Preview

What Are The Effects Of War On Drugs

Satisfactory Essays
Open Document
Open Document
240 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
What Are The Effects Of War On Drugs
On October 14 1982 the nation's president Ronald Reagan declared illicit drugs to be a threat to national security. By making this statement and then following through with this statement caused chaos all over the states, specifically the lower income communities. I believe the term "War on Drugs" was a political loophole that really meant war on minorities. I found the article written by Andrew Glass to be informational, yet failed to mention the lives that were destroyed. During the late 70's and 80's drugs were a big problem. The way our government went about it made everything worse. First, if you are declaring a war on drugs, that should mean all drugs. For example, if you were caught with cocaine you were given a slap on the wrist but
Continue Reading
View Writing Issues

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Analysis Of Ronald Reagan's Rundown Of The Drug War
    • 318 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Analysis Of Ronald Reagan's Rundown Of The Drug War

    and prevention was reduced. Funds given to the Department of Education were cut from $14 million to $3 million from 1981 to 1984 (Alexander 33). Reagan employed a Southern Strategy where he promised tax cuts to the rich and punishment for the crack users (DuVernay). In his speech to the Nation on the campaign against abuse, Ronald Reagan gives a rundown of the drug war (Reagan 1). Reagan addresses the American public as a concerned parent, grandparent and neighbor, declaring drugs an enemy concerning the young people who their future demands on (Regan 2). Reagan stated that drugs are killing the children, menacing the society, and threatening their values (Reagan 2). Reagan announces smokeable cocaine, or crack as the new epidemic that must…

    • 318 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Powerful Essays

    Summary Of Nixon's War On Drugs
    • 1367 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Summary Of Nixon's War On Drugs

    Sirin writes that her article “investigates presidential progress in addressing racial injustices and disparities within the context of the war on drugs” and argues that the possibility for racial justice depends on a progressive president choosing its pursuit as a personal agenda. Sirin examines the drug policies of presidents from Richard Nixon to Barack Obama, and when discussing President Reagan, she gives him responsibility for the “punitive policies that disproportionately affected certain racial/ethnic groups” found in the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986. She underscores his advocacy for federal mandatory minimum sentences, which created “the notorious 100 to 1 provision” under which five grams of crack cocaine carried the same prison sentence, five years, as 500 grams of powder cocaine. After explaining that crack cocaine users were typically poor and black, she notes that the resulting racial disparity in sentencing stayed in place until President Obama’s Fair Sentencing Act of 2010. Sirin clarifies that a progressive president will struggle without the legislature, judiciary, or public opinion, but she still holds that “most importantly, the president in office should have a progressive agenda to begin with in order to initiate and work towards key structural changes and policy reforms.” For this reason, according to her estimation, the president defines drug…

    • 1367 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
    Read More
  • Powerful Essays

    Ronald Reagan's Drug Policy
    • 1336 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Ronald Reagan's Drug Policy

    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
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    The Phenomenon Of Prison Industrial Complex
    • 1262 Words
    • 6 Pages

    The Phenomenon Of Prison Industrial Complex

    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
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Drug War: Era Of Color Blindness
    • 396 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Drug War: Era Of Color Blindness

    Today’s society is known as the “Era of Color Blindness.” The war on drugs from the past to the future has not changed according to Michelle Alexander. The previous Jim Crowe law may be eradicated, but the law was brought back into effect by former president Ronald Reagan, known as the “War on Drugs.” The war on drugs that was put into effect by Ronald Reagan was targeted to lower class communities that had a violent crime rate. Focusing on the “Drug War” took light off a pressing issue known as racial caste in America by making harsher punishments for people who used or sold drugs. Even though the focus was in lower class communities it was also just as common in the middle to upper class communities. The “War on Drugs”…

    • 396 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Argumentative Essay On 13th
    • 657 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Argumentative Essay On 13th

    “In many ways, the so-called war on drugs was a war on communities of color, a war on black communities, a war on Latino communities.” This statement was made by Angela Davis who appeared in the documentary, 13th. Next to unfair jail sentences, the war on drugs was the next hot topic of the documentary. 13th recognizes that the Nixon administration began the cycle of criminalizing African-Americans struggling with drug addictions, rather than increasing availed resources for treatment and rehabilitation. 13th also recognizes the United States’ 40th president, Ronald Reagan, to be the cause of this…

    • 657 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Drug Courts Case Study
    • 698 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Drug Courts Case Study

    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
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Nixon Administration And The War On Drugs
    • 790 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Nixon Administration And The War On Drugs

    The war on drugs continued from the Nixon administration through the Bush administration, and supposedly was effective in lowering criminal activity rates in the United States. However, during the Reagan administration, the war on drugs may not have been necessary to implement. Activi"at the time President Reagan declared his war on drugs in 1982, drug crime was on the decline. It was not on the rise, and less than 3 percent of the American population identified drugs as the nation’s most pressing concern.” (Alexander).…

    • 790 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    War On Drugs In The 1960s
    • 662 Words
    • 3 Pages

    War On Drugs In The 1960s

    The 1960s were marked by a plethora of social and political changes, with the counterculture movement being one of the most widely historicized and familiar aspects out of this period. While this movement did contribute to positive changes in some ways, a rise in drug usage amongst young people occurred. Due to the inherent dangers drugs impose on the individual, concerns were raised throughout the country. In response, President Richard Nixon moved to enact legislation hoping to curb drug usage. This initial “war on drugs” was controversial and characterized by very little success.…

    • 662 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Incarceration Research Paper
    • 212 Words
    • 1 Page

    Incarceration Research Paper

    In 1971, President Richard Nixon declared the War on Drugs in America. In 2016, the amount of annual drug arrests in America outnumbered all violent crime arrests combined- most of these arrests being African American men.…

    • 212 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Essay On The Tough On Crime Movement
    • 673 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Essay On The Tough On Crime Movement

    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
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Essay On Mass Incarceration
    • 1082 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Essay On Mass Incarceration

    President Ronald Reagan’s War on Drugs really accelerated mass incarceration in which drug users and drug dealers were sought after (Alexander, p. 49). This was not really about getting drugs off the streets; it was about getting black people off the streets and put into prison. Economic decline and gentrification forced blacks to sell drugs to make money. This made it easy for motivated police to arrest masses of people in poor black communities. The criminal justice system boomed, creating jobs for whites while oppressing blacks.…

    • 1082 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Powerful Essays

    Reasons For Mass Incarceration
    • 1988 Words
    • 8 Pages

    Reasons For Mass Incarceration

    Mass incarceration is often cited as one of the main pillars of institutional racism in America due to the disproportional amount of minorities incarcerated yearly. The war on drugs is widely acknowledged as one of the main reasons for mass incarceration and its devastating effects on the black community. On June 17, 1971, Richard Nixon officially declared drugs “America's public enemy number one” and thus began the colloquialized War on Drugs (Alexander 16). Seeing as Nixon’s presidency shortly succeeded the Civil Rights Act, Nixon exploited the raw frustration of the remaining segregationists in his campaign for the presidency. Years later, Reagan took office and his supposed drive to “crack down on crime” had an implicit focus on black communities…

    • 1988 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Powerful Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Incarceration In State Prisons
    • 1061 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Incarceration In State Prisons

    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
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Drugs And Prison Overcrowding
    • 709 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Drugs And Prison Overcrowding

    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
    Read More

Related Topics