They assert that the government has invested considerably in studies whose results could be used to wage the perennial "war on drugs" while to politicians, that war has amounted to nothing more than a perceptual war on poverty and urban crime. Since politicians have had little else of marketable interest to debate over the years, this aggressive attack on drugs has existed as one of their only colorful means by which to create debate, controversy, and campaign fuel. In other words, when…
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. With the growth of America’s need for drugs cartels in Columbia quickly…
There is a strong correlation that when drug enforcement spending goes up, so does drug related violence shown on various charts from the International Centre for Science in Drug Policy. In terms of social control, as the government becomes “harder on crime”, middle and upper class citizens feel at ease to conform to these rules and laws (O’Grady, 2007). This puts them on a never-ending spiral and allows them to feel mass amounts of strain leading to crime. When a “criminal” does not have the legitimate…
that drugs are so much stronger, purer, and more deadly than they were decades ago. Can you even imagine children using them and the way they are harming their bodies? As far as school and their education, what child will learn if they come to school high or intoxicated? Or if they even go to school for that matter. The programs that the schools have provided, such as D.A.R.E., have proved themselves to be ineffective. There are just as many kids, and that is exactly what they are, using drugs that…
The War on Drugs intends to rid America of drugs, hard and soft, just as prohibition attempted to rid America of drink. The arguments against the War on Drugs are the same arguments that persuaded politicians sixty years ago to end Prohibition. Just as the movement to rid America of alcohol failed, so will the War on Drugs because social engineering works no better today than it did then. The War on Drugs has given birth to many of the modern day evils. The most widespread repercussion of the…
Sociologists war is very interesting, it shows many different sides of people that are usually hidden by everyday rituals. In war the loss of money or the gain of it can be cauterized under the Structural-Functional paradigm because in war there are consequences. Some consequences of lost money are starving people, unclean because of no utilities, and deathly ill people. Now war has many upsides with money America can win the war and be reimbursed if they succeeded in against the drug lords and drugs all…
Drug Abuse Resistance Education (DARE) was initiated in schools all over the United States in 1983 to inform students about the effects drugs cause and to make children and their parents more aware of the drug problem in the U.S. (Frontline). Under Reagan, the federal prison population doubled. Young offenders and non-violent drug users were sent to "Special Alternative Incarceration" boot camps, where they were brainwashed with yet more anti-drug propaganda, to undermine their subversive attitudes…
saying that they’re “seeing fewer overdoses, but more drug related shootings, stabbings, and assaults as dealers fight amongst themselves”(Torr39). No real decrease in drug use among citizens has been seen as a result of police action anyway. Increasing numbers of teens are turning to a life of drugs in America. “Marijuana use among teens has doubled in the last three years”, while at the same time “Americans are spending $20 billion annually on drug related medical costs”(McCaffery4). For this battle…
victims of the “drug war”. Since the beginning of the war of drugs studies have shown that drug use has not decline but increased. (Figure 1) Figure 1 Annual drug sales in the United States have been estimated at $110 billion in the late 1980s, more than double the combined profits of all Fortune 500 companies. The economic toll from drug abuse and drug-related accidents approaches $60 billion per year. Also the amount of money spend each by the government to fight the war keep increasing…
percent of all drug users. Yet strangely enough, more than 55 percent of those convicted for drug offenses are African American. Indeed, the U.S. police and judicial forces in tandem maintain one of the oldest affirmative action policies in the country. This affirmative action policy ensures that a disproportionate number of blacks are convicted of drug crimes, despite the fact that their drug use is only average among the country as a whole. According to Human Rights Watch, these drug laws violate…
2% of the population and 13% of drug users, but 38% of those arrested for drug offenses, and 59% if those convicted are Africa-Americans. The war on drugs is taking a toll on low-income, minority families, adding to the obstacles between them and economic success. A lot of poor youths turn to illegal drug use and the illegal drug trade because they are looking for a better life. If we use the money spent on fighting the illegal drug trade to educate these poor youths we…
consultant on the drug problem to the president’s Domestic Council. Both of these men would gain fame a few years later as Watergate conspirators. Under these men, instead of being understood as a health and social problem, drug addiction was defined as a law and order problem. On July 1, 1973 the War on Drugs was solidified with the creation of the Drug Enforcement Administration.(15) The DEA, which was the result of merging the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs with various other…
to divert. It is the U.S. government’s fault that drugs are even remotely linked to terrorism. This is because the profitability of illicit drugs is the direct result of the prohibition of drugs by the government, and the U.S. is a leader of the world and is therefore the model for most other country’s prohibition laws on the same drugs. Marijuana is grown everywhere across the United States and is one of the most widely used drugs. People in every state grow marijuana for their own…
