Throughout history drugs have been nothing but a social problem, a burden per say. From Edgar Allen Poe smoking opium in an attempt to make his poetry more creative, to Vietnam soldiers coming back from the war addicted to heroin. Narcotics was not a serious issue at the time, only a small hand full of people were actually doing the drugs, and they were just simply looked down upon. It was not until the late nineteen sixties when recreational drug use became fashionable among young, white, middle class American citizens, that the United States Government “put it’s foot down”. (pbs.com) They started slowly ,developing agencies like the (BNDD) Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs, which was founded in 1968 by the Linden Johnson administration. Congress also started passing laws like the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act in 1970.
It was not until June 17, 1971 when the war on drugs truly began.
At a press conference in the White House, President Richard J. Nixon officially declared war on drugs. He stated, “drug abuse is public enemy, number one in the United States.”
He also announced the creation of (SAODAP) Special Action Office for Drug Abuse Prevention. Three years later on August 9, 1974, President Nixon resigns, but not before founding one the greatest assets for the war on drugs, the (DEA) Drug Enforcement Agency. Established in July of 1973, this “super agency” (pbs.com) consisted of agents from the CIA, Customs and ODALE. This agency was designed to handle all aspects of the drug problem in America and would be headed Myles Ambrose.
Throughout the first years of the program the DEA was established their main focus was to stop the flow of marijuana from Mexico to America. Around the mid seventies the “enemy” face began to change, the enemy was now cocaine and it was coming from the country of Colombia. On November 22, 1975 the Colombian police seized over 600 kilos of cocaine from a small plane at the Cali Airport. The plane was believed to be headed to Miami, Florida. The amount of cocaine that was seized that day was the largest cocaine bust to date.
The DEA, along with other agencies, are still fighting cocaine and many other
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...
... middle of paper ...
...m heroin addiction. Psychiatrist Dr. Robert DuPont is a pioneer doctor in drug abuse treatment, he perfumed studies in Washington D.C. in 1969 of heroin addicts, and then convinced the mayor to allow him to provide methadone to the heroin addicts this resulted in the city’s crime rate dropping.
The cost of addiction can be devastating to the person and the person’s family.
People trade in their cars; clothing and shelter just to get a fix for their addiction.
The cost of rehabilitation is outrageous, unless you are attending a free one it can cost up to 1000 dollars a weak.
There are many programs out in the public today for soul purpose of keeping people clean, off drugs. Programs such as Betty Ford, D.A.R.E, and many more are set up
to keep people from drug abuse.
In the end the war on drugs is not a war to be won or lost, it’s with in the people, rather if they want to do drugs or not. The importation of illicit substances into the United States is an impossibility. There’s over 2,000 miles of border along the Mexican border and the coastal areas, thousands of miles; there is no possible way to stop the importation of drugs into this country.
And so comes into the question the arrest of Eduardo Balarezo by the Federal Bureau of Narcotics in in 1949. Balarezo was a prominent drug lord in Latin America. He was credited as being the sole leading distributor of narcotics specifically cocaine and heroin in the United States. He had a structured organization known as the ‘Balarezo gang’ who had set up cells in the northeastern part of the United States more specifically in New York (Gootenberg, 2011). Harry Anslinger the Director of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics was on a mission to crack down ...
Chasing Heroin is a two-hour documentary that investigates America’s heroin crisis. The documentary details the opioid epidemic and how police offers, social workers, and public defenders are working to save the lives of addicts. The documentary explores the origins and continuing causes behind the heroin epidemic such as; massive increases in opioid painkillers starting at the turn of the century, Mexican drug cartels who are now rooted in upper-middle-class neighborhoods, and the cheap price of heroin when compared to prescription pain killers. A program in Seattle called LEAD is explored. This program channels addicts into a system that points them toward help (rehab, temporary housing, counseling, methadone treatment) instead of prison
While the War on Drugs may have been portrayed as a colorblind movement, Nixon’s presidency and reasoning for its implementation solidifies that it was not. Nixon coined the term “War on Drugs” in his 1971 anti-drug campaign speech, starting the beginning of an era. He voiced, “If there is one area where the word ‘war’ is appropriate, it is in the fights against crime” (DuVernay, 13th). This terminology solidified to the public that drug abusers were an enemy, and if the greatest publicized abusers were black, then black people were then enemy. This “war” started by Nixon claimed it would rid the nation of dealers, but in fact, 4/5 of arrests were for possession only (Alexander, 60). Nixon employed many tactics in order to advance the progress
The film, American Drug War: The Last White Hope was directed by Kevin Booth. He lost four close people who were addicted to alcohol, nicotine and prescription pain killers. Through this film he portrayed how the war on drugs in the United States is a way for those in power and on wall street to profit meanwhile incarcerating the poor people who sell to get food on the table or are addicted to drugs. President Nixon created the Drug Enforcement Agency and the scheduling of drugs eventually declaring a war on drugs. Since his presidency the American government has been in a state of war on the fight against illegal drug use. There has been no advancements in this war, if anything the drugs are winning. It was stated in the film that there are
The war on drugs in our culture is a continuous action that is swiftly lessening our society. This has been going on for roughly 10-15 years and has yet to slow down in any way. Drugs continue to be a problem for the obvious reason that certain people abuse them in a way that can lead to ultimate harm on such a person. These drugs do not just consist of street drugs (marijuana, cocaine, ecstasy), but prescription medications as well. Although there are some instances where drugs are being used by subjects excessively, there has been medical research to prove that some of these drugs have made a successful impact on certain disorders and diseases.
