America's War With Drugs

“Over 40 year ago president nixon, Declared Drug abuse public enemy number one, starting an unprecedented global Campaign, the war on drug.

The American “War on Drugs” war created to keep an exorbitant amount of people behind bars, and in a subservient status. First, America has a storied history when it comes to marijuana use. However, within the last 50 years legislation pertaining to drug use and punishment has increased significantly. In the modern era, especially hard times have hit minority communities thanks to these drug laws. While being unfairly targeted by drug laws and law enforcement, minorities in America are having a difficult time trying to be productive members of society.

In the past forty years, the United States has spent over $2.5 trillion dollars funding enforcement and prevention in the fight against drug use in America (Suddath). Despite the efforts made towards cracking down on drug smugglers, growers, and suppliers, statistics show that addiction rates have remained unchanged and the number of people using illegal drugs is increasing daily (Sledge). Regardless of attempts to stem the supply of drugs, the measure and quality of drugs goes up while the price goes down (Koebler). Now with the world’s highest incarceration rates and greatest illegal drug consumption (Sledge), the United States proves that the “war on drugs” is a war that is not being won.

“Over 40 year ago president nixon, Declared Drug abuse public enemy number one, starting an unprecedented global Campaign, the war on drug.

According to “The Apocalypse Now : The Lost War on Drugs”, the United States federal government began to become tough on “crime” especially drug offenses in the 1970’s under President Richard Nixon. Nixon stated that “drugs were public enemy #1” and that he was going to be tough on this crime. As a result, state level government began to create policies that were strict on drug offenses causing minimal sentencing for minor drug offenses. Instead of going after the root of the problem which was preventing drugs from entering the country, these laws targeting low income communities with predominantly black and Latino residents. In addition, these merciless laws were the cause of the significant amount of people, specifically men of color, in prison during the 1980’s “war on drugs” in the United States.

What if I told you that a crusade against narcotics has resulted in an overdose epidemic? This has been exactly what the United States Drug War has done. The War on Drugs is considered to have started in 1914 with the ban on opium and cocaine. Prohibition of alcohol in the 1920s is considered to be an important chapter of the War on Drugs. But it was not until June 1971 that President Nixon officially declared a "war on drugs." He enforced this by drastically expanding federal drug control agencies and mandatory minimum sentencing for those arrested for drug crimes. Defenders of the drug war assert that zealous enforcement is the correct way of dealing with America's drug dilemma. However, it has only accomplished increasing the prison population by putting nonviolent offenders behind bars. It has also done nothing to lessen the overdose crisis. This catastrophic, failing war has to meet its end, as it is having many tragic effects such as the production of stronger, deadlier drugs, increased drug use, and has been wildly ineffectual throughout history.

When, in 1971, Richard Nixon infamously declared a “war on drugs” it would have been nearly impossible for him to predict the collective sense of disapprobation which would come to accompany the now ubiquitous term. It would have been difficult for him to predict that the drug war would become a hot topic, a highly contentious and polarizing point of debate and, it would have difficult for him to predict that the United States would eventually become the prison capital of the world, incarcerating, proportionally, more people than anywhere in the world. Today, beyond being a popular political talking point, mass incarceration has become a veritable crisis. The United States now has over 2 million citizens languishing in prisons -- far and away in the most in the globe, and a nearly 68% recidivism rate. Most Americans are quick to blame the dire state of mass incarceration in the United States today on the punitive drug war policies instituted by the likes of Ronald Reagan, and Richard Nixon; however the reality is much more equivocal. Further analysis of mass incarceration - its causes and factors - in reality reveals a much less black and white situation: While these severe drug war policies played almost undoubtedly an integral role in creating the American system of mass incarceration, they are only a segment, emblematic of a larger systemic crisis of draconian, “tough-on-crime” penalties, which over the last forty years placed more Americans in prison than any other

Beginning in the nineteenth century, spanning to the present day, US history has witnessed a plethora of changes both socially as well as racially. These racial and social changes were the results of moral panics centered around marijuana as well as eugenics.

The launching of the 1960’s brought with it a public health issue concerning the use and abuse of illegal drugs. Responding to the crisis, the US department of Justice established the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous drugs, which was designed to control illegal drugs, specifically marijuana. Building on the prohibition, in 1971 President Richard Nixon officially declared a “war on drugs”, which resulted in an increased federal role in the warfare by providing the federal government with power to institute new mandatory sentencing laws. New policies, including the passing of the Controlled Substances act, which, “superseded earlier legislation and classified cannabis as having a high potential for abuse, having zero medical use, and being unsafe for use without medical supervision,” (Barry, 2014) produced a dramatic rise in national incarceration rates, disproportionally representing those people of color. In fact, according to the FBI, in 2011 there were 750,000 marijuana arrests (the vast for majority) alone.

America has had a war on drugs for over a century, and the battle continues on today. For years now drugs have destroyed lives, homes, and caused violent crimes in the communities. The number of deaths due to over dose from heroin has increased since the year 2010. Bloomberg business article written by John Tozzi states that “More than 8,200 Americans—an average of 23 people each day—died of heroin overdoses in 2013. That's according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), and it's the latest evidence that the nation's heroin problem is becoming more severe. The rate of overdose deaths in 2013, the CDC report states, is almost triple what it was in 2010.” That is a lot of numbers, yet even though the drug trade can be profitable

The current policy in use by the United States concerning illegal drugs is both outdated and unfair. This so-called war on drugs is a deeply rooted campaign of prohibition and unfair sentencing that is very controversial and has been debated for many years. The war on drugs is designed so that it will never end. This current drug was has very little impact on the overall supply of prohibited drugs and its impact on demand seems non-existent. United States’ taxpayers are spending billions of dollars on this failure of policy. They are spending billions to incarcerate drug users instead offering drug treatment which could help lower demand. Legalizing illicit would lower abuse and deaths from use and could have a positive economic impact on the United States. Certain industries are making massive sums of money by capitalizing on the drug war.

Why is this a problem? Is it unreasonable to protect the majority of the population from the evils drugs can do? Well, in short, no. The problem with the war on drugs really has nothing to do with the problem of drugs in America, it has to do with the problem America has with who is “using” these drugs. I do not believe the creation of the Drug War was completely misguided, but it certainly did result that way. Throughout this paper, I am going to explore the history, impacts, reasons, and solutions surrounding the War on Drugs and why it is a legal way to target minorities on American soil.

The War on Drugs, like the war on Terrorism, is a war that America may not be able to afford to win. For over forty years the United States has been fighting the War on Drugs and there is no end in sight. It has turned into a war that is about politics and economics rather than about drugs and criminals. The victims of this war are numerous; but perhaps they are not as numerous as those who benefit from the war itself.

The core strategy of the War on Drugs is to eradicate drugs and prevent all causes of drug use. So almost all of the efforts in the last few decades have been focused on eliminating the supply of drugs and incarcerating drug traffickers. But this disobeys

In 2009 1,663,582 people were arrested for non-violent drug charges. These people’s lives are now forever changed because of a mistake they made. This mistake is continually made every single day and Americans are being punished in extreme ways for a non violent crime. The United States needs to decimalize all drugs because the drug war is costly, causes high incarceration rates, and isn’t effective as European drug solutions.