The history of drug use dates back for thousands of years with diverse purposes throughout humanity. According to Levinthal (2012), the drug-taking behavior gained federal awareness in the early 1900s, due to the lack of drug control regulations. Moreover, Levinthal (2012) mentions four major drug control laws which were established, including: (1) The Harrison Narcotic Act 1914, (2) The Marijuana Tax Act 1937, (3) The Boggs Act 1951, and (4) The Controlled Substance Act 1970. The drug control laws
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. History of U.S Drug Policy: While laws prohibiting the use of drugs, in one form
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
incarceration” (Subramanian, Ram and Delaney R, 2014). Members of Congress believed that stiff penalties would discourage people from committing illegal drug activity. Many of these penalties are mandatory – that is, judges may not impose a penalty less than the number of years chosen by Congress. However, many experts have claimed that these mandatory drug sentences have failed. The so
horror stories about drugs like crack-cocaine. From them, and probably from no other source, we learn that crack is immediately addictive in every case, we learn that it causes corruption, crazed violence, and almost always leads to death. The government tells us that we are busy fighting a war on drugs and so it gives us various iconic models to despise and detest : we learn to stereotype inner-city minorities as being of drug-infested wastelands and we learn to "witchhunt" drug users within our own
Abstract The War on Drugs that the United States has been fighting since the 1880’s has taken a toll on our society like no other issue. It has affected us on all fronts of social issues; immigration, imprisonment, poverty and resource draining costs. The question is then is it still worth it to fight it or move on to a new strategy. The War on Drugs: Is it time to switch strategies. Introduction The war on drugs in America has been fought since the 1880s when the Chinese Exclusion Act was
government in the '1980's. Historically speaking, this rhetoric stood as the ideology behind the War on Drugs as a logical and necessary response to a rise in drug crime and the emergence of crack cocaine in inner city communities (Alexander, 2011). The problem to be identified for the purposes of this report was the lack of an actual rise on crime. Nonetheless, the results were an increase in drug convictions. Those
The war on drugs has maintained an accumulation of prohibitions on illegal drugs and mandatory minimum sentencing strategies for drug offenders. Incarceration rates have also increased due to the increase of laws against illegal drugs. In Eugene Jarecki’s film, The House I Live In, Jarecki states that the penalties for crack users were harsher than penalties for regular cocaine users. This suggests that penalties are more of a double standard theory. The “War on Drugs” is more of a failure that places
The Center for Disease Control and Prevention between 2007 and 2010 nearly 25% of the elderly population were prescribed 5 or more medications. Due to the longer life expectancy, the aging population is more vulnerable to polypharmacy because they often have several comorbidities. The issue lies when several providers prescribe multiple medications and are not knowledgeable about the patient’s drug history. Polypharmacy is dangerous and usually results in numerous adverse drug reactions, noncompliance
word, realizing there is strength in numbers (“Sentencing that,” 2014). There are several ongoing projects working towards their goal. The Massachusetts Project is an initiative where FAMM is working on changing drug sentencing laws and the for the Florida Project FAMM is working on drug and gun laws where there are no alternatives other than minimum sentences. However, on a larger scale, on the national level,