New York: New York, 2010. Print. The. Should the U.S. Continue Its War on Drugs? Opposing Views: Issues, Experts, Answers.
However, before the specific outcomes of Congressional influence and policy impact can be evaluated it becomes important to first review the general history and current situation of drugs today. Our present drug laws were first enacted at the beginning of the century. At the time, recreational use of narcotics was not a major social issue. The first regulatory legislation was for the purpose of standardizing the manufacturing and purity of pharmaceutical products. Shortly after, the first criminal laws were enacted which addressed opium products and cocaine. Although some states had prohibited the recreational use of marijuana, there was no federal criminal legislation until 1937. By contrast, the use of alcohol and its legality was a major social issue in United States in the early 20th century. This temperance movement culminated in the prohibition of alcohol from 1920 to 1933. Recreational drug use, particularly heroin, became more prevalent among the urban poor during the early ?60s. Because of the high cost of heroin and its uncertain purity, its use was associated with crime and frequent overdoses.
The war on drugs began with the presidential term of President Nixon in the 1970s. According to drugpolicy.org, “He dramatically increased the size and presence of federal drug control agencies, and pushed through measures such as mandatory sentencing and no-knock warrants. Nixon temporarily placed marijuana in Schedule One, the most restrictive category of drugs.”
Hosted by the DEA Museum & Visitors Center, ‘Target America: Traffickers, Terrorists and Your Kids’ brought together government officials with the private-sector experts in an effort to educate the American public about what DEA Administrator Asa Hutchingson called the ‘extraordinary link between drugs and terrorism.’ The symposium was part of an effort by the Association of Former federal Narcotics Agents (AFFNA) to develop a museum exhibit and educational program that will explore this theme.
11 Feb 2014. http://www.justthinktwice.com/content/inside_dea.html>. Keefe, Patrick. A. “Cocaine Incorporated.” New York Times.
Office of National Drug Control Policy. (n.d.).AllGov: Everything Our Government Really Does. Retrieved March 18, 2012, from http://www.allgov.com/Agency/Office_of_National_Drug_Control_Policy
In 1971, President Nixon declared a “war on drugs.” He substantially increased the presence and size of federal drug agencies, and passed legislation like mandatory sentencing laws and unconstitutional warrants. Nixon even listed marijuana as a Schedule One drug, the most constrictive drug category. Over forty years later, the U.S is still waging a war on drugs, spending billions of dollars per year and creating major social issues.
Before the Drug Enforcement Administration was enacted, issues that dealt with drugs were handled by different federal agencies rather than one agency as it is set up presently. “Federal drug law enforcement began in 1915 with the Bureau of Internal Revenue” (“Drug Enforcement Administration” 4). Illegal drug use has always been an issue and continues to increase and remain to be a prevailing problem across the nation. The 1960’s marked the predominant era for the increase of drug use. This was a time where the hippie-marijuana movement manifested, organized crime mobs were overt and famous psychologist and writer Timothy Leary was advocating for psychedelic drugs. During his Presidency, Richard Nixon felt it necessary to instill a more effective approach in dealing with the increasing drug problem in order to protect America from violence and to “restore law and order” as he would say was his goal and slogan for his campaign in the 1968 Presidential election. Prior to the creation of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), drug control was being regulated under the Bureau of Narcotics and Da...
In Jeanette Schmidt’s article, Transporting Cocaine states, “Colombian cartels would pay the Mexican groups as much as $1,000/kilo to smuggle cocaine into the United States” (Schmidt, 2). The Colombian cartels would then pick up the drugs and resume distribution and sales efforts, making personal profits that are unrecorded. In order to seize these individuals who are growing in power and numbers, the U.S. must control the connections between Mexico and Columbia. Mexico is the biggest transporter amongst Columbia and the U.S. because it shares a border with the U.S. This increasingly poisonous drug trafficking leads to drug dealers...
Drug addiction is a very big problem in today’s society. Many people have had their lives ruined due to drug addiction. The people that use the drugs don’t even realize that they have an addiction. They continue to use the drug not even realizing that their whole world is crashing down around them. Drug addicts normally lose their family and friends due to drug addiction.