Preview

Regulation Vs Prohibition

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
902 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Regulation Vs Prohibition
Efforts to fight drug use in America date back to colonial times. Every single drug that has made its way into our country has been the subject of government restriction. Therefore, every branch of our federal government has been involved in dealing with the drug problem in our society. The two ways of dealing with drug problems are regulation and prohibition. Regulation involves imposing taxes and restriction on a particular drug. Regulation is intended to increase the cost of the drug hoping to decrease its use without criminalizing it. On the other hand prohibition makes it illegal to sell or use a particular drug, because to do so would incur a criminal charge and jail time. Each state as well as the federal government has laws against …show more content…
In 1930, Herbert Hoover created the Federal Bureau of Narcotics whose duty was to police drug use. This agency was well known for vigorously prosecuting drug crimes. Then in 1971, President Richard Nixon declared “War on Drugs.” Because many of our young American soldiers were bringing drugs back from Vietnam, Nixon proclaimed drugs as “public enemy number one.” Under President Reggan the government’s slogan became “just say no” to drugs or face criminal charges. However, Nixon’s War on Drugs while encompassing education, treatment, enforcement and prosecution would end up costing American taxpayers more than $50 billion a year. In the 1980’s, the prison population greatly increased due to stiffer penalties for drug related crimes President Bill Clinton advocated treating drugs abusers instead of putting them in jail. However, after just a few months in office, he had reverted to previous drug war strategies. President George W. Bush allocated more money than ever to the war on drugs and even appointed a drug czar, John Walters. The Bash administration established an increase in domestic drug law enforcement. Then when President Obama took office, he began advocating for reforms. His policy was to increase treatment programs for drug users rather than incarcerating them. President Obama believes we can have a future where “drug policies are shaped by science and compassion rather than political hysteria.” (“A Brief History of the Drug

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Fbn Vs Anslinger

    • 285 Words
    • 2 Pages

    A year after the stock market crashed, 1930, and president Hoover is in office, America is in a state of existential crisis and people are looking for answers and distractions. The Treasury Department created the Federal Bureau of Narcotics under Harry J. Anslinger who directed the agency until 1962 “and molded America’s drug policy” (The United States War on Drugs). Anslinger who was also a prohibitionist, who believed progress could only be achieved by controlling each individual’s impulses and thought that if enough people were put in jail that America would rid itself of drugs. Nonetheless, with these same beliefs, Anslinger, used these to fight the war on drugs. Armed with a Depression snug budget, and an uphill battle Anslinger tried and failed to get state governments involved with the war effort.…

    • 285 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Ronald Reagan made combating drug use one of his most important issues. He said that drug use was “one of the gravest problems facing America,” and “winning the war against drug abuse is one of the most important, the most urgent issues confronting us today. ”(2) During Reagan’s term, the Office of Director of National and International Drug Operations and Policy was formed by Congress to further combat the drug problem.(4) Two laws were passed in 1984, the Comprehensive Crime Act and the Narcotics Act of 1984.(4)…

    • 242 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Ronald Reagan, 40th president of the United States of America, will always be remembered for his dedication to moral obligations and his distinct policy making style. In addition to having been a decorated thespian, Reagan was a politician with a strong commitment to conservative values. He inherited the white house at a tumultous time; the Cold War was at a new peak and the United States was facing a new evil – drugs. Reagan took a full, hardline stance against the drug problem in America. However, considering currently escalating crime and drug prevelance rates, did he ultimately have a positive impact on the drug situation in America?…

    • 1336 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Controlled substances have the ability to be utilized alternatively than what the substances were originally prescribed. The overuse or abuse of these substances is an inevitable fight that will not stop completely but can be significantly reduced. People constantly recognize the latent functions of the drug that is design to help them, and use the drugs as ploys in order to make extra money or experience some type of high. Substances that have alternative uses should be tracked or carefully watched in order to confirm that the potent drug is being used as it originally designed. Individual states have limitations and different laws concerning drugs, which increases the difficulty in ceasing the product of its secondary use. Some states have views contrasting to those of the federal perspective. The commencement of a unified national system which can protect the original purpose for a drug to continue the overall manufacturing of that particular product. The nation-wide system will fulfill two functions, monitor dangerous drugs and uniform legislature between all states.…

    • 873 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Domestic incarceration rate skyrocketed during Nixon’s presidency in 1971 when he declared the “War on Drug,” specifically targeting African Americans and Latino populations. Nixon himself along with other politicians such as Barry Goldwater and Nelson Rockefeller called “for harsh drug laws and severe criminal sanctions because they argued that a strong correlation existed between drug addictions and crime” (Cummings 418). Claims made by Nixon and other politicians became the focal point in the legislative branch in the 1970s, dismissing drug addiction as a public health issue rather than a criminal enterprise. During this time, Nixon established the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), which criminalized drug addiction and distribution. When Ronald Reagan took office, he criminalized drug addiction by passing the Anti-Drug Abuse Act in 1968; consequently, mass incarceration of nonviolent drug offenders from minority population took place in which sixty-five percent are African Americans and Latinos.…

