Health Disparities In Drugs

Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, explained how our treatment of criminals has created a new racial caste system, and the only way to make change is by massive social change and Civil Rights movement. The criminal laws often focus on psychoactive drugs used by the minority populations. Minorities are disproportionately targeted, arrested, and punished for drug offenses. For instance, Black, Latino, Native American, and many Asian were portrayed as violent, traffickers of drugs and a danger to society. Surveillance was focused on communities of color, also immigrants, the unemployed, the undereducated, and the homeless, who continue to be the main targets of law enforcement efforts to fight the war on drugs. Although African Americans comprise only 12.2 percent of the population and 13 percent of drug users, they make up 38 percent of those arrested for drug offenses and 59 percent of those convicted of drug offenses causing critics to call the war on drugs the “New Jim Crow”(drug policy). The drug

After getting the public support for his campaign, America saw an unprecedented rise in its incarceration rate, particularly among African Americans. The “ War on Drugs ” has had a disparate impact on the black community even though blacks and whites use drugs at approximately the same levels. This is achieved through a myriad of formal and informal practices. African-Americans are targeted and prosecuted at a much higher rate even though they are not statistically any likelier to abuse or sell drugs than the white population.

Alexander highlights the fact that these statistics contradict the fact that drugs are used and sold at similar rates among different races and that white youth are actually more likely to engage in drug related activity than any other age and racial group. Although the official line is that the increased rates of African Americans arrested for drug charges is due to an increase in crime rates, this has not been seen in the incarceration rates for

Throughout history, the drug war has always targeted minority groups. “At the root of the drug-prohibition movement in the United States is race, which is the driving force behind the first laws criminalizing drug use, which first appeared as early as the 1870s (Cohen, 56)”. There were many drug laws that targeted minority groups such as the marijuana ban of 1930s that criminalized Mexican migrant farm workers and in the Jim Crow South, reformist wanted to wage war on the Negro cocaine feign so they used African Americans as a scapegoat while they overlooked southern white women who were a bigger problem for the drug epidemic (Cohen, 57). Instead of tackling the root of the drug problem they passed the blame to struggling minority groups within the United States.

In her book The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness (2012), Michelle Alexander empathizes on the issues of the complex of criminal justice systems which has a significant impact on people of color as The New Jim Crow. She also attaches significant to the racial dimensions of the “War on Drugs” because the convictions for drug offenses are only the most important cause of the explosion in incarceration rates in the United States. This argues that federal drug policy inequity targets groups of color, keeping millions of young, black men in a vicious cycle behind the bars.

Doris Marie Provine writes her book, Unequal under law: Race in the War on Drugs, to inform her audience that race plays a key role in the War on Drugs. She writes about how this war has become a war on race rather than a war intended to improve drug abuse. Provine begins her book with some background on the first account of the “war on drugs”. She describes how the prohibition age was the beginning of this war which targeted women and blacks. In Unequal under law, Provine explains how different race groups have been given crime labels. Africans have been labeled as the cocaine abusers, Mexicans are known as the weed smokers, and Chinese are deemed the opium addicts. She argues that the government supported the war on drugs although it knew

In the beginning of last year my twelve year old sister was diagnosed with Ulcerative Colitis, which is the same concept as Crohn's. Every six weeks she has to go into the hospital to get an IV drip of the chemo drug Remicade or as all the nurses call it “Liquid gold.” They call it that because every dose that the patient gets is roughly $10,000. Each and every person all have a different view on the topic, from what the problem actually is, what is causing the high rise is pharmaceutical drugs and what the right solution would be. What we do know is this is becoming a colossal issue in today's world. It mostly is seen in the United States, where there are no laws against a free market for drug pricing; or in other words there are no rules about how to price prescription drugs. The prices of prescription drugs are rising at an very alarming rate, due to the fact that there are a lot of drug shortages and the money the companies spend on making the drug are so high. There are many different solutions to help fix the issue it all depends on what your stance is on

There is a war going on. It is a war that has targeted, jailed, and killed millions of Americans. To see its profound impact, one does not even need to leave our nation 's borders. It is a civil war, that Consists of the U.S. Government, versus our country 's minority communities. It has spanned multiple generations and numerous presidential administrations. Declared by President Richard M. Nixon in June, 1971, the war on drugs has been one lost at great cost. In this paper, the argument will be presented that the war on drugs was a war on minority communities by disproportionately negatively affecting them through means of mass incarceration, ignoring a massive unknown disease, and gentrification.