The U.S. government eventually began establishing statutes against individuals possessing and using the drug. During a 1914 Congressional hearing, Congress approved the Harrison Act, which was a federal tax statute aimed at managing cocaine and attending to the dramatic increased addiction to the drug (Davis, 2011). Initially, southern legislators objected government regulation on cocaine due to its high demand and their suspicions over the power of the federal government (Davis, 2011). Southern…
Drugs have been around for thousands of years and were used for a variety of reasons. They were used for healing aliments that one might have and for recreational reasons. However, as time went on and society advanced so did its outlook on any form of a controlled substance and their uses. We began to see the benefits they had and developed other ways to use them for everyday illnesses, which wasn’t anything new, but we finally had the ability to understand why they helped. In the late 1800s Coke-a-Cola…
basketball player and first-round draft pick of the Boston Celtics. Len Bias died on June 17, 1986 due to heart failure caused by crack cocaine. In drafting the bill, the prime factor for necessitating a mandatory minimum sentence was the quantity of drugs involved in the crime. As Eric Sterling, then assistant counsel for the House Subcommittee of Crime, states, "Numbers were being picked out of thin air." Less than three months after being drafted, the bill was signed by President Reagan. One result…
(because it fits into this category) can be a very profitable in its import and export for a country even if it is outlawed as illegal. One country that has struggled endlessly with this drug, its illegal usage, and decriminalization is Jamaica. Using Jamaica as a model for the more in-depth study of “the war against drugs” proves to be most interesting in that Jamaica has had a long and economically fluctuating history with marijuana. Henceforth, to lead us into the study of Jamaica and its legalization…
Certainly many violent and property criminals use drugs. But only a small percentage of drug users commit violent or property crimes. Drug offenders are far more likely to recidivate for a drug offense than for a violent offense or property crime. Is drug use to blame for the crimes drug users do commit? Benson and Rasmussen suggest that the reverse is closer to the mark: Many criminals who use drugs did not begin to do so until after they began committing nondrug crimes. A Bureau of Justice Statistics…
The money that drug users use on money is equivalent to those who gamble or spend it on frivolous things leaving both lives at smaller quality, yet the drug users are persecuted. Although the use of drugs has the same affects on other people’s life choices drug users are persecuted and people who make equally life-threatening choices are left to make those choices with no persecutions. Another argument against the use of drugs is the harm it potentially has against the people around the users.…
16). Drugs corrupt the minds of even the most honest American citizens. Making drugs legal could put the life of any American at risk. Some drugs that are in the process of possibly being legalized for medicinal use are also a threat to American life. Marijuana is the most popular of drugs that can be used for medicinal purposes. Though the dosage prescribed would not be permanently harmful to the patient, it would be very easy for him to become dependent on the drug. Marijuana is known as a…
this. The drug dealers both respected and feared extradition, and recognized the threat. When the Colombian Justice Minister openly supported extradition, he was assassinated. Still, the U.S. pressures the extradition issue. In 1985, anti-Government Guerillas, mainly composed of the drug dealers, attack the Colombian Supreme Court. The extradition requests were destroyed, and eleven Supreme Court Justices were killed. In total, over 200 people lost their lives. At this point, the drug lords are…
The government has made some gains, but at a heavy price. A total of 34,612 people have died in drug-related killings in Mexico in the first four years (Siddique). Most of these killing are between cartel rivals fighting for the control of territories. There are five cartels operating in Mexico: the Sinaloa, the Gulf, Juarez, Tijuana, the Zetas. The major cartels are the Gulf, Sinaloa and Juarez (Cook 21). Many of these cartels have joined together forming powerful alliances known as the “Federation”…
criminal justice system is paid with this budgeted drug money. There has been a historical increase in judges, lawyers, police officers and the creation of entire government organizations that directly make money as a result of the prohibition. It is not only law enforcement side that would like to see prohibition remain intact; it is also the drug dealers that would like the policies to remain as they are. (Harvey) Prohibition causes the handling of drugs to become a risky business and, therefore, drives…
In February 2011 the United States began sending unarmed drones to collect information on drug traffickers. Later in August, the United States started in cross border raids, sending CIA operatives and older military personnel to aid the Mexican military. In addition to assisting Mexico, the United States increased security on our side and spends approximately $3 billion on securing the border. Decriminalization is a highly disputed policy option, in November of 2012 two states in the United States…
substance abuse is not the fault of the addict, but it is the addict’s responsibility to change the behavior. Counselors will point out and explain the connection between the destructive behaviors that lead to the abuse of substances such as alcohol and drugs. The use of relapse prevention programs has…
of their day combating drug related crimes, whether staking out a dealer on the corner or convicting a dealer for possession, too many of our tax dollars are wasted combating drug crimes. Over half of the prison inmates incarcerated between 2009 -10 are there due to drug related offenses, costing an average of 6.2 billion dollars annually. And more than half of those were non-violent offenses (sales, possessions, and attempt to distribute). As noted in the textbook, Drugs and Society, Chapter 3;…
