Category: War On Drugs

Introduction

Drug abuse in America started around the 1890s and has evolved greatly since then. The first signs of drug abuse date back to the 1890s when cocaine was sold in a Sears catalog in a small needle. Drug abuse started to take a toll in the 1800s when opium and morphine were heavily used and starting addictions. By 1890, the first congressional act was made to tax drugs.

Historical Context of Drug Abuse in America

In 1909, using and possessing opium was illegal, but it was still allowed to be used medically. By the time Prohibition came around, all liquor was illegal, along with cocaine and the production of opioids. The Cannabis Act of 1937 did not ban cannabis but taxed it heavily, and if taxes weren’t paid, you could spend up to 5 years in jail. When Richard Nixon took office in the 1970s, he had enough of drug abuse. He passed the Controlled Substance Act, which regulated laws on certain drugs and substances. He then created drug schedules that tell how highly addictive it is and how dangerous it is. Drug abuse in America went on for decades, which created many laws and acts to be passed.

Nixon’s Declaration of the War on Drugs

In 1971, Richard Nixon declared a War on Drugs, stating that “they are public enemy number one.” The rise in the use of recreational drugs in the ’60s is most likely what led to Nixon declaring War. Part of the War’s actions was to create additional funding for federal drug agencies and create mandatory prison sentences and consequences for those who committed crimes involving drugs. During the War on Drugs, Nixon created the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), which is still in effect today. They are responsible for taking on drug smuggling and drug use in the United States. Originally, the DEA only consisted of 1,470 members and a 75 million dollar budget, but today, they have over 5,000 members and a 2.03 billion dollar budget. The War on Drugs is still in effect today and has had its good and bad impacts on society.

Societal Implications and Controversies

In the 1980’s President Ronald Reagan started the “Just Say No” campaign. Its intentions were to educate children on drugs and the effects of drug abuse. In 1986, Congress passed the Anti-Drug Abuse Act, which set minimum sentences for drug offenses. The law was considered “racist” because many African Americans used crack cocaine, which led to them being sentenced to prison, while white Americans who used powder cocaine were sentenced to a shorter sentence.

Critics also claimed that blacks were being racially profiled because many of them were sent to prison for drug suspicion. By the 21st century, the War on Drugs is an unknown thing. Most people consider it to have created a racial divide in the country. However, there is a slim amount of people who still share support. One of the most recent acts that have degraded the War on Drugs is the Fair Sentencing Act, which reduced the sentences on crack cocaine and powder cocaine from 100:1 to 18:1. Also, the recent legalization of the recreational use of marijuana has taken its toll on the War. The “Just Say No” campaign is a thing of the past, along with the War on Drugs, as they are fought with less intensity.

Conclusion

The schedules of drugs are based on how they are used medically, how addictive they are, and the laws on the drug in other countries. Schedule I drugs are known to be highly addictive and provide no medical use. Drugs in Schedule One consist of things like ecstasy and heroin. While schedule two are still highly addictive and provide minimal medical use, they consist of drugs like morphine and methamphetamine. Schedule three, however, is not that addictive and widely used in the medical field.

Drugs in the schedule consist of ketamine and testosterone. ScheduleSchedule four drugs have a low abuse rate and are widely used in the medical field and widely accepted. Last of all, the schedules are in number five. The drugs in this schedule have little to no abuse and are accepted into the medical field; some of these drugs are Robitussin and Lyrica. The schedules of drugs helped declare how addictive they are and their purpose of them.

References

1. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). (n.d.). Drug Scheduling. https://www.dea.gov/drug-scheduling
2. National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA). (2021, May). Drugs, Brains, and Behavior: The Science of Addiction. https://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/drugs-brains-behavior-science-addiction
3. Office of National Drug Control Policy. (2021, January 14). The National Drug Control Strategy. https://www.whitehouse.gov/ondcp/national-drug-control-strategy-2021/
4. PBS. (2000). Nixon Declares War on Drugs. American Experience: The Presidents. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/presidents-nixon-war-on-drugs/

For centuries, the human mind has been enamored with the mind-blowing effects of substances that they can put into their bodies. Never before, however, has this drug use become more prevalent than now. The War on Drugs has been an ongoing and ineffective tactic meant to steer U.S. citizens away from drug use, but instead, it only leaves them misinformed and more likely to try drugs, filling up our prisons in the process and putting drug use on the same platform as murder or theft.

Misinformation and its Implications

The official “War on Drugs” was a process that started in 1971 by the U.S. government to combat drug use and has been largely deemed as a failure. The War on Drugs is defined as “a comprehensive domestic and foreign campaign by the U.S. government to stop the production, distribution, and use of illegal drugs.” The campaign reached an official end in 2009 due to its counterproductivity and unsuccessfulness, but a substantial amount of its policies remain.

Overpopulated Prisons: A Consequence of the War on Drugs

One downfall of the War on Drugs is that it misinforms people and leaves them more likely to experiment and/or become addicted to drugs. Citizens are not properly educated on the topic of drug use and what it can do to you. More specifically, they aren’t taught the differences between hard drugs and drugs like marijuana. The War on Drugs curriculum makes marijuana seem just as bad and consequential as substances like cocaine or heroin.

One woman interviewed by Marsha Rosenbaum said, “They told us if we[she and her classmates] used marijuana, we would become addicted. They told us if we used heroin, we would become addicted. Well, we all tried marijuana and found we did not become addicted. We figured the entire message must be B.S. So I tried heroin, used it again and again, got strung out, and here I am.” This is just one example of a teen who was taught to abstain from and demonize all drugs, being misinformed in the process of it, and deciding to make their own uninformed conclusions based on little experience.

Another prime example of the ineffectiveness of the War on Drugs is how overpopulated our prisons have become. Lauren Carrol states, “The state and federal prison population grew from 218,466 in 1974 to 1,508,636 in 2014, which is a nearly 600 percent increase. For comparison, the overall United States population has increased just 51 percent since 1974”(Carrol). These dates and numbers line up with the timeline of the War on Drugs and are an exact result of it. This is a travesty, considering that drugs are not a good reason to lock somebody up for a substantial period of their life. This wastes space that could be used for much more dangerous criminals and leads to a less happy and productive society.

Ethical Considerations in Criminalization

This leads to the third reason why the War on Drugs is a failure. Drug users are put on the same platform as murderers or thieves. This is unfair because drug users are not nearly as ethically immoral as others who commit actual crimes. “Drug use, unlike any of these real crimes, does not involve a trespass against anyone’s right to life, liberty, or property.” In other words, drug use does not violate any of the constitutional and unalienable rights. Good citizens are being put in jail alongside people who actually rape, murder, and kidnap simply because they put harmful substances in their own bodies. “The overwhelming majority of drug users are nonviolent. Generally law-abiding people. A significant portion of the prison system is filled with such people.”

Some people argue that “If all the drugs, drug abusers, dealers, and manufacturers are behind bars, there will be no one else there to bring drugs into the area”(The War on Drugs). This is a misconception because there will always be people out there to make the drugs and distribute them to others, and there will always be people curious enough to try them. There are numerous amounts of underground operations and trafficking that go undetected by the government. There are people who hide drugs in their very own homes and evade arrest daily. People will not stop something simply because the government says to.

