ipl-logo

Persuasive Essay On War On Drugs

1076 Words5 Pages

Drugs have been around this earth for many years. Production, disruptions, and consumption have gone hand and hand together. Due to the high rise of consumers causing death, addiction, and drug-related crimes led to this "War on Drugs" to be declared by President Nixon in 1971. The war on drugs was a government tactic to decrease drug abuse and drug-related crimes, yet led to severely punishable sentencing if convicted of possession, selling, trafficking, or disrupting. This led to the convictions of any drug-related crime increasing tremendously not only in color communities but anyone. When President Ronald Regan became president the plenties became way more severe and targeted towards certain racial/ethnic groups. This critical analysis …show more content…

Federal laws and policies that prohibit or restrict the production, sales, and use of drugs have been heavily implemented through the years, yet the rate of drugs and convictions on just possession, smuggling, trafficking, etc, have rise throughout the years. After 1980, Congress passed mandatory minimum and maximum sentencing laws or requirements for these drug imprisonment convictions. The United States government has profited from this war on drugs because certain changes in state and federal laws to campaigns that support them go against the ones who profit from this. Corruption within law enforcement, government, and the system has imprisoned the ongoing war among the citizens. According to Robert Higgs in the section of Etceteras stated that"...despite the desires of many millions of consumers to acquire the products regularly, and of millions of others to acquire them occasionally, the governments of the United States seem hellbent to continue law enforcement that results in the imprisonment of ever larger numbers of these consumers and the businessmen who cater to their demands." (Higg, R. 1999, p. 313). The real benefactors of this war on drugs would have to be the United States government and anyone with any sort of authority or power because they are the ones who are producing, trafficking, and consuming. It is …show more content…

The article Investigating the Assignment of Probation Conditions: Heterogeneity and the Role of Race and Ethnicity, says that "...black and Hispanic offenders are less likely to receive structured alternative sanctions…drug crimes have become representative of a "moral panic" attribute to the threat of violence and danger from minority groups, and that racial and ethnic disparities in sentencing may be greater in drug offenses." (Kimchi, A. 2018. p.718). The social inequality of representation, sentencing, and alternative sanctions become clear that people of color don't have those privileges or have different rehabilitation or sanctions. The Youtube video "War on Drugs, by Jay Z". demonstrated that the defunding in schools and the economic stress caused people to turn to other ways to make ends meet. People ignore statistics on this issue society has made it a "black issue", so people of color are seen as villains or evil. Former felons or even former convicts can't get certain jobs due to it being on their criminal records which their employers can view. Certain communities, schools, and minorities would be raided for possession of drugs due to the laws upon ending the war on drugs yet the system has failed because of many

Show More
Related
748 Words | 3 Pages

Shockingly enough the increase in those who have been incarcerated have been due to drug convictions. Drug crime was low when the war was declared—it still is. What’s changed is that Alexander points out that no other country in the world incarcerates so many of their racial or ethnic minorities. To back up the reasoning that people of color are specifically targeted, studies have shown that white youth tend to be more active in drug crime than people of color—but yet, who are the majority of those in prisons? Alexander explains that the reason as to why this current racial caste system is hidden is due to the popular notion that the U.S no longer engages in the same practices as Jim Crow and

Read More
516 Words | 3 Pages

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.

Read More
1069 Words | 5 Pages

In the past 40 years, drug offenses have been on the rise as a priority offense. According to Prison Policy, 1 in 5 incarcerated inmates are locked up for a drug offense. At the same time, black people make up 40% of the prison/jail population, which is more than the white population of 39%. Considering that black people only make up 13% of the nation, this disproportionate rate of black people being arrested is quite evident. Conversely, when it comes to drugs, black people are the highest demographic arrested for drug offenses, even though all races and ethnicities sell drugs at very similar rates.

Read More
1033 Words | 5 Pages

Thao Tran Professor Aboulian English 1C 21 March 2017 The War on Drugs: A Rhetorical Analysis The War on Drugs, which was declared by President Nixon in 1971, efforts to control drug use and sales in inner-city neighborhoods. The government has been recently targeting poor communities of color. In 1980, the skyrocketing drug arrests reflected a surge in illegal drug activity. In The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander, the author also stated that “huge cash grants were made to those law enforcement agencies that were willing to make drug-law enforcement a top priority” (73).