Legalizing drugs would increase our economy’s revenue. Lets examine prohibition era as an example. Alcohol was constantly sold and used, but people were doing it illegally. The creation of 21st amendment repealed prohibition and alcohol taxes were increased. If the government were to use the same formula with drugs. Once taxes are applied to the sale of drugs , revenues would increase dramatically. The same companies that manufacture over the counter and prescription drugs can bare the responsibility…
markets. Before drugs would be smuggled on a major scale, Mexico would supply alcohol to the U.S. when alcohol was prohibited. It was not until the early 1970’s when drug smugglers began to distribute drugs on a larger scope. During the early 1990’s Colombia being one of the biggest exporters of narcotics in history, led by Pablo Escobar, who had a wide range of organized crime affiliations throughout Latin America. Pablo Escobar was a Colombian drug lord and he smuggled narcotics all the way to…
The War on Drugs to stop terrorism is a problem for both foreign and domestic. There are three steps that must be taken to compete against the War on Drugs. First the drugs must not be harvested. This is not an easy task, especially in the Bolivian region where the economy relies heavily on the farming of the coca leaves. With a region that relies so heavily on the crop, stopping the production and distribution of the illegal substance will not come easily. The second step is to stop to trafficking…
According to Sanho Tree, director of the Drug Policy Project at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, D.C., “The American war on drugs is not only failing, it's actually perpetuating drug trafficking, profiteering and drug use all over the world.” The more we fight this war, the cheaper the drugs become, the more available they are and the higher the purity. One doesn't need to resort to conspiracy theory to know why this war is failing. It is time the administration faces the problem first…
propaganda technique to convince the public against the use of drugs is by relating it to crime (Solomon,1968, 126) and terrorism. A month after the September 11th attacks on the World Trade Center, Tony Blair stated in his speech that ninety percent of heroin sold in Brittan was imported from Afghanistan. Using the stereotype that people from Afghanistan were terrorists, Tony Blair connected drugs and heroin with terrorism and that buying drugs from Afghanistan is an indirect tool for their terrorism…
The sentences that different drug users get is a double standard when it comes to the type of situation the drug offender might be in. Different drug offenders actually get longer sentences than other and most of them cannot get anything lower than twenty years. This is due to the minimum mandatory sentences placed during this time period of the “War on Drugs”. “[The] laws that enforce the policies differentially punish those who sell particular types of drugs and those with the least involvement…
of the War on Drugs. The United States commands the largest demand of the narcotics that are produced in foreign countries. The efforts to thwart and rid society of the drug epidemic have fallen short of success. Still billions and billions of dollars are still annually budgeted towards the fight. The United States has “fought” narcotics with the establishment of many government agencies and the creation of international programs to seek, detain and prevent the flow of drugs. Still the (Drug Enforcement…
The American experience with drugs at the end of the 19th century demonstrated the serious problems that can be caused by the general use of a wide range of legally available drugs. These problems were judged unacceptable by Americans of that day. Prohibition was the result of nonpartisan public outcry over the negative effects of unrestricted drug use. (Trebach 41-44) The most important question in regards to legalization is how it would affect use and abuse in this country. Advocates of legalization…
just once. Using drugs can cause memory loss, flashbacks, hallucinations, addiction, blurred vision, panic, irregular heartbeat, and even death. Drugs can kill your brain cells, something that is irreplaceable. There is not one single good reason to do drugs or experiment with drugs. The government is aware that there is indeed a drug problem in the United States. Over the years, tougher laws against drugs have been enacted. There are longer jail sentences and punishments for drug offenders. However…
Establishing the real facts about drug use is the first step in understanding the flaws inherent in the policy of prohibition. First, cocaine is not an addictive drug, and according to a 1993 National Institute on Drug Abuse report, less than one percent of cocaine users become daily users. Cocaine's non-addictive status comes from the fact that users who stop using it have no withdrawal symptoms, which is one of the three criteria to define something as addictive. Like marijuana, cocaine only…
supply reduction, where a country focuses on reducing the supply of drugs to consumers, which Mares explains as being both economically and politically attractive to policy makers. They assume that if the supply decreases, prices of these drugs will rise, and the demand will decrease. The focus is not so much on finding and punishing the people who use drugs but the people who produce them and “push” them on these “victim” drug-users (Mares p. 30). Supposedly this strategy could potentially focus…
prohibitionists just believe that drugs are immoral. An extremely outspoken opponent of decriminalizing drugs is William J. Bennett who said, “Law enforcement is not a political option or a policy question; it is a moral imperative” (Gottfried 76). Prohibitionists also believe if drugs were made legal they would be cheaper and more readily available and they are afraid that children could be at risk (Gottfried 77). Citizens who are for the reform of marijuana or any drug have obvious opposite feelings…