The Call for Reform and Education

The War on Drugs has been going on since 1971 and has had few successes. It has been counterproductive, has filled up our prisons with good and lawful people, and has failed to properly educate its citizens on the drugs that they deem just as bad as murder or theft. The amount of time and money that the War on Drugs has wasted has had no benefits to American society and should go through reformations to better suit the productivity as well as the needs of the American citizens. The focus should be directed more on educating our people about the harmful effects of different drugs and persuading them away from addiction, but not jailing them if they decide that that is the path they would prefer to take. Otherwise, our prisons will continue to be overpopulated, and generation after generation will continue to be uneducated on these topics.

Reagan’s Hidden Agenda in the War on Drugs

President Ronald Reagan’s administration has come out admitting that the “War on Drugs wasn’t about drugs, but about abolishing those that opposed the government, the anti-war lefts and blacks” (Coyne and Hall). So has this Drug War failed, or accomplished exactly what the government wanted? If causing countless problems within your own country for the benefit of the small few is winning, then that is your answer. The original reason for the War on Drugs has failed immensely, only bringing corruption and economic distress to the country as a whole.

Unmasking the Truth: A Deeper Dive

At this time there isn’t much that is academically written about the behind-the-scene reasons the War on Drugs was started. As prevalent of a problem that it is today, I am changing that and will research deeper into the meaning, cause, and repercussions of the defeat of the United States’ War on Drugs.

Since first learning about the awful effects the War on Drugs has caused, I’ve wanted to dig deeper behind it and it looks like it’s only downhill from here. There seems to be a lot of different motives that aren’t surface level, from audience manipulation by speeches to taking rights and freedoms away from the people to distracting everyone from more serious issues. I think this essay will allow me to find out what is at the bottom of it all, and what pulls me into finding it.

Prospective Outline for Unveiling the War on Drugs

Introduction

• A Hook about a surprising fact
• Tentative Thesis: The original reason for the War on Drugs has failed immensely, only bringing corruption and economic distress to the country as a whole.

Narratio – History of the term “War on Drugs”

• 1970’s and the War on Drugs
• Ronald Reagan and his wife grew on Nixon’s drug policies, and in 1986 passed the Anti-Drug Abuse Act, which established mandatory minimum prison sentences for certain drug offenses.
• War on Drugs in 21st Century

Origins and Intentions

• Why was the War on Drugs started?
• War on Drugs in the 21st Century.

Pros and Cons of the War

• Potential Benefits of a War on Drugs
• Cons of a War on Drugs
• Economic Problems

Looking Forward: Solutions and Proposals

Conclusion

• Future possibilities or solutions
• Use the money from the taxes to make stronger education on it while also establishing quality rehabilitation and health/mental health services.

References:

1. Coyne, C.J. and Hall, A.R. (2019). “The War on Drugs Was Born 50 Years Ago,” Mises Institute. Retrieved from https://mises.org/wire/war-drugs-was-born-50-years-ago
2. Hawdon, J. (2011). “Organizational Factors and Police Corruption in Drug-Related Operations,” Journal of Drug Issues, 41(4), 571-593. doi:10.1177/002204261104100402

Introduction

Throughout the centuries, our history has shown us the war on drugs, the battles of addictions, and how both the war and the addictions have gotten bigger throughout the years. The drugs are so popular that people take them for pleasure and for pain. And the war on drugs is a cruel joke in America. Drugs can be fun, but they also can be deadly.

Stimulants

Stimulants are a class of psychoactive drugs that increase activity in the brain. These drugs can temporarily elevate alertness, mood, and awareness. Stimulants have chemical structures that are like the key brain neurotransmitters called monoamines, which include norepinephrine and dopamine. The drug will increase the levels of these chemicals in the brain and body, which, in turn, increases blood pressure and heart rate, constricts blood vessels, increases blood glucose, and opens the pathways of the respiratory system.

Drugs that are classed as stimulants include caffeine, nicotine, cocaine, and amphetamines. In history, amphetamines were first synthesized in 1887 but weren’t used until the 1930s, when doctors prescribed them to treat nasal congestion. Eventually, they were used to treat other conditions, including obesity, depression, and hyperactivity. It wasn’t long before people discovered that the side effects—among them, excitement and alertness—could be pleasurable. That’s when amphetamines began to be abused. In the 1950s, people were taking cold medicine just to lose weight, or students were taking it just to stay awake to study. By the late 1960s and early 1970s, people were addicted to stimulants and making crystal meth. These historical events have led our governments to have any OTC drugs placed with the pharmacy because of the stimulants that they have in them and people abusing the drug and making crystal meth.

CNS Depressants

A type of drug that slows down brain activity, which causes the muscles to relax and calms and soothes a person. CNS depressants are used to treat insomnia, anxiety, panic attacks, and seizures. They may also be used to relieve anxiety and tension before surgery. Most CNS depressants act on the brain by increasing the activity of gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), a chemical that inhibits brain activity. This action causes the drowsy and calming effects that make the medicine effective for anxiety and sleep disorders. People who start taking CNS depressants usually feel sleepy and uncoordinated for the first few days until the body adjusts to these side effects.

There are three different groups of drug classes they include Benzodiazepines, Non-Benzodiazepine, Sedative Hypnotics, and Barbiturates. In history, back in 1951, Congress passed a law requiring a doctor’s approval for the purchase of barbiturates. But even before the clampdown on the over-the-counter sale of barbiturates, pharmaceutical companies were on the hunt for the next generation of tranquilizers. In 1958, Hoffmann-La Roche patented another benzodiazepine, called diazepam, soon to become world-famous as Valium. Sales of the new drug quickly eclipsed the old barbiturates.

In 1990, the American Psychiatric Association launched a task force to investigate the dangers of rising benzodiazepine prescriptions. Today, the number of prescriptions continues to rise, as does the size of the benzodiazepine-injured community. Nearly four decades after Senate hearings on the dangers of benzodiazepines, research into these drugs and physician knowledge remain woefully inadequate. The need for action grows more urgent with every passing day.

Hallucinogens

Hallucinogens are a diverse group of drugs that alter perception, thoughts, and feelings. They cause hallucinations or sensations and images that seem real, though they are not. Hallucinogens can be found in some plants and mushrooms or can be human-made. People have used hallucinogens for centuries, mostly for religious rituals. Classic hallucinogens are thought to interact mostly with serotonin and the prefrontal cortex of the brain. Alterations of moods, distortions of reality and sensory perceptions, and seeing, hearing, or feeling things that are not there are common side effects of drug-induced psychosis or a “trip.” Some people may feel euphoric and have what they consider to be a spiritual awakening, while others may suffer from panic, paranoia, anxiety, and despair, which are side effects of a “bad trip.” Hallucinogenic drugs can be unpredictable and affect each user differently.

The four most common drugs include LSD, Peyote, Psilocybin, and Dimethoxymethylamphetamine. In history, in the early 1970s, MDMA had hit the streets. It was popular at raves and nightclubs. Today, ecstasy is still a common street drug, but researchers are investigating whether MDMA could be used to treat post-traumatic stress disorder and cancer-related anxiety.

Inhalants

Inhalants are volatile substances that produce chemical vapors that can be inhaled to induce a psychoactive or mind-altering effect. The chemicals abused by inhalant users affect different parts of the brain, producing a variety of sensory and psychological disorders. Many inhalants are thought to dissolve the protective myelin sheath that surrounds neurons – brain cells – resulting in cell death.” The damage to the brain caused by inhalants can create personality changes, memory problems, hallucinations, learning disabilities, tremors, vision problems, and permanent problems with balance and coordination.

