War on Drugs

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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.

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