War On Drugs Public Policy Failure

LSD, lysergic acid diethylamide, can change the thought patterns of the people who use them, potentially erasing their identity completely. Millions of people around the world have experimented with LSD outside of lab conditions, “exploring reality”, themselves, and what is known as Ego death in what experienced users call “a trip”. What most do not know however is the repercussions of LSD in the long term. LSD is also known as Lucy, L, the electric kool-aid, and tabs; along with a few other recreational drugs is known under the umbrella term as acid; acid has been known to give people forms of Psychosis. Psychosis is a mental disorder where a person’s thoughts and emotions are impaired by a lost connection with reality.

With the economy in the turmoil that it is in America cannot continue to support these sentencing guidelines. The Mandatory Article Sentencing declares that the laws are becoming a huge drain on the Justice Bureau’s budget, and in 2012 the United States had far beyond more people incarcerated than any other country. Most of these prisoners are low-level drug offenders sentenced under mandatory sentencing guidelines with a cost draining on American taxpayers $6.8 billion a year, as of 2012. These costs do not seem to have a ceiling and continue eating up about twenty-five percent of the federal justice system’s yearly budget.

Essentially, the war on drugs has demonstrated to be an exorbitant expense. The federal government in 2002 alone spent $18.822 billion in the form of expenditures such as treatment, prevention, and domestic law enforcement (CSDP, 2007, p. 54). However, given that the drug war has garnered meager results, this investment may be interpreted as a waste of taxpayer dollars. Alternatively, the money that has been allocated to arrest and detain drug offenders may also be a source of contention. CSDP (2007) “Of the 1,846,351 arrests for drug law violations in 2005, 81.7% (1,508,469) were for possession of a controlled substance.

The Reagan party helped promote the “War on Drugs”, which was a drug prohibition enforced on the United States. During this time, a hysteria over drugs had encompassed a large portion of the United States, resulting in laws being passed which prohibited the use of “illegal” drugs ( A brief history on the war on drugs). This was important to our culture because it started a longstanding hatred of drugs, where up until recently all drugs not for medical use, were illegal. Because this was becoming a bigger problem more people were being put in jail than ever, resulting in less space in prisons. The problem of less space in prisons, is still prevalent today, and doesn’t seem like it will fade away any time

The War on Drugs and Mass Incarceration The United States incarcerates at a higher rate than any other country in the world. In fact, the U.S. alone is home to 25% of the world’s prison population; this, however, wasn’t always the case. The rapid growth of the U.S. prison population can be traced two decades back to the declaration of the War on Drugs by President Ronald Regan in the early eighties and previously mentioned by President Richard Nixon. In an effort to reassure White Americans’ of their elite positioning in the underlying racial caste system in a time where inner-city communities were facing major economic collapses, the Regan administration called for the reinforcement of the sale, distribution, and consumption of illicit drugs,

The video depicting the course of heroin addiction/use in the United States begins by introducing the audience to the late 1960’s in which consisted of a “wave of violence and drug users” (Vox). Strict penalties resulted in the beginning of the “war” on heroin. Despite the spending of 100 billions of dollars over a course of 40 years, efforts seemed to have made little difference in the amount of heroin users. Rockefeller, a resident of the city ranked as one of the highest heroin addiction rates in the ‘70’s, instilled harsh drug laws which influenced other individuals such as John Dunn who sponsored a new law demanding mandatory prison sentences up to life for heroin abusers and sellers in the possession of more than 1 oz. of the drug. Instead

As of 2014 “Heroin is now causing more deaths than car crashes or violent crime”. This concerning statistic was brought forth from Retro Report’s film “Heroin and the War on Drugs” published by The New York Time’s. The saddening video clip commences with the 1960’s when America’s heroin drug problem truly began to flourish. It voices Richard Nixon during his presidential campaign ad of 1968 where he stated “crimes of violence in America will double by 1972. We cannot accept that kind of future for America” and continues on by exposing the harsh drug laws implemented by Nelson Rockefeller.

It is a colossal failure. It nearly destroyed a generation of people. As the War on Drugs near 50 years, we know it was a massive failure. I am talking about the failed American Drug War and its negative effects on African-Americans. Let us never forget the moment when President Nixon’s former domestic policy chief John Ehrlichman revealed in an interview with Harper’s Magazine in 1994 that was published last year that, “The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people”.

During the late 1960 to early 1970, New York city struggling with the Drug laws, and so many pressures and negative affect around the whole city. The country filled with gloomy air and everyone looks depressed, it is a really tough time. In the 1971s, American president Richard Nixon announced that drug abuse as the number one enemy in the United states, he started a war on drugs, there was unprecedented in history and this policy still continues today. The drug war was a huge failure, bringing an unexpected and devastating effect. In the United States, nearly 90 percent of treatment-seeking patients who began using heroin in the previous decade were white, this is a big change from racial representation prior to the 1980s.

As of September 26, 2015, there is a total of 93,821 inmates in prison for drug offenses, which is equivalent to 48.4 percent of the prison population. The use of illegal narcotics has been an issue within the country for decades; however, is incarceration the way to solve this problem? I think not. During the late 1960’s, poverty was a substantial issue within urban cities and secluded rural areas. On the other hand, recreational drug usage promoted by fashionable young, white Americans as a symbol of social upheaval and youthful rebellion coincided with the deprivation within many of these areas.

Americans, when they get stressed they shop to counteract that stress, people buy items to help them. This is commonly known as “shopping overload”. Americans possess over one billion credit cards and over one million people go bankrupt every year, some of those one billion is thanks to poor management of their money because their money is on a card instead of in the form of paper. In fact, over one-fifth of Americans live in dying poverty. Americans

Mexico has a drug problem that continues to grow. About three and a half years ago, Felipe Calderon was sworn in as president and immediately declared "war" on drugs. Since Felipe Calderon became president, about 23,000 people have been killed in drug-related violence, and a mass majority of Mexicans, according to surveys, believe that their president is losing the war on drugs. Despite the huge number of federal forces that are sent into the cities where the cartels are operating.

The second supposition, the war on drugs being considered a failure, is a supposition that I agree with. I chose this supposition because I have always agreed that high penalties for drug charges is unfair and a social justice issue. However, I had never done much research regarding the issue. By choosing this supposition, I gave myself a chance to research the War on Drugs and the effects that it has had on individuals who suffer from substance dependence.

During the period of the 19th century Africans Americans were held captive because their rights as citizens had always been out of there possession. Freedom was no option until Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863 which declared that “all persons held as slaves within any State, or designated part of a State the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free.” (Archives.org, 1999). The 13th amendment was passed by the U.S. Senate on April 8, 1864, but unfortunately it died because the House of Representatives rallied for States rights. The ratification of the amendment came about 8 months after the civil war, but it represented the highest of the struggle against slavery.

Private Prisons and Mass Incarceration–The Problem of the United States In America, the private prison industry was made for necessary profit based off of the management of prisons by large, private companies. In David Shapiro’s insightful report “Banking on Bondage”, he discusses the logistics of the United States prison system, saying “In America, our criminal justice system should keep us safe, operate fairly, and be cost-effective”. Today, the United States imprisons more people than any other nation in the world, including Russia, China, and Iran.