Argumentative Essay: The War On Drugs

The War on Drugs is a drug prohibition that has gone on for four decades. It has been a source of much political and ethical debate. Before the Drug War was officially declared, there was a period where many acts were passed to and stamp out narcotic addiction. These acts began to stack up until finally, the Drug Enforcement Administration was formed by Richard Nixon to take a law enforcement and militarized approach to fighting drugs. From the drug war, three impacts came about that has made the American people wary of the war. Mandatory minimum sentencing, overcrowded prisons and finally, the high cost of the war itself. Mandatory minimum sentencing has led to much strife in the criminal justice system and has caused the prisons to be packed beyond capacity. On top of that, it costs billions of dollars a year to house all of these criminals. All of these factors together show that the Drug War needs to end.

The Drug War The War on Drugs is an executive order that was issued four decades ago in an attempt to crackdown on drug addiction and the sale of narcotics. This particular war has had many bills passed even before a war was declared to try and divert the flow of drugs into the United States. These bills gave way to committees and from

Before 1971, drug enforcement was handled by multiple different law enforcement entities run by each state. At the federal level, you had the Bureau of Drug Abuse control and the Federal Bureau of Narcotics. At the beginning, the DEA started out with “1,470 Special Agents and a budget of less than $75 million. Today, the DEA has nearly 5,000 Special Agents and a budget of $2.02 billion” according to the DEA’s website. The Drug Enforcement Agency is deployed all around the world wherever drugs are manufactured, namely the Middle East and South and Central