Is the war on drugs a complete failure of a policy that has not deterred drug use, has some racists roots, hurt innocents, ruined lives and is a waste of money? The policy has been in place for over forty years and we are no closer to ending it than we were forty years ago. Has the policy that has cost the United States over a trillion dollars yielded any results?
According to an opt-ed by Buchanan, Julian “the war on drug is nothing but a war on drug users.” Even though it was in reference to the United Kingdom the drug policies of the UK and the United Stated are similar enough that it hold relevance in this discussion. He states the main problem in the war on drugs is how the approach, punishment, fails to acknowledge the extent, nature …show more content…
The war on drugs has led to an explosive growth in the prison population in the United States, making the United States have the biggest prison population in the world. From 1980 to 2008, the number of people incarcerated in America quadrupled-from roughly 500,000 to 2.3 million people. The Number of people who were arrested in 2012 in the United States on nonviolent drug charges was over 1,550,000. Statistically the United States represents 5% of the world’s population, according to the ACLU the United States houses 25% of the prison population approximately 50% of prisoner are in for nonviolent offenses, primarily drug related "Between 2001 and 2013, more than half of prisoners serving sentences of more than a year in federal facilities were convicted of drug offenses”. The argument that the war on drugs has deterred drug use is obviously not the case and it has only burdened the …show more content…
According to an ACLU study drug use is approximately the same, at least one year, the white usage rate was higher. The others, the black usage rate was higher, but in no year were results for the two races that differ. For young people ages 18-25, the rates of use are higher for whites and more blacks say they 've never used marijuana. Despite this statistic when it pertains to incineration a black man more likely to be arrested for drug use. Only in Hawaii are the rates even close to equal, and that 's biased by the fact that blacks make up only 1.6 percent of the population. In the state with the second-lowest disparity, Alaska, blacks are still 1.6 times more likely to be arrested. In the state with the biggest, Iowa, blacks are 8.34 times more likely to be arrested. D.C. has the second biggest; in the District, blacks are 8.05 times more likely to be arrested. We can’t truly calculate the true racial disparity when it comes to the arrest, however because of the fact that the FBI/UCR arrest data does not identify Latinos as a distinct racial group and thus does not distinguish between white and Latino arrests. In other words, an arrest of a Latino is overwhelmingly categorized as a “white” arrest.
According to an opt-ed by Buchanan, Julian “the war on drug is nothing but a war on drug users.” Even though it was in reference to the United Kingdom the drug policies of the UK and the United Stated are similar enough that it hold relevance in this discussion. He states the main problem in the war on drugs is how the approach, punishment, fails to acknowledge the extent, nature …show more content…
The war on drugs has led to an explosive growth in the prison population in the United States, making the United States have the biggest prison population in the world. From 1980 to 2008, the number of people incarcerated in America quadrupled-from roughly 500,000 to 2.3 million people. The Number of people who were arrested in 2012 in the United States on nonviolent drug charges was over 1,550,000. Statistically the United States represents 5% of the world’s population, according to the ACLU the United States houses 25% of the prison population approximately 50% of prisoner are in for nonviolent offenses, primarily drug related "Between 2001 and 2013, more than half of prisoners serving sentences of more than a year in federal facilities were convicted of drug offenses”. The argument that the war on drugs has deterred drug use is obviously not the case and it has only burdened the …show more content…
According to an ACLU study drug use is approximately the same, at least one year, the white usage rate was higher. The others, the black usage rate was higher, but in no year were results for the two races that differ. For young people ages 18-25, the rates of use are higher for whites and more blacks say they 've never used marijuana. Despite this statistic when it pertains to incineration a black man more likely to be arrested for drug use. Only in Hawaii are the rates even close to equal, and that 's biased by the fact that blacks make up only 1.6 percent of the population. In the state with the second-lowest disparity, Alaska, blacks are still 1.6 times more likely to be arrested. In the state with the biggest, Iowa, blacks are 8.34 times more likely to be arrested. D.C. has the second biggest; in the District, blacks are 8.05 times more likely to be arrested. We can’t truly calculate the true racial disparity when it comes to the arrest, however because of the fact that the FBI/UCR arrest data does not identify Latinos as a distinct racial group and thus does not distinguish between white and Latino arrests. In other words, an arrest of a Latino is overwhelmingly categorized as a “white” arrest.