ipl-logo

President Richard Nixon And The War On Drugs

1195 Words5 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Good effect of war on drugs

In 1970, President Richard Nixon, in response to the drug use coupled with the hippie counterculture of the late 1960s, signed the Controlled Substance Act (CSA) which enacted a method of classifying drugs by categorizing them into five schedules, schedule one considered to be the most dangerous. Shortly following this act, in June of 1971, Nixon declared “The War On Drugs”, famously naming drugs and drug abuse “Public enemy number one”. (History.com, 2016). Following Nixon’s presidency, many presidents and administrations, including Reagan, Bush, and Clinton, have continued the support for The War on Drugs, but where are the results? It seems today that the abuse of drugs is worse than ever before. Almost everyone knows someone who has been …show more content…

In addition to the increased risk of infection, death rates due to overdose and drug-related illness has only increased since the war on drugs was imposed. The life expectancy in America is calculated each year. Recently, it was reported that the life expectancy has dropped again for the second year in a row. To put this data into perspective, the last time that this occurred was during the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s. "I'm not prone to dramatic statements," says Robert Anderson, chief of the mortality statistics branch of the National Center for Health Statistics. "But I think we should be really alarmed. The drug overdose problem is a public health problem, and it needs to be addressed. We need to get a handle on it."(Stein, 2017). There has been little to no improvement in terms of physical health and life longevity as a result of The War on Drugs. If anything, it has gotten worse. With the current state in which America’s government is handling this nationwide wide epidemic, conditions will only get worse. The unethical legislature encompassing the war on drugs targets minorities and poor inner city neighborhoods, and as a result there is no aid to the …show more content…

Today, the effects of this objective are still prevalent.While a mission to eradicate all drugs in America may seem to be a faultless solution, Nixon’s former domestic policy chief John Ehrlichman has stated that the reasons behind the declaration were much darker than what meets the eye. In an interview he explains, “We knew we couldn't make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin. And then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities,". (CNN, 2016). Essentially, Nixon’s War On Drugs was a political power play. Furthermore, the chauvinist stigmas implanted in Americans’ brains due Nixon’s controversial methods are disadvantaging modern-day minorities.“Although black communities aren't more likely to use or sell drugs, they are much more likely to be arrested and incarcerated for drug offenses”.(Lopez, 2016). A 2012 report from US Sentencing commission states that black men’s drug related sentences were recorded to be 13.1% longer than white men between 2007 and 2009. (Lopez, 2016). Why is this? Even with the possibility of racial profiling set aside, the vestibule for five-year mandatory minimum sentences vary. For instance, crack-cocaine, a drug more commonly associated with minorities and poverty stricken areas, has a threshold of 28 grams. Cocaine,

Show More
Related
759 Words | 4 Pages

According to the article, The Drug War, Mass Incarceration, and Race “ Black people comprise 13 percent of the U.S. population,10 and are consistently documented by the U.S. government to use drugs at similar rates to people of other races.11 But black people comprise 31 percent of those arrested for drug law violations,12 and nearly 40 percent of those incarcerated”. Despite the fact that colored people are minorities in the country still, make up 1/3 of the people arrested because of the drug policy. The policy effective created to target the minorities by making the cocaine the main focus of the drug. “America of the poor, where, amid hopelessness and lack of education, people will suffer the worst consequences of cocaine”(Kerr, 1) which in many poor communities lived the colored minorities, this made it easier for the police officer to target and arrest the

Read More
737 Words | 3 Pages

Nixon is infamous for his proposal of the “War on Drugs”— a crisis that made drug abuse seem more like a political issue and less of a health problem. This “war” essentially targeted minorities for drug possession, and combined the already standing issue of economic inequality and hypersegregation to allow people of color to be incarcerated at rates much higher than white people. This documentary targets political figures, ultimately holding them accountable for the unjust prison system. While some may think that this is political bias, all this document is doing is bringing up what people are afraid to address: some of the roots of systemic racism lie not so far in our past. By targeting political figures and comparing them to how mass incarceration developed as they were in office, 13th demonstrates a clear, concise understanding of systemic racism that allows the viewer to grasp the truth behind how the people who ran this country really

Read More
1310 Words | 6 Pages

One of Nixon’s aide named John Ehrlichman admitted to the real reason why the War on Drugs was introduced, he stated “You want to know what this was really about. The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I’m

Read More
959 Words | 4 Pages

The article explores the historical context of drug laws and policies in the U.S. and their disproportionate impact on black communities. It emphasizes the negative effects of the war on drugs on black families, communities, and overall socio-economic mobility, perpetuating the enduring inequalities faced by Americans of color. The article relates to course concepts such as the effects of residential segregation, which has contributed to the development of underclass communities in the United States, and how these communities are disproportionately affected by the criminal justice system. Additionally, the article highlights the systemic racism and discrimination that has existed in the United States, perpetuating the inequalities faced by people of color. It discusses how drug laws have been used as a tool to target and criminalize people of color, while white drug users and sellers have largely been ignored or given lesser punishments.

