Essay On Ronald Reagan Drug Laws

Not only did Ronald Reagan misuse funds, he passed new, strict drug laws that caused the arrest rates to jump tremendously. Reagan’s quest for a drug free America included shifting power, increasing prison sentences, and creating new drug related laws. For instance, well known reporter Tony Newman, writer of Nancy Reagan’s Role in the Disastrous War on Drugs wrote that when Reagan became president he shifted all the drug control resources from health agencies to the Department of Justice. Under his guidance in 1986 the worst of the federal mandatory minimum drug laws were passed into law.. These laws included the crack sentencing guidelines that meant that someone possessing just 5 grams (two sugar packets) worth of crack received an automatic 5 years in prison. These laws filled the prisons with low-level drug users(Newman 8). Ronald Reagan passed these laws with the intent to put all drug users in prison. Yet the majority of people in prison were African American. In other words, best put by the Drug …show more content…
When Reagan became president the rate of incarceration skyrocketed because of his unprecedented expansion of the war on drugs. The number of people behind bars for nonviolent drug law violations increased from 50,00 in 1980 to more than 400,000 by 1997(Newman 1) . When Ronald Reagan became president no one really foresaw him expanding the war on drugs as much as he did. He put more funds and police work into the effort than President Nixon ever did. A lot of people have been stressing over this drug problem for a long time, while people are thinking about the problems people are getting violent that still use drugs because they are so nervous to get caught. Only 5000 people died in 1980 from drugs while at least 10,000 americans died from drug related violence(Schaller 1).Not only were there more people being prosecuted, the stress from all of the arrests caused drug related