Inhalants are composed of four main types: solvents, volatile gases, aerosols, and nitrites. The history of inhalants dates as early as the 1800s; nitrous oxide, ether, and chloroform were the anesthetics used commonly as intoxicants. Ether was used as a recreational drug during the 1920s Prohibition era, when alcohol was made illegal in the U.S. Abuse of inhalants in the United States increased in the 1950s and is now widespread among adolescents. By the 1960s, the practice of solvent sniffing had spread across a wide variety of commercial products, including paint and lacquer thinners, nail polish remover, shoe polish, lighter fluid, spray paint, and others. And now we have a major problem with young teens and young adults using inhalants to get that high today.

Cannabinoids

Cannabinoids are naturally occurring compounds found in the Cannabis sativa plant. Of over 480 different compounds present in the plant, only around 66 are termed cannabinoids. The most well-known among these compounds is the delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (Δ9-THC), which is the main psychoactive ingredient in cannabis. Cannabidiol (CBD) is another important component, which makes up about 40% of the plant resin extract. THC’s chemical structure is similar to the brain chemical anandamide. The similarity in structure allows the body to recognize THC and to alter normal brain communication.

Endogenous cannabinoids such as anandamide (see figure) function as neurotransmitters because they send chemical messages between nerve cells (neurons) throughout the nervous system. They affect brain areas that influence pleasure, memory, thinking, concentration, movement, coordination, and sensory and time perception. Because of this similarity, THC can attach to molecules called cannabinoid receptors on neurons in these brain areas and activate them, disrupting various mental and physical functions and causing the effects described earlier. The neural communication network that uses these cannabinoid neurotransmitters, known as the endocannabinoid system, plays a critical role in the nervous system’s normal functioning, so interfering with it can have profound effects.

Cannabinoid is a drug class from Marijuana, and along with cannabinoid is CBG, CBC, CBD, and THC. These all fall under Marijuana as a drug class. The history began back in the 1600s when the colonists were growing hemp and using it. Then, in 1937, there was a tax put on Marijuana. In the 1970s, Nixon placed a war on drugs, and that is when Marijuana became a Schedule I drug. In 1996, California legalized Marijuana for medical use only, called the Compassionate Act Use. As of 2018, there are 30 states that have legalized Marijuana.

Narcotics

Also known as “opioids,” the term “narcotic” comes from the Greek word for “stupor” and originally referred to a variety of substances that dulled the senses and relieved pain. Though some people still refer to all drugs as “narcotics,” today “narcotic” refers to opium, opium derivatives, and their semi-synthetic substitutes. A more current term for these drugs, with less uncertainty regarding its meaning, is “opioid.” Opioids attach to receptors in the brain. Normally, these opioids are the endogenous variety that is created naturally in the body. Once attached, they send signals to the brain of the ‘opioid effect,’ which blocks pain, slows breathing, and has a general calming and anti-depressing effect.

The four main drug classes include OxyContin, Fentanyl, Morphine, and Codeine. The history of narcotics, also known as opioids, dates back to 3400 B.C. Narcotics from ancient times all had a common source: the red opium poppy. The Opium Exclusion Act of 1909 Barred the importation of opium for the purpose of smoking. The Harrison Narcotics Tax Act of 1914 Required physician and pharmacist registration for the distribution of opiates. The Heroin Act of 1924: Heroin importation, manufacture, and possession was outlawed in the U.S.. Bayer stopped the production of heroin, but in 1916, oxycodone was developed in hopes it would be less addictive.

With the passage of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) in 1970, greater regulation and scheduling of drugs based on abuse potential occurred. Within the CSA, there are five schedules (I-V) that are used to classify drugs based on their potential for abuse, valid medical applications, and public safety. The schedules range from I to V, with Schedule I being the highest for potential abuse and with no current medical use. Heroin and marijuana fall into Schedule 1; oxycodone, hydrocodone, and morphine are in Schedule 2. Due to the growth of pain medications, doctors are still seeing an increase in abused prescription medication due to the opioid epidemic that we have in our country today.

Conclusion

The growing drug crisis sweeping across the U.S. is deadlier than gun violence, car crashes, or Aids, none of which have killed as many Americans in a single year as overdoses did in 2017, with the number at 70,237. We need to keep the war on drugs going and continue to fight and help those in need of drug abuse problems and addiction. Our drug issues in America should have been resolved many years ago, but having the President of the United States with all the power to work on the drug issues and other government agencies, it will always be and will continue to be an ongoing issue.

References

1. Hanson, G.R., Venturelli, P.J., & Fleckenstein, A.E. (2015). Drugs and Society (12th ed.). MA: Jones and Bartlett Learning.
2. Central Nervous System (CNS) Depressants and Stimulants. (2018). Retrieved on December 18, 2018, from https://www.spineuniverse.com/treatments/medication/central-nervous-system-cns-depressants-stimulants
3. What are Stimulants- History of Amphetamines. Retrieved on December 18, 2018 from http://science.jrank.org/pages/clo337q5pw/What-Are-Stimulants-HISTORY-AMPHETAMINES.html
4. A Brief History of Benzodiazepines. (2017). Retrieved on December 18, 2018 from http://benzoinfo.com/2017/12/13/a-brief-history-of-benzodiazepines/
5. Marijuana. (2018). Retrieved on December 18, 2018 from https://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/research-reports/marijuana/how-does-marijuana-produce-its-effects
6. How do opioids work in the brain? Retrieved on December 18, 2018 from https://www.naabt.org/faq_answers.cfm?ID=6
7. Understanding Opioid (Narcotic) Pain Medications. (2018). Retrieved on December 19, 2018 from https://www.drugs.com/article/opioid-narcotics.html
8. Why are more Americans than ever dying from drug overdoses? (2018). Retrieved on December 19, 2018 from https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2018/nov/29/usdrug-overdose-epidemic-opioids-crisis-getting-worse

Understanding Addiction

When the word “addiction” is mentioned often, it is thought that it only happens to the so-called ‘bad’ people who were poor or grew up on the streets. Some people believe it to be something that would never happen to them or to people they know and love. When, in fact, it happens every day across the United States, families are struggling to save someone they love who is struggling with substance abuse.

In society today, everywhere you go, everywhere you turn, there are advertisements or commercials for the latest prescription medicine. Just watch television, and instead of just commercials about the newest car on the market or the latest new technology that is coming out, there are so many commercials for the newest prescription drug that is on the market. Why is there an advertisement to promote more medicine? That should be something only a doctor who’s giving a patient options for whatever ailment that they might have.

The War on Drugs and Prescription Medication

Also, now, when someone is suffering from substance addiction, a doctor is more likely to prescribe a drug to treat a drug addiction. All too often, it only causes a new addiction for them when they start abusing the prescribed medication that is supposed to stop the cravings for the street drug. The war on drugs has and will continue until we open our eyes and see that there are many other ways to treat street drug addictions or any type of addiction besides adding more temptation or switching from an illegal addictive drug to an equally addictive legal drug.

According to Gale Encyclopedia of Medicine Fourth Edition, the term addiction is a disease of the brain that causes dependence upon or a persistent, compulsive need to use a habit-forming substance or an irresistible urge to engage in an activity despite harmful consequences. Addicts are usually driven by the increased need for more of the substance or activity to obtain the same effect as the first time they engaged in the activity or used the substance (Sternbergetal. 55). There are various different types of addictive and legal and illegal substances.