    • 1262 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Prohibition vs War on Drugs

    • 2774 Words
    • 12 Pages

    Prohibition of Alcohol in the 1920©ˆs. These two major issues of their time may not…

    • 2774 Words
    • 12 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Drug Courts Case Study

    • 698 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Early efforts to meet the nation’s growing drug problem began in the 1970s. The U.S imposed stricter penalties for drug-related crimes, but was met with…

    • 698 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    The War on Drugs was proclaimed by the Nixon Administration in the signing of the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970. It evoked the current era of mandatory minimum sentencing, systematic racism, and mass incarceration of colored people. While the War on Drugs has certainly sought to eradicate controlled substances and destroy the networks established for their distribution, State efforts to control drugs are also a way for dominant groups to express racial power. Despite the socioeconomic factors that contribute to drug use, it is evident that drug legislation is inherently biased and fuels racially motivated mass incarceration.…

    • 1660 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    The history associated with drug criminalization in America contains more political motivators than concerns for public health and safety. The biggest politically motivated aspect to drug deterrence comes from Richard Nixon’s s war on drugs in 1971 which has created a system that discriminates against minority groups and has had little effect on deterring drug use. The war on drugs has thus far been notoriously noted for discriminating against people of color by pumping drugs into their communities and then imposing severe criminal consequences for drug possession, use, or distribution. In fact, one of Nixon’s aides John Ehrlichmen stated that the war on drugs was intended for the following:…

    • 802 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Nixon also made drug related crimes federal offenses. Convictions for mere possession resulted in felony prison sentences and more serious crimes like dealing or trafficking came with even longer sentences. However, the longer sentences imposed to lower crime had insubstantial effect on arrest rates and did not deter recidivism. Minimum sentences directed toward drug users developed as a result of Nixon’s initiative to significantly reduce crime rates by incarcerating drugs users. This initiative, coined by Nixon as the “War on Drugs,” failed its main purpose of eliminating drug use and significantly reducing the number of drug users.…

    • 641 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The war on drugs started with the need to stop the movement of drugs into the United States. President Nixon was the first president to understand the severity of the impact drugs had on society. He proclaimed the need to interfere on the number of drugs coming into the United States. With his necessity to intervene he supported the creation of the Drug Enforcement Agency in 1973. With this agency, the war against the drug trade was initiated. His efforts were reinforced by President Reagan in the 1980s when he enforced and declared the war on drugs. President Reagan influence, resulted in more individuals incarcerated for drug offenses. This began to take an effect on correctional institutions because they began to experience an increase in…

    • 673 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Former President Nixon’s chief of staff admitted that the key was to devise a system to blame African-Americans for crime and thus the drug war was used to push and promote racial politics. However, the war on drug was never intended to end the availability of drugs or to decrease drug dealing and subsequently drug crime. Behind the drug on war was a huge money machine. Federal funding was distributed to those agencies that made the most drug arrests. Thus the incentive was not to reduce the crime rate but to get it going at the same rate. Another big benefit was that any cash, homes or cars seized from drug suspects fell into the hand of the state who could keep it for their own use. The results were devastating: people of color were arrested en masse for relatively minor, non-violent drug offenses. Most arrests were for drug possession and only 1 out of 5 was for sales. The 1990’s saw the most increase in mass incarceration and almost 80% of the increase was for the less harmful marijuana possession. Sadly the literature review shows that in many respects African-Americans are doing no better than during the times of Martin Luther King when after his assassination an uprising took place in the bigger cities. Today approximately 25% of African-Americans live below the poverty line about the same as in 1968. The racial dimension of mass incarceration in the United…

    • 1061 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    University of Phoenix Criminal Justice Administration CJA 453 Juan Campos February 5, 2009War on Drugs and Prison Overcrowding Prison overcrowding is a major problem1in our criminal justice system and it continues to bea hotly debated topic as to how we should address the problem. One of the main reasons our prison systems have a problem with overcrowding is drugs. More specifically, the "war on drugs" started by President Reagan in 1982 brought a dramatic increase1to the number of people put behind barsfor drug offenses.…

    • 709 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Prominently, the exponential uprise of America’s crime rate, the financial leech from other departments, and the sheer illegality of the punishment are all reasons why a federal law needs to be passed in order to treat and rehabilitate those addicted to illegal substances, rather than punish them. The flaws within this system are detrimental not only to the prisoners in question, but the entire United States. For example, funding for students who have great potential is wasted detaining an addict with no control over their problem instead of offering them legitimate help. The benefits of rehabilitation for nonviolent drug offenders clearly surpasses the current system in every way. The citizens of the U.S. must vote a law through that will rectify the problem; nonviolent drug addicts must be rehabilitated rather than imprisoned. The time to act is…

    • 1174 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    In 1989, President Bush appointed a "drug czar" who suggested that if the war on drugs was stepped up, drug use could be cut in half. President Bush continued a full-fledged war on drugs that continues to this day. (Terkel 104).…

    • 1464 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays