“Drugs are a waste of time. They destroy your memory and your self-respect and everything that goes along with your self esteem.” - Kurt Cobain. The term “War on Drugs” came about in 1971 during a press conference given by Richard Nixon. Since then, many initiatives have been put into motion to try and stop the tyranny of drugs, although some think that they are failing. Although some say initiatives to fight drugs have been reportedly failing, countries should continue to fight the war on drugs because if not, the people involved with drugs will continue to cause problems within a country, cause a state of distrust between countries, and cause a state of panic within the everyday person. Many people believe that the world should try different …show more content…
Other reports say that these initiatives cost more on taxpayers, “The direct monetary cost to American taxpayers of the war on drugs includes spending on police, the court personnel used to try drug users and traffickers, and the guards and other resources spent on imprisoning and punishing those convicted of drug offenses. Total current spending is estimated at over $40 billion a year” (Becker and Murphy). The temporary costs of these initiatives will be worth the overall cost of death and despair caused by drugs. Also the cost of drugs would decrease drastically if people continued the war on drugs and got rid of drugs entirely. Some people are saying laws would help eliminate some of the problems, but it only strengthens others. In the Philippines, there is a law that allows people to shoot others freely if they believe they are drug dealers. The law making it legal to kill drug dealers has gotten out of hand. Michael Siaron, a innocent pedicab driver, was shot down by a person who claimed Michael was a drug pusher. The Filipino president
While the War on Drugs may have been portrayed as a colorblind movement, Nixon’s presidency and reasoning for its implementation solidifies that it was not. Nixon coined the term “War on Drugs” in his 1971 anti-drug campaign speech, starting the beginning of an era. He voiced, “If there is one area where the word ‘war’ is appropriate, it is in the fights against crime” (DuVernay, 13th). This terminology solidified to the public that drug abusers were an enemy, and if the greatest publicized abusers were black, then black people were then enemy. This “war” started by Nixon claimed it would rid the nation of dealers, but in fact, 4/5 of arrests were for possession only (Alexander, 60). Nixon employed many tactics in order to advance the progress
Making drugs illegal has wasted a vast amount of money, prison space, police time, and caused epidemics of violent crime.
New York: New York, 2010. Print. The. Should the U.S. Continue Its War on Drugs? Opposing Views: Issues, Experts, Answers.
Almost everybody on Long Island, and probably all around the world, has been prescribed a drug by a doctor before— whether it was to knock out a nasty virus, or relieve pain post injury or surgery. However, what many people don’t realize is that these drugs can have highly addictive qualities, and more and more people are becoming hooked, specifically teenagers. But when does harmlessly taking a prescription drug to alleviate pain take the turn into the downward spiral of abuse? The answer to that question would be when the user begins taking the drug for the “high” or good feelings brought along with it—certainly not what it was prescribed for (1). The amount of teens that abuse prescription medications has been rapidly increasing in recent
Now is not the time for the United States federal government to decriminalize or legalize illegal drugs, including marijuana. However, nor can the government continue to do nothing about the financially, economically, and socially expensive domestic drug policy it currently follows. The United States Congress should pass legislation to remove mandatory minimum penalties from drug offenses, and the Department of Justice and the Bureau of Prisons should add in-house rehabilitation programs for its incarcerated drug offenders. These policies would increase the cost-effectiveness of current drug policy and reduce crime and drug use, and do not face the political obstacles or have the uncertain consequences of decriminalizing or legalizing drugs.
The war on drugs began with the presidential term of President Nixon in the 1970s. According to drugpolicy.org, “He dramatically increased the size and presence of federal drug control agencies, and pushed through measures such as mandatory sentencing and no-knock warrants. Nixon temporarily placed marijuana in Schedule One, the most restrictive category of drugs.”