The State of Addiction in America

Some examples are alcohol, heroin, tobacco, methamphetamines, and prescription painkillers. In America, an estimated 22.2 million people abuse or are addicted to alcohol or drugs. Prescription pain pill abuse has also become a major issue for Americans. It is estimated that 2 million Americans use prescription pain relievers for non-medical reasons. There has also been a major increase in heroin addicts. 467,000 Americans suffered from heroin addiction between 2002 and 2012. According to the government, overdoses from methadone and prescription painkillers quadrupled from 1999 to 2010, killing more than 16,000 in 2010 alone. Even the Attorney General Eric Holder and the governor of Massachusetts both stated that the rise in overdoses from heroin and prescription painkillers’ an urgent public health crisis.’

Addressing the Issue: Alternative Treatments and Political Influence

This is a subject that hits home for me because my best friend’s daughter, whom I have known since she was little, got addicted to heroin at 18 years old. She entered a maintenance program in which she was given a 60 mg dose of Methadone at a clinic to help her not want heroin. She became so addicted to methadone to the point she even overdosed on it 3 times. She even was in a coma and almost died one of the times she overdosed. She came out of the coma but struggled to get off the methadone.

What is even more awful is that there is a drug available that her mom and I researched and found to be less addictive. When her mom requested it, they said it was available but still continued to give her the methadone instead. A program like this has one main goal: to decrease the dosage until the addict no longer needs it. Unfortunately, this process may not be as effective due to the fact that some of the drugs used in the treatment of drug abuse are themselves addictive. She was on Methadone till 2016.

Her mother convinced her to move to Michigan with her and found a doctor who put her on Naloxone. Naloxone blocks the opiate receptors and makes it so the user cannot get high. It does not stop the withdrawal symptoms, but certain medications that are also not addictive help with that part. I completely agree with Chicago Recovery Alliance’s Bigg, who said, ‘It’s been around for 40 years, it’s a pure antidote, and there are no side effects.

It consistently reverses overdoses via the intramuscular injection; it’s very simple to administer. If people have Naloxone, it becomes much, much easier to avoid overdose deaths.” Naloxone is now in some states made available over-the-counter without a prescription to help stop the heroin or opioid overdose epidemic in those states. There are some very traditional ways of dealing with addiction that are well-known even by those who have never suffered from addiction.

Most addictions can be treated by entering into a treatment program or rehab. Many programs in these facilities usually rely on re-education and often have recovered addicts who understand and can relate to newly admitted patients. There are many forms of treatment for someone who suffers from addiction. Not every treatment program is right for every type of addict, and some are weaved into the fibers of other treatment programs. There are many types of alternative treatments for addictions, such as harm reduction. Although very controversial, harm reduction gives the user the decision to abstain completely or to just cut back on using without being told they will always be an addict.

The major principles of harm reduction not only help addicts understand their relationship with alcohol and drugs but also help them learn how to make decisions and choices that reduce harm in their lives and the lives of those they care about. Then they can learn to no longer be ‘under the influence’ of mind-altering drugs, but rather they can be ‘over the influence’ (Denningetal. 1). Some other self-help groups are Narcotics Anonymous (NA) and Alcoholics Anonymous (AA).

They are considered 12-step-based programs that dominate the self-help landscape and account for 93% of all alcoholic and other drug treatment programs in the United States. There are many reasons that using medication to treat addiction is not the best way. Many people cannot deal emotionally without the drug that treats the craving for the substance to which they were addicted. Therefore, they become completely dependent on the prescription drug to feel functional. So what is the difference between the treatment drug and the drug the addict is trying to kick the habit of, except one is sold in a pharmacy, and one is sold on the street? Both drugs make a person dependent on it to feel ‘normal.’

Many began to sell or abuse legal drugs to get the same euphoric high that originally caused the whole addiction. Factors can be put in place to help people who are suffering from addictions by providing more funds for drug treatment programs in and out of jails or prisons, having local groups full of family and friends who lost a loved one to addiction come out to talk to addicts about how addiction affected their lives, and finding new ways to help fund overdose prevention programs.

The politicians think the money should be spent on what they think is the war on drugs. That includes pushing more addictive legal drugs to users who are trying to rehabilitate themselves and capturing drug dealers and drug smugglers. Yet the DEA reports only 10% of all the drugs that enter the US are taken off the streets. The United States spends $50 billion a year on the war on drugs. The issue of drug addiction doesn’t just affect the addict. It affects their family, too.

Adding another addiction because the pharmaceutical industry wants to make more money instead of curing the addiction seems to have become a trend. The subject of drug abuse hesitance swept under the rug for too long. The American people need to stand up and fight politicians for more funding for drug treatment programs and overdose programs. It has become almost like the pharmaceutical industry has its hands in the pockets of every politician who is supposed to do what is right for the American people. Adding drugs like methadone to the equation of drug abuse is only guaranteeing an addict to relapse back into addiction.

References:

1. Sternberg, E., Sternberg, C., & Sternberg, R. Gale Encyclopedia of Medicine Fourth Edition.
2. Denning, P., Little, J., & Glickman, A. Over the Influence: The Harm Reduction Guide for Managing Drugs and Alcohol.
3. “The United States War on Drugs”.

Drugs in our world have been used for centuries, yet have been illegal for one 1% of our time. In 1971, President Nixon declared drug abuse to be public enemy number one. Tv shows and social media made it clear that drug dealers and cartels are villains and must be stopped. These social media networks decided to turn their heads the other way on the drug abusers and instead attack the hustlers and dealers. Nixon also put in place mandatory minimums on simple possession charges. Regardless of the culpability or circumstances of the offenders, the judges are forced to give out mandatory minimums of drug charges which are ridiculous. For example, a simple charge of possession of crack cocaine is a mandatory minimum of 5-10 in federal prison. Instead of talking about the end of social safety nets for low-income families, they rather talk about the drug dealers. In the United States, 22 percent of the prison population is from non-violent drug charges. Today, they imprison the most amount of people in the world. There are about three million people incarcerated in the United States. The United States is home to five percent of the world’s population, but 25 percent of the world’s prisoners. The drug prohibition efforts have had little impact on the supply of these drugs and have had no success in diminishing the demand of these drugs. The drug production trafficking and consumption of the drug have affected every single country in the world. Other countries are in the drug war such as Latin America and Afghanistan.

Mexico is in control of 90 percent of the cocaine that enters the United States, and about 70 percent of the marijuana is from Mexico. In 2006 the Mexican drug war started. Mexico’s federal government put in new strategies to catch and imprison the cartel leaders and to dismantle cartels. Since then the Mexican government has taken out some big cartel leaders however this had lead to even more violence in their cities. This is believed because since the cartels have lost their leaders, there is no one to command and lead them, therefore the members in the cartel feel like they need to fight for control over the pipes that transfer drugs into the United States. These Mexican drug cartels make between nineteen billion and twenty-nine billion from drug sales in the United States alone. No matter how hard you try to stop these drugs from entering the country and into the public’s hand it will always be there. The demand for these drugs especially marijuana. About 55 percent of teens have used marijuana. Since the demand is very high for these drugs it will always be available to get your hands on. No matter how hard the government tried there is no way to lower the demand for these drugs. Since Nixon declared the war on drugs public enemy number one in 1971 we have been in the prohibition era, which is powered by propaganda and corruption. This era needs to end for the better of society, rather than spending millions and billions of dollars from taxpayers due to mass incarceration. Instead of paying for prisons the common people should be worrying about health care and education rather than mass incarceration. We also should be regulating the supply of drugs and providing aid to those need these drugs instead of punishing the abusers and the suppliers. Countries like Canada and Switzerland have learned from their mistakes and put in safe injection sites for high drug abuse areas in their cities. My thesis for the war on drugs is that the war on drugs has had terrible effects on societies economically and socially. Mass incarnation and The New Jim Crow will be examples of how my thesis is correct.

