The Prohibition Of Intoxicating Substances

For many years, drugs have been the center of crime and the criminal justice system in the United States. Due to this widespread epidemic, President Richard Nixon declared the “War on Drugs” in 1971 with a campaign that promoted the prohibition of illicit substances and implemented policies to discourage the overall production, distribution, and consumption. The War on Drugs and the U.S. drug policy has experienced the most significant and complex challenges between criminal law and the values of today’s society. With implemented drug polices becoming much harsher over the years in order to reduce the overall misuse and abuse of drugs and a expanded federal budget, it has sparked a nation wide debate whether or not they have created more harm than good. When looking at the negative consequences of these policies not only has billions of dollars gone to waste, but the United States has also seen public health issues, mass incarceration, and violent drug related crime within the black market in which feeds our global demands and economy. With this failed approach for drug prohibition, there continues to be an increase in the overall production of illicit substances, high rate of violence, and an unfavorable impact to our nation.

Dangerous illegal drugs have plagued American citizens and their youth for as long as the country has been in existence. These harmful drugs are not only responsible for countless amounts of deaths, but the corruption of the American society in general. All too many times have these drugs been blamed for insanity, racism, rebellion, and straight up violence. Today the government is spending approximately $19.179 billion in one year to combat these evils (Gifford). Unfortunately, even with all of this effort going in to stop illegal drug use, the “War on Drugs” is yet to produce almost any positive results. Because of this, politicians are urging the government to spend even more money to combat the seemingly

In the late 1980’s and early 1990’s, drug use became a major concern for most Americans. As the War on Drugs and “Just Say No” campaign were being thrust into the spotlight by the government and media, the public became more aware of the scope of drug use and abuse in this country. The federal and states’ governments quickly responded by creating and implementing more harsh and punitive punishments for drug offenses. Most of these laws have either remained unchanged or become stricter in the years since then.

Proponents on the legalization of drugs believe if drugs were to become legal; the black market worth billions of dollars would become extinct, drug gangsters would disappear, addicts would stop committing crimes to support their habit and the prison system would not be overwhelmed with a problem they cannot defeat. The decriminalization of drugs will only make illegal drugs cheaper, easier to get and more acceptable to use. “The U.S. has 20 million alcoholics and alcohol misusers, but only around 6 million illegal drug addicts. If illegal drugs were easier to obtain, this figure would rise”(Should Drugs be decriminalized? No.November 09, 2007 Califano Joseph A, Jr).”

History has shown us an ineffective way to address addiction. Addiction has always been around a long time. However. people just didn’t always talk about addiction. They just ignored the issue and pretended that everything was alright. When the government first tried to deal with this issue they banned alcohol and made other drugs illegal. This action forced people to secretly use the substances. This only made the problem worse. I think that the government kept in the history of this problem in mind when create the current policy. Let’s dive into the history.

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.

Drug policy is a crucial topic in the country today. Substance abuse, as well as drug-related crime rates, are a huge problem. This is a fact. The way to fix the problem of substance abuse, however, is widely disagreed upon. Some think that stricter laws regarding drug possession and use would solve the problem, while others believe that loosening the restrictions would be a better option. The issue of legalizing drugs, especially marijuana, is one that is debated all the time. In fact, in 1995, a survey was conducted on the most important policy issues and eighty five percent of the country placed drugs at the top of the list (Falco 1996). Many states are actually beginning to decriminalize, and even

There is a debate in the American government system on how to handle the use of drug and alcohol. In the 1960s drugs were uprising along with youth rebellion and in 1971 Nixon declared a “War on Drugs” (Citation a brief). This name is not to be confused with the band War on Drugs, but the term is still popularly used to describe the policies that Government officials are making regarding drugs and alcohol. This debate got reheated when Colorado legalized weed for medical and recreational use, followed by several other states. There has slowly been a shift in mindset from, “alcoholics are drug addicts are all criminals and we (the law) should throw them in jail” to “addiction is a disease.” Even the way that addicts/alcoholics are treated has changed to treatment centers with specialist versus throwing them in the hospital to detox and hoping for a change. Policies that are shifting the penalty from incarceration to treatment reflect these changes and help the individual suffering from the disease to get back on their feet. The war on drugs rings on, but changes are being made.

