The War On Drugs And 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.

Harsh, cruel, and unusual is an understatement to the punishments given to drug dealers for their drug related offenses. Mandatory minimum drug sentencing was arguably established to target higher level drug dealers but recently the majority of cases have been low level drug dealers. Distributing narcotics is a serious offense, but do these people who are trying to support themselves, a family, or an addiction deserve to spend close to a lifetime incarcerated?

In the past 40 years, the American government has spent more than $2.5 trillion dollars on the war against drugs. The huge expenditure has been coupled by numerous the ad campaigns, clean-up on smuggling, and increase in illicit drug users and incarceration rates. Actually, the increase in illicit drug users currently stands at 19.9 million in the United States with huge supplies from Mexico. With the increase in both the expenditure and number of illegal drug users, there have been huge concerns regarding the country's war on drugs. The main question is why the United States can continue spending much money on this war while it can legalize and tax the supply of drugs. The most appropriate and effective measure for tackling the problem of drugs is through legalizing and collecting taxes than spending huge amounts in stopping the flow of the commodities to America.

As many African-Americans were rejoicing their long and strenuous journey, a new plan was afoot for them: the war on drugs. The war on drugs is unequivocally the biggest and most durable war this country has ever fought against its own citizens. Like any other wars the United-States has engaged in, the war on drugs is remarkably different; it was fought internally, and intended to target a specific group, people of color. Their communities, houses and churches were flooded with law enforcements, constantly checking for illegal possession of drugs. They were branded criminals and were continuously being thrown in jails or prisons, with harsh and lengthy sentences imposed on them. And once they were released, many are saddled with huge debts

increased both the number and longevity of laws, that required longer sentences and mandatory minimum sentences.

The prison system in the United States is broken. There are many reasons why it is broken, but the main source of the problem is from the privatization of prisons. The United States has a capitalistic economy, which means our society driven by acquiring capital. Every person’s goal is to make money and live the “American Dream”, including big corporations. Since privatizing markets like healthcare, television, and banking worked for their favor, companies realized that prisons could produce large sums of capital. The war on drugs solidified that belief. Since the start of Ronald Reagan 's “War on Drugs” in the 1970’s, prisons have been privatized and exploited for monetary gain. The public thinks that this so called “War on Drugs” is

The war on drugs in the United States is becoming a major problem for everyone involved. As more people are arrested for drug crimes, the more police are spending resources in order to arrest them. It's shown that non violent drugs offense have risen over the years, but violent and property offenses have gone down. While this doesn't suggest that police are solely focus on just arresting non violent drug offenders, one has to wonder why there are so many of them in jail. The government believes that locking up these offenders will reduce drug related crimes and lower demand for drugs, but I don't see that happening. During the late 20's and early 30's, the U.S had a prohibition on alcohol and it caused an uproar with the public. The prohibition

The American Government has passed and encouraged legislation that intentionally criminalized and incarcerated black citizens. During the 1960’s, drugs became a symbol of rebellion against society and politics. The rising epidemic of drugs plagued the country which prompted President Nixon to launch the “War on Drugs” campaign. Nixon increased the presence and funding of federal drug control agencies and enforced mandatory minimum sentencing. However in 2016, one of Nixon’s former aides, Domestic Policy Chief John Ehrlichman, revealed the war on drugs targeted blacks and hippies. He stated "The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people..we knew we couldn't make it illegal

(CASA, 2008). On June 19, 1986 Len Bias, a top-notch NBA draft pick was found dead of a crack cocaine overdose. His death prompted media turmoil and it was not long before the authorities came to realize that cocaine was accessible to black people in the form of “crack cocaine.” In a matter of weeks, Congress passed the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986. As a result of the Act, mandatory minimum sentencing for precise amounts of cocaine was enacted. Simultaneously, law-makers established tougher sentences for crack cocaine but not for powder

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.

Just a little over a year and a half after being in office President Reagan declared a “war on drugs”, creating a zero tolerance policy. The “war on drugs” claimed that it would reduce drug use if they were made illegal. The common misconception of the idea of this solution if that by restricting the supply of illicit drugs for the demand the price would increase making it harder for users to afford the habit and further discourage users from using. When in reality this shifted individuals into digging themselves deeper into hazards through, convictions, increased health risks due to stronger drugs being the available, and dependencies. Because this can also create an increase of racial tension due to the fact that the war on drugs

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.