First, what is mass incarnation? Mass incarnation refers to the current experiment of incarceration in the united states today, which is defined by the extreme rates of imprisonment and by the concentration of imprisonment among African American men living in neighborhoods of poverty or near poverty. Despite the fact that there is academic accord about how to characterize mass incarceration, there is some level of disagreement over its causes and results. Some state it prevents and cripples; others state that it debilitates poor families, keeping them socially underestimated. While some have propelled a functionalist contention with regards to the reasons for mass incarceration, recommending that it is for the control of African Americans following slavery, the Jim Crow and others have contended that a mix of social movements, political realignments, changes in occupation prospects for low-gifted men, and maybe, in particular, legitimate changes have driven the sensational imprisonment and outright divergence in rates of imprisonment over the late twentieth and early twenty-first century. The huge increase in imprisonment may be reasonable if open wellbeing were significantly made strides.

However notwithstanding a recent research proposing very advantageous impacts of detainment on wrongdoing rates, most of the proof currently recommends either that detainment’s consequences for wrongdoing are not so vast as once suspected or that the wrongdoing battling advantages of detainment have so decreased in the course of the most recent couple of long periods of the twentieth century and the mid 21st century that imprisonment is presently a considerably less powerful technique for wrongdoing control than it was before the 1990s. Given the high rates of imprisonment and racial dissimilarity in detainment, imprisonment might be noteworthy as a generator of social disparity. About one in every three African American children born today are expected to go to prison in some time in their life. This statistic alone should prove that mass incarceration is one of the biggest problems in our world today. Also, in the state of Chicago about 55 percent of African American men will go to prison. If you’re African American and live in Chicago, you are more likely to go to jail than to go to college or university. Another fact that is ridiculous is that thrifty seven percent of the prison population is African American, and twenty-two percent of the prison population is Hispanic. Mass incarnation links to the thesis that the war on drugs has had horrible effects on societies economically and socially, because of the fact that one-third of black children are going to go to jail. Black children are going to jail is more than it seems. When someone goes to jail regardless of age it affects their friends, family, and communities of that person that goes to jail. About 72 percent of African Americans born today are grown up in a household without a parent. Most of the prison population consists of African Americans and Hispanics and most of those males grown up in homes without a fatherly figure. There is a strong correlation between black inmates and a missing parent. No matter what happens there will always be people supplying drugs in the people that are in needs for it. Because of these ridiculous laws on drugs they force incarceration on a tremendous amount of the population which affects thousands of communities across the United States. Mass incarnation has horrible effects on the economy because taxpayers are forced to pay billions of dollars every year to pay for prisoners. Instead of taxpayers paying for health care or education they’re forced to pay for prisoners and their living because of these laws. Also, a lot of these people that are locked up are good people. Some of these African American men getting locked up have responsibilities to pay bills in their households and many others. These low-income neighborhoods and communities need these people in order to help financially. Without these role models in our communities families are going into more debt and poverty than ever before. About thirteen and a half percent of the population in the United States are in poverty and nearly a third of the population is near poverty.

Secondly, The New Jim Crow is a novel created by Michelle Alexander. The Jim Crow was a racial caste system used from 1877 to 1964 in the United States that states anti-black laws. These laws were put in place after slavery so African Americans were still not accepted in society but any means. These laws consist of a tremendous disadvantage in the whole country just because of their skin colour. African American men weren’t allowed to vote until 1965. African American men were labeled during this time as weaker and these men were stripped of their rights just because of their skin colour. A few examples of these laws put in place are blacks were only allowed to sit in the back of the bus, black kids weren’t allowed to play with white kids, black kids weren’t allowed to go to the same school and use the same bathrooms. White politicians and former slave owners put these rules in place so they would have control and power over African Americans regardless of the rights they were given following the civil war. These Jim Crow laws and rules were removed in the civil rights act of 1964. Michelle Alexander makes the case that the Jim Crow rules were never removed as they are disgusting as mass incarceration. In 1971 when the war on drugs started, the federal police made distinctions between crack cocaine and powder cocaine, because crack cocaine was more used commonly by African Americans than powder cocaine used by white people.

The media started to delineate these crack clients as the scourge of mankind, and since this scourge was African American and Hispanic, the image of a run of the mill criminal progressed toward becoming racialized. With these stereotypes in place for the whole world, police have the ability to stop almost anyone they want. Law enforcement claim that they go to low-income communities because there are high drug uses in those areas, but in realism, it is where African American families are due to housing segregation. Police have absolutely no real training in how to look for drug users. But, when the police do catch these poor African American men usually they aren’t financially stable so they are unable to pay for a good defense attorney and they are forced to go with a free one given by the court. These lawyers are usually overworked and underpaid and these lawyers don’t have the same resources as the expensive lawyer. This is the reason the law enforcement focus on these neighborhoods of poverty since they realize that regardless of what they do will always have the capacity to escape with it. These stereotypes also apply in court as the death penalty is more common for African American men than whites convicted of the same crime. In 1998 they passed the Anti-Drug Abuse Act which says that if public housing agencies find that there is criminal activity in your home they will kick you out and you will never be allowed back into public housing. This also affects ex-offenders that have nowhere to go and they aren’t allowed into public housing due to their mistakes. Many families are vulnerable because of this act, and if they get caught doing anything wrong they will have nowhere to go and will be forced onto the streets.

The thesis that the war on drugs is terrible for societies economically and socially linked to the New Jim crow due to the fact of the 1998 Anti-Drug Abuse Act. Since this act has been passed it allowed the government to kick out any family that has broken any little rule of law. This hurts societies socially because when you see your friends and even close friends being kicked out for doing almost nothing, it can make you depressed and not even want to leave your house. It can also put fear into your heart knowing that you can be kicked out for any reason at any time. This also affects societies economically because a lot of these people getting kicked out have financial responsibilities among different households in the community. Without these people in the community, many families will be forced to live on the street or elsewhere without the finical aid from these wonderful people.

In conclusion, the war on drugs is a total failure. The goal of the war on drugs is to prohibit the use of drugs and to reduce drug trade however, none of this has been accomplished. They have barely stopped drug trade and they’ve had absolutely no success in diminishing the demand for these drugs. The cons of the war on drugs totally out weight the pros of the war on drugs. The thesis of the war on drugs have has terrible effects on our societies economically and socially provided by my examples of mass incarnation and the New Jim Crow by Alexander Michelle should prove that the war on drugs is a total failure.

It violates the right to life. The war on drugs established a violation of right to freedom from execution by the extrajudicial killings (Dickson, 2019). The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights has signed the recognition of right to life. Under the ICCPR, the right to be free from death includes arbitrary and extrajudicial killings. Dickson (2019) also stated from the article that the death of Oliver Dela Cruz who was shoot in Bulacan is an example of denial of the right to life. Despite of the problem of extrajudicial killings accusations, the administration, police and militia group hasn’t been charged from their actions.

In line with it, another reason for me to be against war on drugs, it doesn’t follow the due process law. According to Cabuenas (2017) the government has claimed 3,800 was killed in the campaign of war on drugs were drug dealers who fights back at the police. It doesn’t matter whether the person is associated with drugs or not, there’s no justification or approval to murder them because there is due process which is part of the international human rights framework. According to Longman Dictionary (n.d.) due process is said to be where one cannot be deprived of life without proper and legal procedures. That’s why they are called extrajudicial killings because due process doesn’t take place.