The beginning of the drug war was caused by the fear of the mass migration of ethnic minorities would disrupt the hierarchy system that maintains ‘social orders’ in America (Johnson & Jones, 1998). In order for the rulers to remain in power over the powerless, they had to label behaviours as deviant through rule making and rule enforcement (Johnson & Jones, 1998). Out of dissatisfaction or fear of the existing conditions, the rule makers “may assign ‘new’ meanings to certain behaviours and transform…
A new report indicates that the economic cost of lost productivity from drug-related incarcerations is considerably higher than the cost associated with drug use. The Prime Minister of your country is weighing the option of proposing new legislation which experiments with models of legal regulation of certain illicit drugs, including the decriminalization of marijuana possession. The proposed policy has received sharp criticism from members of the law enforcement, as well as groups of parents and…
Ever since the war on drugs was started, most of the battle has been concentrated in Latin America, leaving trails of devastation from deep within Latin America up to the largest consumer of those substances. After years of fighting, and series’ of more and more aggressive policies put into place by the United States, drugs are just as prevalent if not more so than when the war began. Illegal drugs are still easy to obtain, demand for such substances has skyrocketed and cartels are becoming increasingly…
proletariat life, thus alleviating the stress from labor and placing it somewhere else such as vice laws, including the Drug War. MINORITIES: THE NEW PROLETARIAT There are several parallels which should be addressed when viewing the Drug War in the light of conflict theory. If Marx's original conflict theory is based upon pitting the capitalist against the worker, then the Drug War…
to lead the way in the fight against drugs, by creating such policies as the Harrison Act and organizations like the DEA. These attempts by the United States to fight drugs from an enforcement side have created more problems than they have solved. One needs to only look at the past decade or so since George Bush declared his own personal “war on drugs” to see the damaging effects of the current and old US policy on drugs. Richard Nixon created the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) in 1973 in attempt…
After viewing the documentary: America's War on Drugs - The Prison Industrial Complex, it is clear that the Criminal Justice System is in desperate need of reconstruction and repair with policies such as the mandatory minimum sentencing act which has proven to be unsuccessful and unjust in its efforts to deter 'criminals from committing illegal acts' as seen with the increase of incarcerations of the American people and the devastating effect it has had on those in prison and the family members of…
Cities on both sides of the Mexican-American border are continuously terrorized by drug cartels as a way to keep control over shipping routes and silence from citizens. (Wilkinson 2008) In 2010 an employee of the United States Embassy in Mexico was murdered along the Mexico-American border. This added tension to the ongoing drug trafficking problem and raised the issue of Mexico’s inability to control its own borders. Felipe Calderon, the President of Mexico, stated that he is seeking a stronger…
States. A summary of the war the United States is waging on drugs is necessary before any comparison and contrast position can be made with the Prohibition Era. In the past several decades, millions of people in America have become involved in illegal drugs, either through usage or through the importation, manufacture, sale and distribution of these illegal substances. According to United States Justice Department statistics, of the millions of Americans who use illegal drugs today, 2.7 million of…
Moreover, a clear understanding of these clauses will dictate faithful obeisance to its meaning, and not transgression; for if the life of the drug war hangs on a breach of the constitution, justice demands remediation. Understanding the Supremacy clause and its consequences would settle many disputes; however, we are only concerned with one issue: drug laws. Most people would claim that federal law trumps state law by citing the supremacy clause; yet this would be deceptive. The Supremacy clause…
First of all, the Harrison act was only intended to regulate the sale of these drugs, making them available over the counter in small doses and in larger doses with a doctor’s prescription. Only later did the courts and law enforcement interpret this law as a prohibition. Reasons for the law included the association of opium with the widely despised Chinese-American community and lobbying by medical and pharmaceutical associations who sought a monopoly on the sale of narcotics, but the primary concern…
any charge to the farmers (Kirk 243). The US again failed to address the reality that entire peasant villages were built around the coca industry, when devising the Dignity Plan in Bolivia. This plan took effect between1998 and 2002. The war on drugs in Bolivia meant the indiscriminate destruction of both legal and illegal crops by the country’s military. Legal crops destroyed included staple foods and exotic crops. The plan resulted in human rights violations and the dislocation of thousands…
They were given the drug without knowing what they were taking. In fact, addictions to morphine were largely due to lack of knowledge on the drug. The addiction was the result of accidental use and insufficient information on its effects. Drug addictions were increasing and something had to be done to help the situation. The Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 was the single most effective law passed to help alleviate the effects of improper drug use. The Act accomplished three things: 1)…