Drug courts in the United States need to undergo restructuring. This is because these courts’ jurisdiction over cases involving substance abuse need to be expanded if the problem of prison overcrowding is going to be effectively administered (power point notes). The drug courts aim at channeling nonviolent offenders into a rehabilitation treatment program that would help them abandon the habit instead of sending the same to prisons (power point notes). In prison’s, the drug addict stands no chance to correct their behavior because theirs is an abnormal case. This is not the only challenge encountered in administering of justice and corrective measures. They are several. Dealing with drug addicts is not easy. This is because drug addicts need to be treated as special cases so that the entire process can be successful. Racism is a major deterred to the success of justice execution in all aspects, especially on victims of drug abuse. It is common to see black Americans drug victims being easily convicted than their white counterparts. However, Rebecca tiger presents an impeccable argument that drug addict ought to be treated more than just as a sick person. This effect nullifies the element of biasness as the focus is now directed on the “disease” and no the color skin of the victim. The end effect of implementation of this ideology is that the enlightened coerciveness in dealing with drug addicts is expected to go down,

In “the American journal of drug and alcohol abuse”, it expresses how each ethnic group placed in the dependency of drugs and provides a breaks down by females and males who either had prior family history of substance abuse in the home with white females being at a higher risk than the other races alongside while males (Arria, 2009). Hence, it was a matter of time she would be introduced to more illicit drugs due to the lack of surveillance in addition to being involved in potentially partaking in the activities that would later place her in the situation she is currently

The purpose of this research is to find an explanation to the racial disparity in Seattle. These arrests are due to drug possession and the reasoning behind them. In this article, the main research question that the authors are investigating is the use of drugs and possession arrests in Seattle. The theoretical orientation used is based off of the arrests being qualitative or quantitative. The findings presented in this article suggested that arrests could have to do with race. The researchers’ hypothesis is that race is not common in large offenses, but is for offenses that tend to be more minor. The author uses a sample from the Arrestee Drug Abuse Monitoring Program of those who have been arrested in 35 areas, also depending on their use

One of the sources used throughout this study was entitled Adolescent Black Males’ Drug Trafficking and Addiction: Three Theoretical Perspectives written by Sharon E. Moore. This study explores and explains the incidence of drug trafficking and chemical dependency among adolescent Black males. Also, discusses the social science theories of Emile Durkheim, Karl Marx and Molefi Asante in an effort to bring about a better understanding of the behaviors, and the consequences of those behaviors, of young Black males who participate in the distribution of illegal drugs and/or become dependent on illicit chemicals.

This article discusses how African American drug users are doing less drugs than white Americans but are spending more time in jail than those white drug users. I don’t think this article represents the different structures needed to make up society. Functionalism also focuses needs that are fulfilled by different institutions and I feel that conflict theory addressed the problem of racism in society better than society coming together as one to function as a whole.

The war on drugs has led to the increase of mass incarceration of people of color and minorities, which is a problem in the United States. The United States is known for holding more children and adults in jails, and

The War on Drugs in the United States has a profound influence on both the incarceration rates and activities of the criminal justice system. Many politicians and advocates of the policy claim that the War on Drugs is a necessary element to deter criminal behavior and reduce the crime rate. However, studies show that drug deterrent policies on possession and use have been inadequate and unsuccessful (Cole & Gertz, 2013). Studies also show that the War on Drugs has not attained its objectives because the policy exhibits racial discrepancy as it has led to the disproportionate incarceration of Blacks and minorities. Specifically, evidence indicates that the upper class, generally White individuals, is more likely to use powered cocaine while