War on Drug’s campaign is said to be unsuccessful since it doesn’t really end the problem it self. Hence, it has created a society of killers wherein, there were a lot of police who has used and abused their power and has not been recognized by their wrong actions. We all want a drug free society we can’t solve a problem by killing or eliminating people without its proper process or procedure

In opposition with the claims, there are said to be good things that the war on drugs campaign has did, one of it is were it demands all health officials to grant rehabilitation servicing and intended to have a community based interventions (Lasco, 2017). Despite the actions taken, it doesn’t have made a huge impact yet; at least the campaign has been an eye opener to the Philippine government.

Although the campaign has been brutal, the drug war has appointed powerful local politicians that have been associated with drug dealing (Shen, 2018). She also states that there were 20,000 people over the country that has been sentence to death because of illegal drugs, consist of drug dealers and users. Little did we know that, included in the murdered drug dealers, were mayors and deputy mayors.

In conclusion, the campaign wasn’t considered bad after all. It somehow has its own good purpose; we just have to look on the brighter side of it. In reality, there were also different country supporting the war on drugs campaign, one example is the United States government because it aims to reduce the illegal drug use.

References

1. Dickson, J. D. (2019, July 23). Extrajudicial killings in the Philippines. Retrieved from https://humanrightsmeasurement.org/extrajudicial-killings-in-the-philippines/
2. Cabuenas, J. V. D. (2017, October 9). Human Rights Watch reminds PNP: Follow due process. Retrieved from https://www.gmanetwork.com/news/news/nation/628742/human-rights-watch-reminds-pnp-follow-due-process/story/.
3. Lasco, G. (2017, September 19). Commentary: The good, the bad and the ugly of Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs. Retrieved from https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/asia/commentary-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly-of-rodrigo-duterte-s-9211678.
4. Shen, S. (2018, December 18). Why Duterte’s drug war is still popular despite its brutality. Retrieved from http://www.ejinsight.com/20181018-why-duterte-s-drug-war-is-still-popular-despite-its-brutality/.
5. Longman Dictionary. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.ldoceonline.com/dictionary/due-process

The start of the Duterte administration was the beginning of the campaign on war on drugs in the Philippines (Kishi, Pavlik, & Constantino, 2019) . According to Simbulan, Dioquino-Maligaso, Herbosa and Withers (2019), The Philippines has 1,8 million current drug users and 4,8 million Filipinos have reported utilizing illegal drugs at least once in their lives. This alarmed the Duterte administration in which his war on drugs campaign started.

However, on Duterte’s war on drug campaign, it first, resulted to extra-judicial killings, which violated the basic human rights of a person. According to Delizo (2019), during the execution of anti-illegal drug campaign, a total of 6,600 drug suspects were killed, but based on the report of the human rights watch, it is just only half of the total number of alleged drug users and pushers. The data presented by the different side shows that there is an anomaly going on regarding the war on drugs. These large scale killings were popularly known as extra-judicial killings. EJK was defined by Trajano, secretary general of the Philippine Alliance of Human Rights Advocates as “any death sanctioned or with the acquiescence of the government outside the due process or the rule of law” (Patag, 2019). The attention of various groups and sectors in society, including the international community was then hooked by the rise of violations of human rights, especially the rise in state-perpetrated and vigilante-style killings (Simbulan, Dioquino-Maligaso, Herbosa and Withers, 2019).

The EJK clearly illustrates that many suspected drug users were killed by vigilantes without due process. Just because they were said to be “involved with illegal drugs”, they were already shot by unknown gunmans and others were killed during police operations because the suspects are “nanlaban” to the police officers.” In relation to this, as stated on Article 5 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, no one shall be subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, and that everyone charged with a criminal offense shall be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law as per stated in Article 11.

Second, it is anti-poor. As cited by Kine (2017), drug lords and drug pushers are the President’s priority on war on drugs, but deaths of mostly poor people accused of being drug users who are either unemployed and living in slum communities or informal settlers was the result to many of the drug-related killings. The most common illegal drug used in the Philippines is metamphetamine, also known as shabu or the “poor man’s cocaine” (Simbulan et. al., 2019). In addition to that, Johnson and Fernquest (2018) stated that aside from the harm methamphetamine causes, it also performs positive functions, particularly for the poor. It empowers long hours of manual labourers to work, soothes hunger, and offers an emotional refuge from the harsh conditions of everyday life faced by millions of Filipinos.

From the mentioned statements, it can be inferred that majority of the accused drug users came from poor families, where some use it to provide for their physical and emotional needs. But it is due to this reason that many poor alleged drug suspects were killed while big time drug peddlers were not that much given of attention. Furthermore, as mentioned on the press release of the 18th Congress of the Senate of the Philippines (2018), the lack of reply to the trafficking of shabu worth billions of pesos compared to its impunity in killing suspected pushers and abusers in the small-time is biggest issue in the drug war of the Duterte administration which Malacañang fails to answer. It was also mentioned that there is a nagging trend indicating the disinterest of Duterte in pursuing these big-time smugglers and lords of drugs. First, there is a denial, and then a whitewash.

Hence, war on drugs is not good for the country and its people as it violates human rights and it is anti-poor. The war on drugs violated the right to life and right to due process of the alleged drug users and drug pushers as they were killed by the police during the operations, and some vigilantes, resulting in the so called “extra-judicial killings”. Moreover, majority of the victims came from poor families while only few of the “drug lords” were arrested. This strongly shows how inefficient the war on drugs is.

On the contrary, the war on drugs ,first, decreased the number of illegal drug users. 66 percent of the poll released by the Social Weather Stations in the last quarter of 2018 agreed that illegal drug users lessened, as the Philippine National Police believes that the Duterte administration’s war on drugs is working (News, ABS-CBN, 2019). From the report of Rappler.com (2019), out of the 134,583 anti-drug operations conducted, there were 193,086 drug personalities arrested, 334 drug dens dismantled, 4,409.69 kilos of shabu seized, 13,753 barangays were declared drug-cleared, and there were 421,724 surrenderers in reformation programs. These data illustrates that the war on drugs was effective in combating illegal drug usage and operations, which highly affects the way of living of the individuals. In addition, the campaign also gives chance to previous drug users to have theirselves rehabilitated, while it discourages future drug users to engage in illegal drugs.

Secondly, the war on drugs decreased the rate of crime in the country. The Duterte administration’s anti-illegal drug campaign was recognized by the National Capital Region Police Office because of the lowering of crime rate from January to June 2018 by 25 percent as compared to the previous year (Reysio-Cruz, 2018). It indicates that some of the drug users caused crime, and due to the campaign of the President which arrested lots of drug users, they were lessened. Not only that the war on drugs lessened the criminals, but also made the country safer, and step-by-step eliminating the illegal drugs that occurred and widely spread which reached people who should not be using those.

In conclusion, war on drugs is beneficial to the country as it lowered the number of illegal drug users and the crime rate. It lowered the number of illegal drug users as many were arrested and some are undergoing rehabilitation. On the other hand, it decreased the crime rate which made the Philippines safer. As long as the war on drugs continue, the Philippines will get better as a country with minimal number to none drug users and peddlers.