Read More
856 Words | 4 Pages

Many critics believe that because of the way drugs are looked down upon society, they become ever more enticing to buy them even through illegal and dangerous means. For instance, President Richard Nixon said in 1971 that “America’s public enemy number one in the United States [was] drug abuse,” and because of this, “it [was] necessary to wage a new, all-out offensive” (Sharp, 1994). Another drugfree advocate, William Bennett, who served in office as the Secretary of Education under President Ronald Reagan, blamed the drug problem squarely on the loose and unethical morals of corrupt people. Another reason that Nixon’s War of Drugs was ineffective was in that the federal government could only prosecute national crimes, handing over the responsibility to the local law enforcement to keep the streets safe, meaning it would have to cross state lines to be under federal judication. Operation Intercept’s main contribution to the drug trade has been the restructuring of how drugs were exported.

Read More
2360 Words | 10 Pages

The people incarcerated for drug abuse are mainly Black or other minorities. The system can not be color blind when a specific group is incarcerated at higher rates than another. According to “ The Drug War as Race War,” Kenneth B. Nunn shares a fact from the Mental Health department saying that “ 76% are White drug users, 14% are Black, and 8% are Hispanic” ( Nunn). The incarceration rates should be higher for Whites given the fact that they have a higher drug usage reported. In all reality, it would not make sense to lock up any group at a significantly greater rate compared

Read More
1558 Words | 7 Pages

Sky Ward H. U.S. History 2A Pittman Reagan’s War on Drugs In June of 1971, Nixon first declared a “War on Drugs”. By the time Reagan left office in 89, the War on Drugs defined a presidency and the way of life in America for generations to come. According to Nixon, drug abuse was “public enemy number one”.

Read More
890 Words | 4 Pages

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

Read More
1000 Words | 4 Pages

Like it is mentioned in the movie 13th “The so called war on drugs was a war on communities of color”. So, now black people are being arrested much more than White people even though the drug use is close to the same as Angela F. Chan points out in her article for the Huffington Post. “Even though Black people use drugs at the same rate as White people, they are incarcerated for drug crimes at 20 to 50 times the rate of White people in some states”. A law that was passed during the war on drugs was mandatory sentencing.

Read More
1077 Words | 5 Pages

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

Read More
676 Words | 3 Pages

An estimated $1 trillion has been spent by the United States on the war on drugs, according to the US Department of Justice (2010) the usage of drugs has not changed over the past 10 years. Approximately $350 billion is spent per year on the war on drugs, only $7 billion of that $350 billion is spent on prevention programs sponsored by the federal government. We spend most of our time fighting rather than preventing. Crime preventing may not be immediate, however it is the most efficient. The war on drugs campaign has been unsuccessful in preventing the illegal drug trade.

Read More
677 Words | 3 Pages

The criminal justice of the United States has been criminalizing drugs such as marijuana although some states have now started to divert from the old policies. The current trend has shown that the current drug policies will go through changes that will make marijuana become legal for recreation purposes. Countries have adopted a military-like strategy on combating drugs. Law enforcement is arresting many low-level users. The low-level users are only arrested because they cannot buy their freedom after they are caught.

Read More
1794 Words | 8 Pages

In spite of the movement to abolish certain potent drugs, narcotics trafficking continues to pose a significant threat to even first-world societies. Nevertheless, the “War on Drugs” within the past few decades has weakened the grasp of drug traders, although this extends beyond the United States. Yet, millions of dollars have traded hands, as well as unfathomable amounts of illegal substances in the name of drugs, even after this advancement. While the problem is at its worst in less developed countries, the effects are still undoubtedly felt in more advanced nations. Bolstering this notion is the UN’s updated 2012 drug resolution, proclaiming that “despite continuing increased efforts by [worldwide governments], the world drug problem continues

Read More
865 Words | 4 Pages

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.

Read More
1423 Words | 6 Pages

The War on Drugs that the government has been fighting for almost two centuries has been a failure. The War on Drugs has made criminal organizations, violence around the world, and drugs themselves worse. The War on Drugs has negatively affected the lives of millions of people around the world as it has led to massive incarceration in the United States; corruption, political destabilization, and violence in Latin America, Asia, and Africa; to systemic human rights abuses across the world. Prohibition of certain drugs has actually led to higher rate of violence and murders all around the world. Which drugs are legal and illegal is not really based on any specific scientific assessment of the relative risk of the drugs, but it has everything

Read More

More about Persuasive Essay On War On Drugs

Open Document