It is also very important for people to know about this topic because the issue is not only about drugs but also the growth of inequality between the rich and poor, black and white, upper class and lower class in this country. The war of drugs deals with issues about why they were passed through congress and if there were motives that deals connect directly to black communities. The issues where brought about in Dan Baum book entitled “Smoke and Mirrors” where John Erlichmann, the chief domestic affair advisor talk about how the Drug War fever has been escalated and manipulated from its modest beginnings at the start of the Nixon administration and clarifies the various interests which that escalation has served. He talks about the Drug War on “blacks” and “hippies” but politicians could not say that so had to say the War on “heroin” and “Marijuana”. He also said that “We knew drugs were not the health problem we were making it out to be, but there were political benefits to be gained." This shows that there is more to the war of drugs that the government is letting on.
Many feel today we are loosing the war on drugs. People consider legalization unnecessary. They feel that it will increase the amount of drug use throughout the world. They state that in many cases, drug users who have quit quit because of trouble with the law. Legalization would eliminate the legal forces that discourage the users from using or selling drugs. They also say that by making drugs legal, the people who have never tried drugs for fear of getting caught by the law will have no reason to be afraid anymore and will become users (Potter 1998).
In 1971, President Nixon declared a “war on drugs.” He substantially increased the presence and size of federal drug agencies, and passed legislation like mandatory sentencing laws and unconstitutional warrants. Nixon even listed marijuana as a Schedule One drug, the most constrictive drug category. Over forty years later, the U.S is still waging a war on drugs, spending billions of dollars per year and creating major social issues.
The war on drugs in our culture is a continuous action that is swiftly lessening our society. This has been going on for roughly 10-15 years and has yet to slow down in any way. Drugs continue to be a problem for the obvious reason that certain people abuse them in a way that can lead to ultimate harm on such a person. These drugs do not just consist of street drugs (marijuana, cocaine, ecstasy), but prescription medications as well. Although there are some instances where drugs are being used by subjects excessively, there has been medical research to prove that some of these drugs have made a successful impact on certain disorders and diseases.
The “War on Drugs” is the name given to the battle of prohibition that the United States has been fighting for over forty years. And it has been America’s longest war. The “war” was officially declared by President Richard Nixon in the 1970’s due to the abuse of illegitimate drugs. Nixon claimed it as “public enemy number one” and enacted laws to fight the importation of narcotics. The United States’ War on Drugs began in response to cocaine trafficking in the late 1980’s. As the war continues to go on, winning it hardly seems feasible. As stated by NewsHour, the National Office of Drug Control Policy spends approximately nineteen billion dollars a year trying to stop the drug trade. The expenses shoot up, indirectly, through crime, hospital stays and such. However, people spend approximately three times as much money buying drugs as the government spends fighting against them. How can this war be won when the government has to spend so much money combating in opposition to it??
Illicit drug trade and usage is an enormous problem that several countries have attempted to address by creating and enforcing policies. In the 1960’s, in the United States, marijuana and lysergic acid diethylamide (LCD) were used as recreational drugs and the effects of using the controlled substances were unknown at that time. Illicit drugs symbolized disobedience and youth rebellion against the United States government. The individuals that were partaking in this type of recreational activity were becoming highly addicted to these control substances. Therefore, President Richard Nixon declared the war on drugs in 1971, by saying “ in order to fight and defeat the enemy, it is necessary to wage a new, all out defense.”
Drug abuse has been a hot topic for our society due to how stimulants interfere with health, prosperity, and the lives of others in all nations. All drugs have the potential to be misapplied, whether obtained by prescription, over the counter, or illegally. Drug abuse is a despicable disease that affects many helpless people. Majority of those who are beset with this disease go untreated due to health insurance companies who neglect and discriminate this issue. As an outcome of missed opportunities of treatments, abusers become homeless, very ill, or even worst, death.
Perhaps the most important factor is the responsibility that each individual has to do their best to continue to fight the war on drugs. This begins at home, educating our young people from a young age on the dangers of using drugs and experimenting with it.
They started slowly developing agencies like the (BNDD) Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs, which was founded in 1968 by the Linden Johnson administration. Congress also started passing laws like the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act in 1970. It was not until June 17, 1971, when the war on drugs truly began. At a press conference in the White House, President Richard J. Nixon officially declared war on drugs. He stated, “drug abuse is a public enemy, number one in the United States.”