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As director of the National Drug Control Policy, William J. Bennett shares his stance on the drug war in “Drug Policy and the Intellectuals”. He addresses the arguments that American’s have proposed in regard to the legalization of drugs. Bennett goes on to say that the justification behind legalizing drugs lacks the seriousness that a topic like this should have. In addition, the results would likely be disastrous. Rather than “taking the profit out of the drug business”, Bennett’ alternative is to make the usage of drugs a less appealing option.
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
In the wildly popular Mexican film, Los olvidados (1950), Spanish director Luis Buñuel exposes the harsh realities of life in Mexico during the 1950’s. Luis Buñuel’s work on Los olvidados portrays a societal loss for all hope due to crime and violence as an infinitely vicious cycle, coupled with addressing the lack of reform for dilapidated living conditions throughout Mexico. In Los olvidados, Buñuel follows Pedro (Alfonso Mejía) a neglected bastard, and El Jaibo (Roberto Cobo) the leader of a gang of homeless children loitering in vacant lots. For Pedro, and the rest of the cast, a series of unfortunate outcomes have been strung together though common ignorance and a lack of self-control. Luis Buñuel’s use of focal length, editing, and dialogue
To understand the War on Drugs one needs to understand the cultural landscape that made the war on drugs advantageous. Ronald
Due to the fact that drug courts are working to reduce crime, the policies and practices of the US government may have to be changed or strengthened in favor of drug courts. For example, in the Journal Do Drug Courts Work? Getting Inside the Drug Court Black Box (Goldkamp, White, Robinson, 2001), the authors say “Nevertheless, these findings also suggest that variation in drug court out comes may be explained by changes in the operation of the drug court and its ability to deliver the treatment and deterrent effects postulated by the collection of components inside the drug court black box”. This clearly shows that in order for drug courts to work and grow in numbers, changes in policies and procedures that are shown to reduce crime need to be implemented everywhere. Weaknesses that can be found in this summary are that all active drug courts in the US did not respond, which could lead to a very different outcome involving the effectiveness of drug courts as a
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
Drug abusers’ children are neglected, abused, and even abandoned. In the 1870’s, anti-opium laws were first directed and Chinese immigrants. During the early 1900’s, in the South, the first anti-cocaine laws were directed at black men. In the 1910’s and 1920’s, in the Midwest and Southwest the first anti-marijuana laws were directed at Mexicans – both immigrants and Americans. In modern time, major disproportioned drug enforcement
The initial thinking behind the creation of minimum mandatory sentences was created by congress to aim in the capture and imprisonment of high level drug traffickers, and deter others from entering into drug trafficking or using illegal substances, which would create a safer society. However, the nation prison has been expanded with low level street drug dealers, and the accessibility to illegal drugs is more obtainable then before the enactment of the mandatory sentencing act. In fact, the number of drug offenders in federal prisons has increased 21 times since 1980. Contrary to what congress has believed in the past about the dangers of crack cocaine compared to that in powder form has been proven to be untrue, but little has been done to reduce the number of prisons affected by that belief.
In the 1970s the United States entered the era known as mass incarceration, the byproduct of the drug war. The War on Drugs changed how society handled drug dependency, diverting the problem from public health to criminal justice. Since the Nixon administration, the political stance on being tough on crime has resulted in various laws and policing practices that heavily criminalized drugs to point in which the prison population in the United States increased from 300,000 people in 1972 to 2.3 million today (Barish, DuVernay, Averick & DuVernay, 2016). The epidemic of mass incarceration corresponds to a variety of public health issues such as mental illness, increased violence within society, increased incidence of addictions, and increased incidence of chronic illnesses (Drucker, 2013).
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).
Throughout the past three decades, there has been a deadly nationwide epidemic in America. Like a disease, it has continued to spread in the United States causing sickness, broken up families, and death. However, this disease cannot be treated with antivirals, nor can be prevented with vaccines. This disease is the widespread misuse of opioids and opioid variants. Opioids have become so highly addictive and abused over the last 30 years that “between 1999 and 2019, nearly half a million people died from opioid overdose, over half of all US deaths due to drug overdose” (Gardner et.
In the name of fighting drug abuse, governments unleashed a war on drugs that continues to rage today. Drugs have numerous negative consequences that can result from an addiction, but some can have positive effects when used appropriately and under the care of a healthcare professional. The War on Drugs is a government-led initiative aimed at stopping illegal drug use, distribution, and trade by issuing increased prison sentences for drug-related offenses, and it increased federal funding for drug-control agencies and treatment efforts. Instead, it has resulted in a disproportionate amount of incarcerations of minorities.
The continuous use of narcotics results in addiction, and financial struggles due to the costly upkeep. “Financial problems are one of the major side effects of drug and substance abuse” (Buaggett, 2015). Addicts cannot adequately take an active role in the economic activities, as the use of drugs inhibits the abilities of the users to earn a daily living. Due to the instability of finances, this would result in selling personal belongings to continue funding the substance of choice, and depending on the addicts living situation, this could lead to losing their house or being removed from their current housing. While being under the influence, an addicts voice of reason is jeopardized, resulting in criminal activities which raise the chances of being apprehended by the law enforcers, as well as, heavy fines are imposed.
As most people know, drug can easily make people addicted. Conventional drugs such as opium, heroin, methamphetamine (ice), morphine, marijuana, cocaine can all classify as narcotic drugs and psychotropic drugs. Drug has been a severe problem for decades. The U.S government attaches great importance to this issue. However, there are just an increasing number of people calling for legalizing drugs.
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.