After Prohibition in the 1900s when alcohol was banned and illegal to sell or make alcoholic beverages such as beer, wine, and liquor. People thought that alcohol was the leading cause of all social problems, unemployment, poverty, business failure, crimes, slums, violence, illnesses, and the destruction of families and moral corruption. While all of this was happening in the 1900s now today in the 21st century we have the same similarities between the new era of Prohibition the war on drugs and the Prohibition era in the 1900s. Today we are faced with the same problems with the war on drugs. Though some people have different ideas and thoughts and might not agree with what I will say about the new era of Prohibition I still think otherwise.

Around the 1900’s the United States was being flooded with multiple feelings, which created an ongoing battle between tension and morals. These conflicts contributed to what is known as the “noble experiment”, which involved alcoholic products. These continuing conflicts left the population feeling unstable. Instead of dealing with these problems at hand our nation decided to turn to the state for a helping hand. Struggling with a mass immigration increase and the rise to industrialism and capitalism was hard enough on our own, but we also had to somehow stabilize the nation’s social order to prevent further social conflicts. Due to slightly failing on stabilizing our social order our nation’s society decided to campaign against alcohol and start the nation’s first narcotics war. By doing this it was believed that the overall rate of corruption, violence and crime would decrease and solve our social problems. Looking back on history, the way things occurred shows that this time it was more than a slight fail.

This current paper will examine the history, social factors, and economic impact of the prohibition of alcohol in the United States. Ken Burns and Lynn Novick (2011) delve into the topic of alcohol in America in their documentary Prohibition, and this paper will discuss the events before, during, and after the prohibition of alcohol in the United States. This paper will also relate the prohibition of alcohol to the current drug policies of cocaine in the United States. Alcohol and cocaine were both prohibited in the United States in the early 1900’s. Cocaine was used as an anesthesia and medication in the early days of America until the drug was abused, and the legislature of the day deemed cocaine a dangerous drug. Americans would

Drug policy has never been truly essentialists and very frequently is just used as a scapegoat for other social issues. This all started with the temperance movement. Temperance according to the Judeo-Christian bible meant moderation, but policy makers turned temperance into the idea of abstinence. With the popularization of distilled liquors, there began to become an awareness of alcohol dependence and abuse. During the industrial revolution large populations of immigrants began moving into cities. High alcohol content, and a growing population lead to more visible alcohol problems. Along with that there was a growing movement towards Nativism. Propaganda was used to help demonize alcohol in the eyes of general society. Post WWI alcohol was viewed, as a way for the German’s to ruin our pure family

Starting in 1914 the U.S introduced the first probation acts that prohibited the consumption of Opiates and Cocaine with the Harrison Narcotics act of 1914 Later this act was amended to include marijuana. This Act was the first use of federal criminal law in the United Sates to attempt to deal with the nonmedical use of drugs (wisegeek). The war of drugs started primarily in the 1971 when Nixon declared the war on drugs. He dramatically increased the size and presence of federal drug control agencies (Drug Policy). With the first major organized drug imports from Columbia from the Black Tuna Gang based in Miami, Florida Columbia was quickly growing into a drug superpower able to feed America’s growing addictions.

Since the early 1960’s there have been an alarming increase in drug use in the United States in 1962, four million Americans had tried an illegal drug. By 1999, that number had risen to a staggering 88.7 million, according to the 1999 National Household Survey on Drug Abuse.

The so-called “War on Drugs,” as declared by the Nixon administration in the signing of the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970, marked the beginning of the current era of mandatory minimum sentencing, racism, privatized prisons, and a powerful constituency that profits as a result of the prohibition of drugs. Psychoactive substances have been apart of the human experience as long as humans have walked the earth. There is little hope that drug production will ever be curtailed, so long as there is a demand; a demand that has remained steady even though it has been forty years since the beginning of said war. As Judge James P. Gray from the Superior Court of Orange County has so plainly put it: “Where did this policy