References

1. 18th Congress of the Senate of the Philippines. (2018, October 24). Press Release – Sen. Leila M. de Lima’s statement on the Philippines as Duterte’s Narco-State. Retrieved November 5, 2019, from http://www.senate.gov.ph/press_release/2018/1024_delima1.asp.
2. Delizo, M. J. (2019, June 18). ABS-CBN. Retrieved November 4, 2019, from https://news.abs-cbn.com/news/06/18/19/over-6000-killed-in-nearly-3-years-of-ph-drug-war-pnp.
3. Johnson, D. T., & Fernquest, J. (2018). Governing through Killing: The War on Drugs in the Philippines. Asian Journal of Law and Society, 5(2), 359–390. doi: 10.1017/als.2018.12
4. Kine, P. (2017, July 13). ‘License to Kill’: Philippine Police Killings in Duterte’s ‘War on Drugs’. Retrieved November 4, 2019, from https://www.hrw.org/report/2017/03/02/license-kill/philippine-police-killings-dutertes-war-drugs.
5. Kishi, R., Pavlik, M., Vina, R. L., & Constantino, M. (2019, February 13). Duterte’s War: Drug-Related Violence in the Philippines. Retrieved November 5, 2019, from https://www.acleddata.com/2018/10/18/dutertes-war-drug-related-violence-in-the-philippines/.
6. News, A. B. S.-C. B. N. (2019, February 17). War on drugs is working, says PNP; touts survey results. Retrieved November 4, 2019, from https://news.abs-cbn.com/news/02/17/19/war-on-drugs-is-working-says-pnp-touts-survey-results
7. Patag, K. J. (2019, July 19). Why defining ‘extrajudicial killings’ in law is a vital step toward accountability. Retrieved November 5, 2019, from https://www.philstar.com/headlines/2019/07/18/1935776/why-defining-extrajudicial-killings-law-vital-step-toward-accountability.
8. Rappler.com. (2019, September 22). IN NUMBERS: The Philippines’ ‘war on drugs’. Retrieved November 4, 2019, from https://www.rappler.com/newsbreak/iq/145814-numbers-statistics-philippines-war-drugs.
9. Reysio-Cruz, M. (2018, July 4). NCRPO: 25% drop in crime rate due to drug war. Retrieved November 4, 2019, from https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1006802/ncrpo-25-drop-in-crime-rate-due-to-drug-war#ixzz64JybTyNu.
10. Simbulan, N., Estacio, L., Dioquino-Maligaso, C., Herbosa, T. and Withers, M.,(2019). The Manila Declaration on the Drug Problem in the Philippines.Annals of Global Health, 85(1), 26. DOI: http://doi.org/10.5334/aogh.28
11. Universal Declaration of Human Rights. (n.d.). Retrieved November 5, 2019, from http://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/

Since 2016, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte established war on drugs to eliminate all the people who used and sell drugs. As a Filipino who saw how Duterte’s war on drugs became the reason of killings in our country I can say that this platform is not the platform that we need in our country so I’m against on how war on drugs propagated.

In stated in the article that was written 4 years ago by Natalie Regoli, there are 6 disadvantages of war on drugs. First one is Widespread corruption; instead in the corruption , we only focused to the war on drugs that we forgot the other crimes including the corruption. The second disadvantage is it provides a smokescreen to hide the real problem behind drug abuse.A majority of the population that are easily lured into drug dealing are those within and below the poverty line. People who have no hope of achieving very much because of their circumstances would resort to drug dealing where knowledge and skills are not required in their resume. They also see it as a way to make something of themselves, and to have the resources to fund their own drug habits. Next one is, Increases risk on the lives of policeman and military. Missions against drug lords is no joke, considering that they too have their own army that has no care about the lives that will be lost during a shootout or drug bust operation. The safety risks on the lives of many policemen are also very high. Friends and family of these brave men and women would be very unhappy if something happened to them. Increase racial tension is the fourth one. Disparity on sentencing is the fifth disadvantages of war on drugs. Opponents complain that sentencing in drug-related crimes have major flaws. There is a huge problem in the sentencing between possessions or trafficking of powder cocaine and crack. For the last disadvantages of war on drugs,Never-ending chain reaction.One man incarcerated for drug abuse or drug-related crimes is likely to have children who are growing up without a father. Statistics show how this can have a bad effect on the little ones. If they are in the same situation as their father before them, they could end up drug users or sellers as well, whichever comes first. So the cycle just goes on and on. It will be a never-ending ride of history repeating itself.

According to Robert Muggah the disadvantages of war on drugs to the country are five which are; Corruption, Increased racial tension, Hides the real problem behind drug abuse and distribution, Never-ending cycle, Increases risk for policeman and military, and lastly is disparity in sentencing. The same people who are assigned to stop the drug trade may be the same person who used the funds for their own profits and its resulted to corruption. Other country may think that we are all the same because we are all Filipinos and it resulted to increasing racial tension. War on drugs also hides the real problem behind drug abuse and distribution. The majority of people who used and sell drugs are within or below the poverty. When they do not afford to go to school and well-paying job the simplest and profitable thing to do is to involve with drugs. It is also a never ending cycle because many people who are behind bars for drug related charges have children, and some of them were do what their parents do to survive. It increases the risk for policeman and military because some of the addicts are well armed and it resulted in killings. The last disadvantages of war on drugs is disparity in sentencing,because people complain that sentencing in drug-related crimes has major flaws. As well as racially discriminatory as minorities tend to use certain drugs over others and carry a bigger penalty.

Therefore I conclude that there is a lot of things that we can do to eliminate all the crimes in our country aside of implementing this war on drug. Some of the innocents are doesn’t deserve to be punished are affected by this war on drugs.

As stated in the article, entitled “9 Important Pros and Cons of the war on drugs” by Natalie Regoli also, there are 3 advantages of war on drugs that we can get. Deter or lessen drug-related crimes.When drug addicts will not have easy access to illegal substances, they will not experience the highs or hallucinations that will drive them to commit crimes. They wouldn’t need to steal either so they can buy drugs. Put simply, without the pushers there will be little to no users. Culprits will be penalized.Included in the policies of war on drugs is the penalty that will be afforded to manufacturers, distributors and users of illegal drugs. The level of punishment that will be imposed depends on the gravity of the crime. Knowing that there are consequences to be paid will make people think twice before embroiling in any stage of the illegal drug trade.Helps create a place that is drug free.A drug-free area or community may seem impossible given the present situation, but it is achievable as long as everyone does their share in the fight against drugs. War on drugs should not only involve the government and local authorities, but also friends and family of drug users or sellers.

“Overemphasis on a single aspect of the Philippines’ war on drugs – the death toll – clouds international perceptions of President Rodrigo Duterte’s signature campaign. Less publicised by the media is the health dimension of the campaign. Five months after commencing the crackdown, the government opened the country’s biggest drug rehabilitation facility. By the end of 2018, three more regional rehabilitation centres had been built, with plans to construct more. Developing and running effective rehabilitation programmes also present opportunities to work with local and international partners. Nevertheless, official figures suggest that killing is not the campaign’s key objective. While every life is sacred and every person deserves due process under the law, the figures demonstrate that the arrest of suspects, rescue of minors and seizure of drugs are the primary aims of the operations” -Lucio Blanco Pitlo III (2019)

To summarize, if the true intentions of the government is to eliminate all the drug users and pushers it can be good. It can help us to have a safe country free from crimes.