Read More
999 Words | 4 Pages

The doctor practically invented the term “gateway drug” in the 1980s. Now, he is back, and once again brings back his outdated, obsolete, and possibly greed-induced initiatives to the campaign of the current government against the war on drugs. How the “War” Started The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) was established by Richard Nixon in 1973 The agency was created as a means to enforce and strictly implement

Read More
715 Words | 3 Pages

According to Michelle Alexander, the war on drugs, which originated from Reaganomics, was created with the specific intention to incarcerate Black men. Though Black people are less likely to engage in drug use, they make up the majority of Americans convicted under drug charges. It has been statistically proven that white Americans, specifically white youth, are more likely to engage in illegal drug dealings than people of color, and yet, “1 in every 14 black men was behind bars in 2006, compared with 1 in 106 white men” (98). This presents a clear example of hypocrisy and preferential treatment of White people over Black people. Additionally, according to the Journal of Alcohol and Drug Education, a survey stated that 95% of people picture a drug dealer as being Black.

Read More
1451 Words | 6 Pages

By the late 1960s, the issue of unchecked drug use had entered the forefront of the American consciousness. Major periodicals regularly published drug-related articles, drug policy gained prominence on the federal government’s agenda, and citizens across the United States watched in trepidation as drug use entered the cultural mainstream. This perceived drug crisis precipitated the Nixon Administration’s Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970 (CDAPCA), which reorganized and consolidated pre-existing drug legislation into a single law. While the act was passed in response to general anxieties about drug use, it asymmetrically affected different populations based on social class. Through analysis of primary and secondary

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
1799 Words | 8 Pages

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.

Read More
778 Words | 4 Pages

The racialization of the “War on Drugs” campaign was particularly evident in the sentencing disparities between crack cocaine and powder cocaine. Crack cocaine—more commonly used by black and brown communities—was punished much more severely than powder cocaine—more commonly used by white populations. This disparity resulted in disproportionate sentencing for black and brown people, contributing to the disproportionate incarceration rates and criminalization of these people According to Danielle Kurtzleben of the U.S. News & World Report’s 2010 analysis on the U.S. Sentencing Commission figures, “79 percent of 5,669 sentenced crack offenders in 2009 were black, versus 10 percent who were white and 10 percent who were Hispanic. The figures for the 6,020 powder cocaine cases are far less skewed: 17 percent of these offenders were white, 28 percent were black, and 53 percent were Hispanic” (“Data Show Racial Disparity in Crack Sentencing”). Moreover, according to government data, “Drug use rates are similar among all racial and ethnic groups.

Read More
685 Words | 3 Pages

In American society, this solution would be the best way to lower drug overdoses by providing alternative treatments without using

Read More
934 Words | 4 Pages

From this we can conclude that the statistic of drug usage is way too high and may be the cause of more harmful effects such as overdoses. While alcohol is still a drug and still has the potential of being very dangerous heroin and other street drugs do not seem to be a adequate and safe substitute and is proven to be even more dangerous. When we look at Opioid and other drug use in America compared to other countries we notice that america is one of the leading countries in drug use around the

Read More
1077 Words | 5 Pages

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.

Read More
1835 Words | 8 Pages

On June 17, 1971, Richard Nixon and the federal government of the United States issued a campaign called the War on Drugs. It was intended as a way to reduce the drug usage in America. Their methods included the “Just Say No” campaign, raids on multiple ghettos and low-income areas, and laws that were made to severely punish drug users. The outcomes of the War on Drugs were a waste of billions of government money, a new opioid epidemic, and massive amounts of Black Americans incarcerated. All in all, it was a total failure, leaving a stain on American history.

Read More
865 Words | 4 Pages

Some may not be too familiar with the war on drugs and the effects it has had on the society we live in. The war on drugs was started by the Nixon administration in the early seventies. Nixon deemed drug abuse “public enemy number one”. This was the commencement of the war on drugs, this war has lasted to this day and has been a failure. On average 26 million people use opioids.

Read More

More about President Richard Nixon And The War On Drugs

Open Document