President Richard Nixon And The 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

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

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,