Al Capone And The Vietnam War

In 2016, drug overdoses killed around 60,000 people, which is more deaths than during the Vietnam War. Drugs have had a tremendous impact on America for quite some time (Shannon 5). The United States has, and still is, battling with the narcotic world everyday. In looking at the history of the war on drugs in the United States, it is important to look at the prohibition era, the war during 1970 through late 1990, and the war that is going on today. The prohibition era began in 1920 with the 18th Amendment, which prohibited transporting or consuming any alcoholic beverages in the United States. Many agreed with it, especially women, but there were still citizens that thought it was a senseless idea. Millions were willing to risk jail time

His legacy began when Johnny Torrio, a powerful bootlegger from New York, decided to move his bootlegging business to Chicago. Johnny would end up stepping down and handing over the business to his partner Al Capone. Al Capone would then start smuggling his own liquor into the United States from Mexico, Canada, and even had his own places where alcohol was made from scratch. He was able to accumulate around 100 million dollars (1.5 billion in today’s money) during his bootlegging career, and was well known all over the nation because he was written about in America’s most famous newspapers. But writing about him was a risky thing to do, because he would send out his men to kill those who wrote poorly about him. He could almost kill anyone he wanted and get away with it because he basically owned the city of Chicago. All the politicians, cops, and anyone who was a threat to him was paid to look the other way. Even all his competitors were scared to death of him because Capone thought that the less competitors selling alcohol, the more profit he could make. Even the witnesses who saw the murders would always say the same thing, “I cannot identify the shooter” (Bair 108-112). His business would soon come to an end because the U.S. was starting to have

In 1980, buyers ordered thousand of pounds of cocaine and marijuana. Most of the cocaine was going into Miami, Florida from Escobar's cartel, and with this came hundreds of homicides and drug overdoses. Vice President George Bush sent plenty of agents from different agencies to try to stop the drugs from coming in (Shannon 25, 84). Cocaine was imported in creative ways to try to avoid detection. For example, the drug traffickers used boats importing bananas and even pregnant women who were paid to swallow small packages of it (Marroquin 66). Even if it was detected, some of the agents would not stop the traffickers. President Ronald Reagan called the drug trafficking business the invisible empire because everyone could see them except the police. After the Kiki incident, the American government made the drug epidemic a top priority. In 1985, 10,000 drug criminals were arrested and 250 million worth of drugs were seized. Marijuana use dropped from 1-14 to 1-20 between 1985-86. President Reagan even addressed the nation on September 14, 1986 to help reduce the use of drugs. This is where Nancy Reagan introduced the ¨Just Say No¨ movement which encouraged Americans to say no when it came to drugs (“Ronald” 1-4). America was starting to win the war, but they still had to capture the cocaine king of the world, Pablo