding drugs are more focused towards illegalization rather than revitalization. Schlosser identifies a few of the crippling side effects of the current drug policy put in place by the Richard Nixon administration in the 1970s to prohibit drug use and the violence and destruction that ensue from it (Schlosser 3). Ironically, not only is drug use as prevalent as ever, drug-related crime has also become a staple of our society. In fact, the policy of the criminalization of drugs has fostered a steady increase in crime over the past several decades. This research will aim to critically analyze the impact of government statutes regarding drugs on the society as a whole.
A “drug-free society” has never existed, and probably will never exist, regardless of the many drug laws in place. Over the past 100 years, the government has made numerous efforts to control access to certain drugs that are too dangerous or too likely to produce dependence. Many refer to the development of drug laws as a “war on drugs,” because of the vast growth of expenditures and wide range of drugs now controlled. The concept of a “war on drugs” reflects the perspective that some drugs are evil and war must be conducted against the substances
The United States has a long history of intervention in the affairs of one it’s southern neighbor, Latin America. The war on drugs has been no exception. An investigation of US relations with Latin America in the period from 1820 to 1960, reveals the war on drugs to be a convenient extension of an almost 200 year-old policy. This investigation focuses on the commercial and political objectives of the US in fighting a war on drugs in Latin America. These objectives explain why the failing drug policy persisted despite its overwhelming failure to decrease drug production or trafficking. These objectives also explain why the US has recently exchanged a war on drugs for the war on terrorism.
This supports the conservative’s claim that the war on drugs is not making any progress to stop the supply of drugs coming into America. Conservative writer for the magazine National Review, William Buckley, shows his outrage towards the Council on Crime in America for their lack of motivation to change the drug policies that are ineffective. Buckley asks, “If 1.35 million drug users were arrested in 1994, how many drug users were not arrested? The Council informs us that there are more than 4 million casual users of cocaine” (70). Buckley goes on to discuss in the article, “Misfire on Drug Policy,” how the laws set up by the Council were meant to decrease the number of drug users, not increase the number of violators.
In 1971 on June 17, President Richard Nixon delivered a special message to the Congress on drug abuse prevention and control. During the presentation, Nixon made it clear that the United States was at war with this idea of drug abuse. What baffled Americans then, and still baffles Americans today, is that we are at war with our own nation with drugs; it is not some foreign affair like the media tends to focus on with Mexico. Nixon stated that at the time of his speech, what was implemented to control drug abuse was not working…“The problem has assumed the dimensions of a national emergency. I intend to take every step necessary to deal with this emergency, including asking the Congress for an amendment to my 1972 budget to provide an additional $155 million to carry out these steps. This will provide a total of $371 million for programs to control drug abuse in America.”(Wolleey and Peters) Since the publicizing of the term “War on Drugs” in 1971, it has been used by many political candidates in elections over the years. In the movie, it was stated, “ every war begins with propaganda …[and] the war on drugs has never been actually on drugs… [Additionally] drug laws are shaped less by scientific facts, but more by political [reasoning].” (Jarecki) The movie, The House I Live In, directly relates to certain themes and terminology that were discussed in Martin and Nakayama’s Intercultural Communication in Contexts book, that have been used in class. Through the analyzing and comparing of The House I Live In and Intercultural Communication in Contexts an individual can begin to localize the ideals behind this everlasting war on drugs; some ideals focus on terms from the text like ethnocentrism, diversity training, and culture while ...
This failure is due in large part, Benson and Rasmussen explain, to drug entrepreneurs’ adoption of new production techniques, new products, and new marketing strategies in response to greater law enforcement. Their “innovations” include lengthening the drug distribution chain and using younger drug pushers and runners (to reduce the risk of arrest and punishment), increasing domestic drug production (to avoid the risk of seizure at the border), smuggling into the country less marijuana and more cocaine (which is harder to detect), development of “crack” cocaine (a low-cost substitute for higher priced powdered cocaine and for marijuana, which the drug war made harder to obtain), and development of drugs with greater potency (because they are less bulky and because punishment is based on a drug’
The "War on Drugs" Palo Alto: Mayfield, 1986. Kennedy, X.J., Dorothy M. Kennedy, and Jane E. Aaron, eds. The Bedford Reader. 6th ed. of the book.