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The War on Drugs Megen Smith
COM/172
March 12, 2012
Angela Gist University of Phoenix

Despite large amounts of government funding and agencies working together the war on drugs is the most counterproductive measure the United States has launched because its main focus was to stop drug trafficking and criminal activity, but it has done nothing but increase incarceration and large amounts of spending by the U.S. One of the first bills introduced to the United States was the National Prohibition Act in 1920 and also the 18th Amendment. This bill prohibited the manufacture, transportation, and sale of alcohol on a national stage for every day consumption. The only way to get a hold of alcohol at the time was to obtain a prescription from the doctor for medical purposes. This was just another way the government can tax and control the use of alcohol consumption at the time. In 1933 the prohibition act was repealed. Because of the increase of other drug substance abuse outside the abuse of alcohol with the approval of President Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Department of the Treasury the Federal Bureau of Narcotics was introduced and the adoption of the Uniform State Narcotics Drug Act was established and created. First the war on drugs has been a long and expensive campaign the United States has invested in, to include resources, and manpower. President Johnson was the first president to focus illegal drug use. He be believed half of the crime committed in the U.S. was in drug relation and grow by 90 percent over the next decade. The Johnson Administration was the true beginning on the War of Drugs. President Johnson created the Reorganization Plan of 1968 which merged the Bureau of Narcotics and the Bureau of Drug Abuse to form the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs within the Department of Justice. The belief during this time about drug use was summarized by journalist Max Lerner in his celebrated work America as a Civilization:
"As a case in



References: Peter H. Reuter, Sealing the borders: the effects of increased military participation in drug interdiction (RAND 1988); Robert E. Kessler, Study: Military Can 't Curb Drugs, Newsday, May 23, 1988 at 23; Military support would have little effect on drug smuggling, study says, United Press International, Mar. 4 1988 James in Ciardi, The War on Drugs IV, ed. 4. (Delaware: Pearson Allyn and Bacon, 2008), 2 http://www.whitehouse.gov/ondcp Whitehouse War on Drugs Stout, Robert Joe (2012) An Independent Socialist Magazine, Vol. 63 Issue 8, Rebecca Bowe, "The drug war on the Amazon," E: The Environmental Magazine, Nov–Dec, 2004

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