War On Drugs Analysis

Writer’s Rationale
In this Writer’s Rationale, I will be covering the topic of the “War on Drugs” to convince legislators that it has proven to be a phenomenal waste of time and money, incarcerates minority people disproportionately, and does not solve the drug problem at all. To show that they should work to repeal all applicable draconian drug laws immediately. The reason legislators need to hear this argument immediately is that since Richard Nixon initiated the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970, we the American taxpayers have spent $51 billion annually in this incredibly ineffective war against our citizens, in which nothing has changed or improved since we began. The “War on Drugs” is an extremely important topic
to argue because for forty-six years, we have been fighting this losing battle, and it has propelled us into having the highest per capita incarceration rate among all other developed nations. Most of these incarcerations being for non-violent drug charges such as possession, intoxication, or distributing. Mandatory minimum sentencing laws have forced judges into giving out harsher sentences for these non-violent crimes leading to our stated problem. I hope that through my argumentation legislators will realize that they should end this misguided “War on Drugs,” and start to focus on rehabilitation of addicted people instead of punishment. Personally, I believe that we should allow citizens of the United States the opportunity to determine of their own accord which substances they put into their bodies without the government needing to incarcerate non-violent drug users and waste all of our tax money trying to fight a morality war that they will never win.
The so-called “War on Drugs” effectively began in 1970 when then-president Richard M.
Nixon initiated the “Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970, ” this created the need for a new federal law enforcement agency dedicated to enforcing the act fittingly called the Drug Enforcement Administration in 1973. At first, Nixon emphasized for rehabilitation treatment of drug addicts, particularly heroin addicts, but soon the D.E.A. resorted to incarcerating drug users. In 1982, Nancy Reagan started touring elementary schools preaching the now infamous slogan “Just Say No,” referring to saying no to using illegal drugs because of a growing concern that children may become drug users. Nancy’s antidrug awareness tour wasn’t a completely selfless act on her part, though, because by portraying drugs as a threat to children, the Reagan administration was better able to pursue more aggressive federal antidrug legislation. An example of this would be the Antidrug Act of 1986, which established a 100-to-1 ratio difference in the mandatory minimum sentencing of crack cocaine to powdered cocaine possession. To receive a 10-year mandatory minimum sentence a person would have to possess 5,000 grams (11 pounds) of powdered cocaine, but only 50 grams (1.8 ounces) of crack cocaine were required to receive the same sentence. A racial difference in the prosecution of drug crimes was set up through this act since the majority of powdered cocaine users were rich white “yuppies” that
could afford powdered cocaine’s higher price tag, while users of crack cocaine were more often than not disadvantaged black people since it was significantly cheaper.
In 1988, the National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign began implementing the use of advertising to encourage young people to refrain from using drugs. An example of one of their ads would be infamous and iconic “This Is Your Brain On Drugs” ad. In which, a young woman holds up an egg and declares it to be your brain, holds up a frying pan and declares it to be drugs, she then smashes the egg and declares this to be your brain on drugs, and goes on to smash everything in the kitchen trying to show what drugs can cause to happen to a person’s life. Needless to say, these ads were not effective in any way, and aside from providing laughs to young people everywhere, didn’t cause any progress to occur in the “War on Drugs.” In some instances, these ads would backfire causing young people to believe that everyone was doing drugs, that drugs caused people to have a good time, and in general had an unintended positive impact on perceptions towards cannabis use. In fact, repeated exposure to these antidrug ads was linked to higher instances of young people trying cannabis for the first time or increasing their use. California legalized cannabis for medicinal use in 1996, although the use of cannabis was still technically deemed illegal by the federal government, leading to prescripted medicinal cannabis users and California state dispensaries needing to walk a fine line between what was legal and illegal. Most dispensaries were closed down only to open up again because of this battle between state and federal governments. In August of 2010, President Obama signed the Fair Sentencing Act into law which substantially reduced the previously mentioned 100-to-1 sentencing difference between powdered and crack cocaine, which disproportionately affected minorities, to 18-to-1.
In this Writer’s Rationale, I have covered the topic of the “War on Drugs” to convince legislators that it has proven to be a phenomenal waste of time and money, incarcerates minority people disproportionately, and does not solve the drug problem at all.
Also to show that they should work to repeal all of the applicable draconian drug laws immediately. I have covered some history of the topic from the last forty-six years, which hopefully shows how necessary it is to end this morality war madness finally, and how the “War on Drugs,” has disproportionally targeted minorities with discriminatory
legislation.