References

1. Natalie Regoli, (September 23, 2015) 9 Important Pros and cons of the War on drugs. https://connectusfund.org/9-important-pros-and-cons-of-the-war-on-drugs
2. Lucio Blanco Pitlo III (February 22, 2019) The other side of Duterte’s war on drugs: rehabilitation, rescue and rooting out corruption https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/asia/article/2187144/other-side-dutertes-war-drugs-rehabilitation-rescue-and
3. Robert Muggah (March 7, 2017) The War on Drugs: Pros & Cons. https://www.google.com/amp/s/blog.recoveryways.com/blog/war-on-drugs-pros-cons%3fhs_amp=true

On June 17th of 1971, President Nixon began America’s longest and costliest war, a blemish in the history of America; the war on drugs. Nixon convinced America’s citizens that “America’s public enemy number one in the United States is drug abuse. In order to fight and defeat this enemy, it is necessary to wage a new, all-out offensive” (Sharp). This all-out offensive was instilled in our minds through propaganda and blatant lies, that were dismissed as a preventive measure. Anslinger, the first commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, said that, “marijuana caused some people to ‘fly into a delirious rage and many [to] commit violent crimes’” or that it caused “bizarre cases of insanity, murder, and sex crimes” (qtd. in stanford). The claims being made were, in fact, so bizarre, that many people began to not believe their own government’s ‘warnings’. This was not all, as John Ehrlichman, Nixon’s own council, revealed in 1994, “The real public enemy wasn’t really drugs or drug abuse. Rather the real enemies of the Nixon administration were the anti-war left and blacks, and the War on Drugs was designed as an evil, deceptive and sinister policy to wage war on those two groups” (qtd. in Perry). The discriminatory enforcement of these laws has resulted in profound racial and ethnic disparities. For instance, black people make up 13 percent of the total U.S. population and use drugs at a similar rate as other ethnic groups. Yet, black people comprise 29 percent of people arrested for drug possession (Drug Policy Alliance). Furthermore, author Dan Baum, author and reporter for The Atlantic, spoke with Ehrlichman, who had some sickening truth to spill:

We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did. (qtd. in DPA).

This is an honest confession from a man who, after public disgrace, no longer had anything left to protect. This is a war plagued with dishonesty and deception; there are Federal and state policies that are designed to be “tough” on people that sell or use illegal drugs. After nearly 50 years and over a trillion dollars spent (Stanford), close to none of their stated aims have been met. But that is okay, right? Because drugs are bad, drugs cause injustice, drugs cause violence, drugs are America’s biggest threat, right? One step, one billion spent, one death, one otherwise law-abiding citizen’s life ruined after another, but that is okay, right? With so many moral issues up for discussion in 2019, there is no world that this should be okay in.

What exactly has the war on drugs accomplished then? Well, for starters, More than 70,200 Americans died from drug overdoses in 2017, including illicit drugs and prescription opioids—which is a 2-fold increase in a decade. Not only this, but drug overdose deaths rose from 8,048 in 1999 to 47,600 in 2017 (drugabuse.gov). While this is impressive in its own right, the war on drugs has been so successful that, in the United States, the number of overdose deaths has reached such a staggering level that life expectancy has fallen, by four months, for the first time since the Second World War (NASEM). Clearly, the war on drugs — the goals of which were to eliminate illicit drug use, deaths, and sale — is worth the effort. This effort is so impressive, in fact, that each year, United States law enforcement makes more than 1.5 million drug arrests — of which more than 80% are for possession only not sale and involve no violent offense. This figure results in more arrests than all violent crimes combined (DPA). Furthermore, the people that are convicted of drug possession face a plethora of additional consequences: loss of federal financial aid, loss of the right to vote, eviction from public housing, denial of public assistance, and disqualification from a wide range of occupational licenses. In 2013, 8.6% of Americans (an estimated 22.7 million) needed treatment for a problem related to drugs, but only 0.9% (an estimated 2.5 million) people received treatment. (drugabuse.gov). Only under 10.5% of Americans who needed help with substance abuse were able to be helped or were able to reach out for help. These staggering figures show how much fear and lack of funding the American government has provided. Something needs to be done about the “drug” epidemic in America, and the first step is to end the war on drugs.

But what can be done to end America’s biggest problem? Well several countries have addressed this problem, with results to back up their decision: decriminalization. Take for instance Portugal — a prime example of a country that has had high success in decriminalizing illicit substances — in the face of a rising drug and HIV epidemic, Portugal made the decision to decriminalize all drugs in the country. This decision came to life nearly 20 years ago (2001), providing us with a lot of feedback and statistics on how the decriminalization affects the country. Rather than treating personal drug use as a crime, the country began to address this as a public health concern instead. Instead of throwing a heroin user into a jail cell to go through the horrific withdrawal effects alone, the public health administration would take over and provide the user with treatment to get through the withdrawals safely. Instead of treating drug users as criminals, Portugal treats them as people. But how has the new legality of previously illicit substances affected the country? Contrary to some people’s beliefs, the country had not spiraled out of control. In fact, independent research has shown promising outcomes: Addiction, drug overdose and HIV/AIDS rates have all decreased. Data indicates that the decriminalization has had zero adverse effects on drug use rates in Portugal. On top of this, the drug use rates in Portugal, in numerous categories, are among the lowest in the European Union. This is especially the case when compared to states with strict criminalization policies. Their decision does not absolve all drug crime; those trafficking are still considered criminals. 17 years after their decision, there has been a significant decrease in HIV infection and drug-related crime (Ferreira). Not only this, but between 1999 and 2003, there was an overall fall of drug-related deaths by 59% (Ferreira). Data shows that, judged by nearly every metric, the decriminalization framework has been an emphatic success.

Decriminalization, if implemented in America could reach similar, if not greater, results than Portugal. The reasoning behind this is because America is in, arguably, a much larger crisis than Portugal was. Decriminalization would drastically reduce the number of people incarcerated or arrested. This, in turn, would allow people to avoid the life altering burden of a criminal record and reverse the overcrowding of our prisons. Secondly, with revised law enforcement structure, our resources could be redirected to more serious and violent crime. Our country spends so much money each year fighting drugs, that we would save 51 billion dollars a year if the war on drugs was to cease. Along the same vein, the United States has spent more than a trillion dollars (since the 1970s) attempting to dismantle drug cartels in Latin America (CITATION NEEDED). This money could be put to far better use in law enforcement or even in assisting the constantly amassing debt America is currently in (roughly 22 million as of 2019). On top of this, with the decriminalization of illicit substances, we can create a climate in which people who experience problematic drug use can feel safe and incentivised to seek help/treatment. Carl L. Hart, a Neuroscientist and head of the department of psychology at Columbia University, tells, Equal Times, that, “Our drug policies are a bigger problem than the drugs themselves, because they forbid drugs that people will take anyway, which drives consumption underground” (CITATION NEEDED). What Hart says here is absolutely true, and we have proof of this in America’s own history: prohibition. Hart then continues by saying, “We should treat drugs like we treat alcohol. A reasonable approach would be to make drugs legally available and the state should be in charge of regulating them and making sure they are of a certain quality” (CITATION NEEDED). During prohibition, the consumption and sale of alcohol was banned nationwide. The result of this was very similar to what is going on now with other illicit substances. With the ban on alcohol, people did not actually stop drinking alcohol — what a surprise. Instead, the purity of alcohol plummeted, resulting in far more health risks and risk of death; Gangs and gang violence saw a drastic rise, stemming from the illegal sale of alcohol; and the consumption of alcohol stayed relatively the same. Despite prohibition being regarded as a fail on all accounts, the war on drugs was deemed a good idea. The purpose of studying history is to not make the same mistake twice, yet here we are.