The Drug War: The War On Drugs

Improved Essays
A prime example of the drug war’s backward logic is its distortion of the basic economic principle of supply and demand. The federal government funnels vast resources into criminal justice and interdiction policies intended to reduce the supply of drugs, while neglecting treatment and education strategies that could help reduce drug demand (Supply and Demand, 2015). This particular spotlight on supply decrease has neglected to control composed wrongdoing syndicates and subdue drug exchange related brutality. The high as can be benefits of the unlawful medication exchange guarantee that every kingpin who falls might be supplanted with another, making supply-side prohibition an interminable fight. Training and treatment programs yield more perpetual …show more content…
The War on Drugs in this sense is however an advantageous, yet off base, allegory. Rather the War on Drugs ought to be comprehended as an uncommon instance of what war has dependably been-the work of power and brutality against specific groups, and/or their establishments, to achieve certain political destinations. Race has assumed a vital part throughout the years in recognizing the groups that turned into the objectives of the medication war, hence uncovering their social practices and foundations to military-style assault and police control. In spite of the fact that the medication war has absolutely tried to kill controlled substances and obliterate the systems set up for their dissemination, this is just part of the story. As I should clarify, state endeavors to control medications are likewise a route for prevailing gatherings to express racial force. Before tending to the verifiable and socially settled in association of medication control and race, I first need to investigate the sources of the latest round of American against medication strategies the purported War on

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    Summary Of Drug Crazy

    • 827 Words
    • 4 Pages

    The very mention of drugs summons demonic images: needles, babies addicted at birth, violence. No issue generates such a visceral reaction in people like the topic of drugs. In Mike Gray’s book “Drug Crazy: How We Got Into This Mess and How We Can Get Out,” his analysis of the drug war in America explores the mass hysteria surrounding addiction that was nourished with misinformation. Based on the history Gray has compiled, coupled with modern studies, the drug war appears to be a lost cause, now and into the foreseeable future. In 1909, Dr. Hamilton Wright was appointed as the third U.S delegate to the International Opium Commission at Shanghai and became “personally responsible for shaping the international narcotics laws as we know them today.”…

    • 827 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    At the time that William J. Bennett, former Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, gave his speech at Harvard University, former Vice President George H. W. Bush was beginning to involve himself in the media coined term “War on Drugs”. This evidently led to several academics to heavily criticize the effectiveness of making several drugs illegal, who Bennett called the “Intellectuals.” Bennett, in response to the criticism of these intellectuals, passionately claims that these individuals do not provide any practical reasons for drugs to be legalized. Instead, he believes that these intellectuals do not take the issue seriously. Bennett relies on plenty of emotional arguments to enhance his argument that drugs should remain…

    • 1126 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    One of the hottest topics that has been widely discussed lately is the “drug war”. A regular columnist and professor of economics at Samford University, Art Carden argues in his article Forbes, “Let’s Be Blunt: It’s Time to End the Drug War” for the end of the drug prohibition. The purpose of the article is to persuade the readers that the war on drugs has been a costly failure, causing unintended negative economic consequences. Overall, Carden’s argument is convincing because he offers a strong, clear thesis with persuasive logical evidences as supports.…

    • 633 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Dickinson, Tim, and Ethan Nadelmann. "The War on Drugs." Rolling Stone no. 1261 (May 19, 2016): 30-35. Academic Search Premier (accessed June 16,…

    • 546 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Over the past several decades while crime rates have gone down, imprison rates have continued to increase. Chapter 2 looks into some of the reason why taking note that a majority of those incarcerate are of African American decent. While they only make up 13% of American society yet by 1991 imprisonment increased by 54% Tonry, correlates this as a result of the war on drugs that began in the seventies (Cole, & Gertz, 2013). According to a survey done in 1991 by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, it found that drug use was not an unequivocal balance between ethnicities, leaving the question as to what is the missing part of the equation and is what Tonry further discuses in this chapter. Identifying that there is no real distinction between…

    • 883 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Throughout the 1960’s and 1970’s, society’s perception of drug use in the United States was entirely different as opposed to today. In the eyes of society, drugs were used as a symbol of peace and freedom during a time of protests and reform movements for equality. However, in response to this large scale drug use in our society, the Controlled Substance Act was enacted in 1970, which placed chemical substances and the control of select plants under federal jurisdiction. A year later in June of 1971, President Nixon declared a “war on drugs” which enhanced federal control on drugs. New Jersey in particular, implemented mandatory sentences for individuals found guilty of drug use near a school zone and imposed extensive length of those sentences.…

