America’s Failing War on Drugs and the Culture of Incarceration
America’s failing War on Drugs and the Culture of Incarceration
Richard B. Carpenter
Adams State College
America’s failing War on Drugs and the Culture of Incarceration
Richard B. Carpenter
Adams State College
Abstract
For over a century, America has waged a failing war on drugs even as it feeds a cultural apathetic and underground acceptance of drug and alcohol use. The views of the dominate group have placed blame on society’s ills on the evils of rampant drug use throughout the past few hundred years, which have given way to a practice of outlawing , persecution, and imprisonment. Such a view has led to the overflow of our state’s prisons, the race to build even more, and need to fund a culture of imprisonment that has a difficult time in trying to figure out if it wants to help the addicted person, or continue to try and fund a gluttonous prison machine. We will look at some of the causes for the failed war on drugs, and some of the consequences if our society continues to ignore the need to help the addict, or simply lock them away.
America’s failing War on Drugs and the Culture of Incarceration
America has always had an underlying culture of drug use with even many of the harder drugs, like cocaine and heroin, being legal up into the early 1900’s, and drugs like methamphetamine and MDMA, or ecstasy, being legal well into the 20th century. Even one of the most invasive drugs of our culture, alcohol, is widely advertised and taken to be a norm of American culture, and prescription drugs like Vicodin and Oxycontin are used by millions legally every day (Brecher, E. M., n.d.). However, while alcohol as been able to enjoy its place as an accepted part of the American lifestyle, drug use of the illicit kind has been steadily demonized, criminalized, and used as a means to incarcerate an ever growing number of people, most often minorities and the poor who are unable to afford outside representation.
Richard B. Carpenter
Adams State College
America’s failing War on Drugs and the Culture of Incarceration
Richard B. Carpenter
Adams State College
Abstract
For over a century, America has waged a failing war on drugs even as it feeds a cultural apathetic and underground acceptance of drug and alcohol use. The views of the dominate group have placed blame on society’s ills on the evils of rampant drug use throughout the past few hundred years, which have given way to a practice of outlawing , persecution, and imprisonment. Such a view has led to the overflow of our state’s prisons, the race to build even more, and need to fund a culture of imprisonment that has a difficult time in trying to figure out if it wants to help the addicted person, or continue to try and fund a gluttonous prison machine. We will look at some of the causes for the failed war on drugs, and some of the consequences if our society continues to ignore the need to help the addict, or simply lock them away.
America’s failing War on Drugs and the Culture of Incarceration
America has always had an underlying culture of drug use with even many of the harder drugs, like cocaine and heroin, being legal up into the early 1900’s, and drugs like methamphetamine and MDMA, or ecstasy, being legal well into the 20th century. Even one of the most invasive drugs of our culture, alcohol, is widely advertised and taken to be a norm of American culture, and prescription drugs like Vicodin and Oxycontin are used by millions legally every day (Brecher, E. M., n.d.). However, while alcohol as been able to enjoy its place as an accepted part of the American lifestyle, drug use of the illicit kind has been steadily demonized, criminalized, and used as a means to incarcerate an ever growing number of people, most often minorities and the poor who are unable to afford outside representation.
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