War On Drugs

War on Drugs

It is no secret to most people that drugs are a big issue in our country. Whether it is the pharmaceutical companies trying to sell a cure for anything you can think of to the sale and distribution of illegal substances. Even though I feel that it is a crime how much the big pharmaceutical companies are making off of their products, the drug trade is definitely a more pertinent topic to discuss. It is my opinion that while the drug problem in our country needs to be taken care of, the approach to it that has been taken by government is not as affective as one would hope.

Drug control has been a very large issue for most of our country's history and has grown even larger as of late. This is due to the rise of drug trafficking and its association with other areas of crime that law enforcement has to deal with. The first actual laws making certain drugs illegal were put into place just before the beginning of the 20th century and the failed attempts at alcohol prohibition occurred not to long after this. So, if our country has had laws against certain drugs for a good part of our countries history, shouldn't we have a plan put into motion that has produced results by now? You would think so, but this has not been the case in most of my findings.

Knowing that we have had over 100 years of fighting against the sale of drugs and on occasion alcohol you would think that all of this practice would have caused us to find a successful mode to combat the sale of illegal drugs. This is a debatable topic, because some people believe the way we are fighting this war presently is way to harsh or just not working and we should find a new way. While on the other side of this argument there are those who feel that the aggressive approach that we employ will eventually win the fight. To add to people's negative views of our police officers, it is also a fact that crooked cops are still around and may have larger numbers than before.

The nation's war on drugs can be traced all the way back to November of 1880, when the U.S. and China completed an agreement which prohibited the shipment of opium between the two countries. By February 1887, the 49th Congress enacted legislation making it a misdemeanor for anyone found guilty of violating this ban on American soil. This would later evolve into the Food and Drug Act in1906. In actuality, all this act did was make sure that labels on food items were truthful in their ingredients so that illicit drugs weren't place in foods. During this same time many states started banning alcohol and other drugs. In 1914, the Harrison Narcotics Act was put into place to regulate the sale of opium, heroin, and cocaine around the nation. This act was basically used to set up a tax on these drugs and not to create a prohibition. This was not the resulting effect, as prices skyrocketed to levels that eventually made it feel like a prohibition. This is seen as the start of the drug war.

Next the 18th Amendment was passed in 1920, which prohibited the sale of all alcohol in the United States. In the beginning the prohibition was successful and caused a drop in alcohol consumption, but organized criminals eventually saw the opportunity that this created and illegally gave people the alcohol they wanted. This caused alcohol usage to rise to more elevated levels than before the prohibition was put into place and also caused more crime and violence to accompany it. It was plain to see that these social problems were caused because of the 18th amendment, so in 1933 the 21st amendment was ratified which ended alcohol prohibition. In 1937 a new prohibition was put into place, this time on marijuana which at that time was legal and actually a commonly used drug in medicine. Then the Drug Abuse Control Amendments were passed in 1965, which created the Bureau of Drug Control. It's an interesting fact that from 1965 on, the homicide rate in America steadily rose along with drug use among 12-17 year olds.

Then in 1970 President Nixon started the "modern" war on drugs, as the Comprehensive Drug Abuse and Control Act. This put a total prohibition on certain substances, and provided federal law agencies to enforce this. Nixon organized these agencies into the Drug Enforcement Agency, or DEA. Nixon's term marks the first time that money is used more for treatment instead of for law enforcement. A few years later Nancy Reagan began the "Just Say No" campaign, which caused a drop in drug use for a while, then a rapid rise. The National Drug Control Policy is then formed by President Reagan in 1988.

During the 1980's, police departments started to use more military oriented strategies when performing drug raids. SWAT teams, which were created to handle terrorist situations, were now used to perform routine drug searches and raids. From 1980 to 1995 SWAT team use quadrupled. To go along with this, para military units increased tenfold during this time period.

Reports have been released that show drug treatment and education is 7 times more cost effective than incarceration. Since 1996 when California passed Prop 215, which legalizes medical marijuana, 7 states have made medical marijuana legal and 27 states have made some kind of medical marijuana access laws. During this time period the use of deadly force by police rose 34%.

To date there are over 30,000 heavily armed military trained police units in the United States. It is estimated that 40 billion dollars are spent on federal drug programs and 20 to 30 billion dollars are spent on incarceration of drug related felons. The drug trade has been estimated to be a 60 to 70 billion dollar a year industry, which is about a 30 to 40 billion dollar tax loss. This has caused the Supreme Court to be in favor of increasing police power and decreasing citizen privacy.

The main argument for the War on Drugs is that drugs are bad and that we should not tolerate them. The people who agree with this argument also believe that the only way to end this epidemic is to incarcerate those associated with drug use, especially those who supply the drugs. Drug use will increase if we relax the laws that we have now is a belief that those for the argument share. To go along with this is their feeling that zero tolerance and abstaining from drug use are the only reasonable approaches to this problem. Also, lowering civil rights, increasing police power, and increasing spending on the war are justifiable if it means victory for their side.

Another group of people within this faction believe that it's not the drugs that are bad, but that some people are too irresponsible. This is a totally separate issue than blaming just the drugs. Alcohol is not seen as that bad of a substance when compared to heroin, but it can become dangerous in the hands of an