    • 288 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Violence is a serious problem of the contemporary society. Every year so called gang wars take away lives of thousands of people. Unfortunately, innocent people often become victims in these wars. Despite the fact that the government puts much effort trying to solve the problem of the high-crime level and the criminal war, the number of victims is still high. Dan Gardner in his article The Missing Piece to the Gang-Violence Debate states that drugs play an important role in the gang wars…

    • 123 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    At the beginning of the documentary entitled “To Kill the Messenger” (2014), President Ronald Reagan publicized that “drug abuse” is the number one public enemy in the United States. The objective of his presidency was policy that would prevent drug trafficking and substance abuse. In October of 1982, Reagan announced the famous “War on Drugs.” He used military terms, such as “battle,” “war,” and “surrender” to describe his campaign to combat drugs (Nunn, 2002). During the campaign, Reagan increased the monetary resources allocated to his anti-drug movement and increased the quantity of drug task.…

    • 373 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    In addition the war on drugs should be eradicated because its harsh prison sentences do not equate the crimes committed. Furthermore the war on drugs should be addressed as a public health issue, not one that is unfairly penalized by the criminal justice system. Incarceration, Weapon of War The so-called “War on Drugs” is one that…

    • 1126 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Though president Nixon is often seen as having started the modern war on drugs, his administration’s actual role in drug policy legislation and enforcement never lived up to the inflated rhetoric surrounding the issue. The war on drugs, from a policy standpoint, was largely created under the Reagan administration. Despite having fewer than 2% of the American public reporting that they believed drugs were the most important issue the country faced (Alexander, 2010 p. 49), the Reagan administration announced its war on drugs in 1982. Unlike Nixon’s rhetorical war on drugs, the Reagan administration began creating impactful laws and enforcement mechanisms. Beginning by transferring funds from drug education and drug treatment programs into drug related enforcement mechanisms was only a small indicator of what was to come next.…

    • 1021 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Reagan ranted and raved about the War on Drugs, started the ridiculously ineffective “Just Say No” campaign, and significantly increased the budgets of many federal law enforcement agencies; it was pure hypocrisy (73). The populations of jails and prisons increased exponentially all across the country, becoming incredibly overcrowded. The War on Drugs makes it nearly impossible for people like Susan Burton and the many women she has helped to break the cycle. A profoundly flawed criminal justice system, systemic racism, redlining, education policy, and poverty are surely all to blame (8). It is a system that survives on a culture of power, a system that runs on the “idea that punishment was always the answer and was always deserved, that getting tough would solve everything” (123).…

    • 2110 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    On September 15, Jay Z released an informative video titled “The War on Drugs Is an Epic Fail.” In the video Jay Z addressed the discrepancies of the drug war and its negative affects on society. The issues that were spoken about in the video have been the main points made in the anti-drug war argument. There has been many studies done on this topic which produced many supportive results. However, there still people who do not see the drug war as a failure.…

    • 1465 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    War On Drugs Failed

    • 2360 Words
    • 10 Pages

    The American war on drugs has been a problem since it began in the late 19th century. This so called “war” has been an embarrassment and a failure to the American nation. The war on drugs uses an excess of tax dollars, violates state and individual liberties, and is causing a speedy and frightening deterioration of the Constitution…

    • 2360 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Essay On War On Drugs

    • 1423 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Since the seventies there has been an ongoing war on U.S soil. This war first started by President Richard Nixon and later enforced by every president following him is called “The War on drugs”. With thirty plus year fighting this so called war, one would think that it is being won, but unfortunately this is not the case. The war on drug is not only being lost, but costing the country millions, lowering drug cost, increasing corruption, rising crime rates, and increasing drug use. Because of these reasons is why the war on drugs should be ended at once.…

    • 1423 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Superior Essays

    The drug market is stronger than ever, yet the drug war has been in full force for several decades. The effects here in the United States, are quite similar to the effects internationally, but there are many solutions other than a drug war, to stop the use of drugs. Nobel laureate and economist Milton Friedman remarked on the issue, “However much harm drugs do to those who use them…seeking to prohibit their use does even more harm both to users of drugs and to the rest of us…Legalizing drugs would simultaneously reduce the amount of crime and improve law enforcement. It is hard to conceive of any other single measure that would accomplish so much to promote law and order” (Donohue 146). Friedman is right.…

    • 1405 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays