Essay On Ronald Reagan's War On Drugs

1865 Words8 Pages

During the Conservative era of the 1980’s President Ronald Reagan had multiple issues to deal with during his two terms, both foreign and domestic. The obvious cloud hanging over every president at that time was the threat of The Soviet Union and communism. Reagan’s presidency saw him take numerous measures to solidify America as the stronger of the two and democracy as the best form of government. On the home front, there were numerous issues to deal with as well. The main concerns he had to deal with were public health and safety issues such as the HIV and AIDS, the protests of the homosexual community, and the cocaine epidemic. Reagan also had to deal with the issue of labor unions in the form of the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization, or PATCO for short, went on strike and Reagan …show more content…

In a speech Nancy, primarily focused on kids saying “no” to drugs especially crack, because it was a rampant problem at the time in the States. This campaign spread all through America and even overseas to Britain through popular media such as TV that included shows such as Diff;erent Strokes and Punky Brewster. The end result from the campaign showed no direct correlation to the drop in drug use across America at this time. In a more recent study conducted by psychologist Lloyd D. Johnson from the University of Michigan surveyed kids of different ages in 2012 and the results concluded, “24 percent of 12th graders had engaged in binge drinking (defined as five or more drinks on one occasion) in the past two weeks. Moreover, 42 percent had consumed at least some alcohol in the past month, as had 11 percent of eighth graders and 28 percent of high school sophomores.” While many schools embraced the campaign, it only proved good in theory, but it did not work in