The House I Live in: The War on Drugs
The U.S. have been facing the war on drugs during many years. It 's war that will never end. A war that the U.S. will never be able to win. The drug war affects most of the poor and the minority groups, including their family members. You will think, why them? they are more vulnerable to get into the "biggest company," the drug industry, because this is the only "job" that will always be practically available to whoever wants to get money to either survive or get an easy profit. The use of drugs is the biggest enemy of America. In The House I Live In, African Americans are mentioned all the time. According to the Drug Use and Abuse, "there is a variety of statistics indicating that the 'war on drugs
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Around forty year ago, President Nixon declared a war to all the war users and sellers. The drug war became a national and a political issue. What about the "tough on crime" movement? is it working?
According to the Political Research Associates, "tough on crime":
Refers to a set of policies that emphasize punishment as a primary, and often sole, response to crime. Mandatory sentencing, Three strikes, truth-in-sentencing, quality of life policing, zero tolerance, and various other proposals that result in longer and harsher penalties and the elimination of rehabilitation and other programs are all contemporary examples of “tough on crime” policies. (43)
The one who came with this idea of having more stricted laws and no rehabilitation and other programs was President Nixon. This didn 't even worked because the U.S. still have the highest incarceration rate in the world, and they still a lot of people using and distributing drugs. It 's definitely that this movement didn 't work at all because the war on drugs started when President Nixon declared the war against our "biggest enemy," those who are involved with the drug
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In the House I Live In, there was one woman who looks like she uses drugs talks about why she sells drugs and to whom she sells to. Her name is Shanequa Benitez. In the documentary, she mentioned that she sells drugs to survive. She also says, that there are judges out there that are getting high, cops that use cocaine, and white educated people that have sufficient money to support their habit. Basically, she even sells drugs to the people who are supposed to enforce the law, those who are part of the criminal justice system. How the people pretend to end this war if even the members of the criminal justice system are using drugs. Let 's talk about what the law enforcement is doing to end this and how the war on drugs kind of
Prohibition increased the amount of crime taking place in american cities, murder, burglary and assault rates increased with the creation of the black market for illegal then substances. Creation of prohibition “helped” in creation of more potent alcohol, young people were exposed to harder liquors that were harmful to their health, due to the fact there was none legal labeling on the alcohol bottles. The current war on drugs had even more drastic results, government started to put more people in jail for not violent crimes, jails started to be filled with inmates that have used the drugs. The drug use policy that is enforced now and the method it uses consist of three parts; first is prevention intervention, second is treatment, and the third one enforcement interventions. The war on drugs in United States limited the tax revenue for the country, and it makes our country looks bad when to compare with other nations; US has the highest incarceration rates on this planet, even though its the country to promote
One of Nixon’s aide named John Ehrlichman admitted to the real reason why the War on Drugs was introduced, he stated “You want to know what this was really about. The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I’m
Due to the unprecedented expansion of the war on drugs by the Reagan administration started a long period of skyrocketing rates of incarceration. The huge number of offenders incarcerated for nonviolent drug offenders increased from 50,000 to 1980 to over 400,000 by the year 1997. In 1981, Nancy Reagan began a highly publicized antidrug campaign called “Just Say No”, as public concerns arose due to the portrayals by the media about people addicted to a smoke-able form of cocaine dubbed as “crack”. This campaign set the stage for zero tolerance policies implemented in the late 1980’s.
In the 1980’s the introduction of Crack Cocaine which was much more addictive to the users and more profitable for the drug dealers than Powder Cocaine. The prompted the administration to create Reagans War on Drugs which was supposed to make a major difference in the use of illegal drugs. By giving a much stiffer penalty to drug dealers for possession an even a moderate amount of illegal drugs. The fear of jail time was going be a deterrent to reduce the sale and illegal drug use. A minimum five year jail sentence would be handed out to someone caught with 500 grams of powder cocaine or with five grams of crack cocaine.
To build support for this war Reagan made sure to publicize this all over the media. It was a grand success. Images of “crack dealers” and “crack babies” were seen all over the news. These images of the purposed inner city life of people of color led to the war that is now known as the War on Drugs. In just a mere thirty years the incarceration population increased from 300,000 to 2 million.
Since, the majority of African-Americans live in areas of drug involvement, they are more likely to be racially profiled and investigated. This has created an uneven ethnic ratio in prisons and produced stereotypes that affect children that prevent them from becoming abiding citizens.
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.
However, these few changes to the practices and policies that are currently enforced could send things in a positive direction. Although it might not eliminate the drug issues within the policies that are made, it could stop offenders from staying in a constant cycle. Looking into unjust sentencing laws could also help end the issue with the crack versus cocaine problem in African American communities. The policies that were created are not terrible, but it is time for the government to take a deeper look and make a
The 2002 University of Washington made a study about the drug war in Seattle. They focused on African Americans and whites who both races sold drugs. The study found that white people were the ones who had a bigger drug business than African Americans. The only difference was that white people sold drugs in doors. They were located in middle class neighborhoods where there was no crime going on, therefore; it was more difficult for the police to detect their criminal activity.
In 1972, former President Richard Nixon made his infamous statements regarding crime and drug abuse. In this speech, he declared a war on crime and drugs and intended to decrease the number of people using drugs and the amount of crimes that were committed. Since this declaration, incarceration rates in the U.S. have gone up by 500%, even though the amount of crime happening has gone down. One of the reasons why I feel our rates have risen, is because sometimes, we put people in jail when they don’t need to be there in the first place.
Essentially, although drugs have been held accountable for gang violence and other acts of violence that have occurred within communities, the illegality of drugs indeed may have aggravated the situation. In addition, it has become evident that one of the primary objectives of the war on drugs, which is to limit supply and demand, has been largely ineffective. CSDP (2007) “ According to the United Nations, profits in illegal drugs are so inflated that three-quarters of all drug shipments would have
Since President Nixon began his war on drugs in 1971, there have been 45 million arrests and have spent billions of dollars in the fight against public enemy number one in the United States: consumption and drug trafficking. However, drugs are becoming cheaper and pure and access to them ever easier. Under President Nixon emphasized treating addicts, but, over the years, the focus has been on criminalizing consumers, and created a system that measures the police efficiency, rewards and amounts depending on the number of arrests. The documentary "The House I Live I" is an accurate portrait of the American judicial system intricate in its relentless fight against drug trafficking, which has resulted in violations of human rights and individual
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
Some may not be too familiar with the war on drugs and the effects it has had on the society we live in. The war on drugs was started by the Nixon administration in the early seventies. Nixon deemed drug abuse “public enemy number one”. This was the commencement of the war on drugs, this war has lasted to this day and has been a failure. On average 26 million people use opioids.