There are many different opinions and attributes on drugs and there are many different policies out in our societies. The images and the reputation of drugs is pouring in every corner we look, from radios to many different popular movies and what that does is convey a sense of evil and brutality that reveals immediate and brutal retaliation. The war on drugs is something that has a huge impact on society, it’s something that is extremely important especially when it comes to communities, broken families, the impact that the drug itself has on people’s lives and the actual destroyed community itself. War on drugs is an issue that isn’t only about the drugs but also about the growth of inequality between the rich and the poor, the black and the
Reagan’s Intensified War on Drugs In the 1970’s and 1980’s, a problem arose. Drugs became an issue as they had become widespread and heavily used. Both legal and illegal drugs were being abused. In 1971, President Nixon started a War on Drugs that would combat this issue.
The House I Live In, is a documentary that visually represents how the War on Drugs affected drug dealers, parents of those who took drugs, enforcers of the drug laws, prisoners convicted of drug violence or drug dealing, poor neighborhoods, and historical recordings about the war. All of these were captured through clips of interviews by those imprisoned due to drugs, experts from academic institutes, and police personnel. Moreover, it is a discursive narrative, since the film exhibits conversation of past and current results of the War on Drugs. Additionally, it has been a ‘hot button’ topic actively discussed by victims and authoritative enforcers of the war, outlining how ineffective it has
The War on Drugs was purely political. Before the ‘war’ was implemented, illegal drug use was not a prominent issue in society, it was actually declining. The police force just enforced federal orders. Alexander wrote, “ Huge cash grants were made to those law enforcement agencies that were willing to make drug-law enforcement a top priority.” Here, Alexander pinpoints exactly why the police force took part in the War on Drugs.
To understand the War on Drugs one needs to understand the cultural landscape that made the war on drugs advantageous. Ronald
Emerald Nau AF AM 110 Dr. Colapietro Exposition and Critique of 13th The documentary 13th by Ava DuVernay was a visual masterpiece. The documentary provided its viewers with an array of information that spanned throughout centuries and was eloquently executed in less than 2 hours. The central focus of the film was about how the 13th amendment shaped this country and its prison system.
“The New Jim Crow offers a devastating account of a legal system doing its job perfectly well. We have simply replaced one caste system with another one.” — Forbes Magazine “The New Jim Crow” sheds light on the racial amplitude within the war on drugs. It contends that federal drug policies unfairly target minorities, i.e. people of color. Due to this discrimination, people of color, black men particularly, are kept in a never ending cycle of living in poverty or behind bars.
The main issue when it comes to drugs in the United States is the inefficient policies and sentencing laws that have been created. Also, the injustices within these policies pertaining primarily to race. Once the “war on drugs” was claimed the only way the government and law enforcement saw fit to handling this skyrocketing issue was to incarcerate offenders. Although this solution worked for a while, other alternatives needed to be made. However, these alternatives were not made and this left the drug policies, sentencing laws, and injustices at a standstill.
Therefore conflict theory defines substance abuse as primarily being a problem that is a result of structural inequality and class conflict. Corporations such as the LCBO and various pharmacies financially benefit the most from drug use and also obtain the power to keep it available. In response to political, social, and power inequality, political and business groups are able to influence society’s depiction of drugs and their users. Many substances were considered legal but public opinion and the law altered when drugs were associated with ethnic minorities and crime. Conflict theorists argue that marginalized groups, the lower class, and other alienated groups are more likely to suffer negative ramifications as a result of addiction.
For example, agencies have been established with the sole intent to manage drug use and distribution and technology has been exclusively developed to detect the presence of drugs. Yet, evidence has indicated that such exhaustive efforts have been relatively unsuccessful. First, it has been assumed that drugs have perpetuated violence in society and based on this rationale, it was believed that by the suppressing the pervasiveness of drugs that incidents of violence would simultaneously diminish. However, reality has failed to align with the expectations that had initially been anticipated. Research findings have suggested that the decriminalization of drugs would result in a less adversarial drug market in which conflicts have tended to arise among dealers as well as between dealers and buyers (Common Sense for Drug Policy, 2007, p. 21).
In this essay, I will discuss the purpose of the War on Drugs. Note, that my knowledge and credibility will come from The New Jim Crow, written by Michelle Alexander. First, I will define exactly the reason why we created the War on Drugs. Next, we will look at the effects that War on Drugs created. Thirdly, we’ll discuss some of the excuses that law enforcement officers did and still do, to “crack down” drugs.
According to Alexander, it shifted structures of racial control. Alexander’s main concern was racial control and we can see it in her first chapter where she lays out the shift from slavery which has been brought by the Civil War; it also lays out the criminalization of the war on drugs in the mass incarceration rate. She is making an argument that the emergence of criminalization and the war on drugs occurred as a part of the civil rights and black power movements and she argues that the original strategy of the war on drugs was the depoliticization of law and order. The drug war was obviously a racialized strategy, but the language of drug use and criminality is a way to avoid that. In a wide range of policy contexts, trying to regulate substances, alcohol, and drug policy has traditionally been a political tool.
In his article, “Toward a Policy on Drugs,” Elliot Currie discusses “the magnitude and severity of our drug crisis” (para. 21), and how “no other country has anything resembling the American drug problem” (para. 21). The best way to describe America’s drug problem is that it is a hole continuously digs itself deeper. America’s drug issues were likely comparable to other country’s at one point in time, but today it can be blamed on the “street cultures” (para. 21) that continue to use and spread the use of illegal drugs. These street cultures transcend the common stereotype of drug users, such as low income communities in cities or welfare recipients, and can be found in every economic class and location. They are groups of people who have
The use of narcotics like cocaine, claimed many lives and earned widespread coverage by media and news. Following this Nancy Reagan began the “War on Drugs”, a campaign to combat pre-existing drug usage and prevent future
As of recent, the war on drugs has been a very often discussed topic due to many controversial issues. Some people believe the War on Drugs has been quite successful due to the amount of drugs seized and the amount of drug kingpins arrested. I believe this to be the wrong mindset when it comes to the war on drugs. The war on drugs isn’t a winnable one so we must do all that is possible to assist those who struggle with drug addiction and decriminalize small amounts of drugs. These minor changes in the way we combat drugs will create significant change and have lasting effects.