War on Drugs

Lyly Mai

February 26, 2023

MET CJ 752 O1 Forensic Behavior Analysis.

Blog Post – War on Drugs

The war on drugs within the United States became prevalent leading up to the 1970s. Since then President Richard Nixon decided to declare war against drugs to eradicate the illegal use of drugs. In the following decades, there have been military and police teams dedicated to fighting this war. In 1971, Nixon tells Congress that, “If we cannot destroy the drug menace in America, then it will surely in time destroy us.” After saying this, it was like Nixon had predicted the outcome of how dire this situation would entail and the results would be deemed catastrophic if not dealt with.  The drug war led to many other consequences that led to violence around the world.

Here are a few impacts that affected the U.S. negatively:

  1. mass drug offense incarcerations
  2. proliferated violence
  3. Smuggling/illegal trading
  4. overdoses/drug-related deaths

Although you can crackdown on drug use on one area, because of the market is prevalent for making profit on selling drugs, another area will certainly pop up to take its place instantly. Someone else will take up the job to manufacture and distribute somewhere else. The U.S. had put in over $1 trillion to the war on drugs thus far. But nothing has made a serious dent on improving the conditions. The results were but failures to improve on the four impacts stated above. Many drug policy experts attempted to call for reforms. Some of these reforms to appease the conditions are as follow:

  • focus on rehabilitation programs
  • decriminalization of some illicit substances
  • legalization of certain drugs

In 1973 and then again in 1977, eleven states took the initiative to decriminalize marijuana possession. However in the 1980s, during the Ronald Reagan presidency period the rate of incarceration for drugs drastically increased by tenfold. The number of people who were arrested and incarcerated during this time period went from 50,000 to 400,000 from 1980 to 1997. Everywhere around the word, the prisons and jails were overcrowded with inmates in for this offense. This led to another huge problem within the prison system. There weren’t enough beds and housing to place these inmates. Violence increased, tension amongst the prisoners and toward the officers increased in hostility.

According the to text, in 2010 there were nearly 8 million individuals who needed to be treated for illicit drug use. However only 1.5 million people actually received the necessary treatment at a facility for drug use. It was stated that about 65% of inmates are addicted or currently abusing drugs. On top of that, in 2010 65% of inmates had met the criteria for substance abuse. That’s an alarming percentage of the population of inmates. Some possible solutions could be:

  • Dealing with the drug crisis in the prison sentence; crackdown on drug users, heavier penalties on those dealing drugs in prison
  • Rehabilitating those inmates who are currently addicted to drugs
  • Counseling/Therapy
  • Courses on life skills in order to work their way back into society

Resources

Rousseau,  2023. Module 2.

Lopez, G. (2016, May 8). The War on Drugs, explained. Vox. Retrieved February 27, 2023, from https://www.vox.com/2016/5/8/18089368/war-on-drugs-marijuana-cocaine-heroin-meth

A history of the Drug War. Drug Policy Alliance. (n.d.). Retrieved February 27, 2023, from https://drugpolicy.org/issues/brief-history-drug-war

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