war on drugs introduction essay

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The War on Drugs, Essay Example

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The “Drug War” should be waged even more vigorously and is a valid policy; government should tell adults what they can or cannot ingest. This paper argues for the position that the United States government should ramp up its efforts to fight the war on drugs.  Drug trafficking adversely affects the nation’s economy, and increases crime.  The increase in crime necessitates a need for more boots on the ground in preventing illegal drugs from entering this country.  Both police and border patrol agents are on the frontline on the battle against the war on drugs.  The war on drugs is a valid policy because it is the government’s responsibility to protect its citizens.  Citizens who are addicted to drugs are less likely to contribute to society in an economic manner, and many end up on government assistance programs and engage in crimes.

Introduction

This paper argues that The War on Drugs is a valid policy, and that government has a right, perhaps even a duty to protect citizens from hurting themselves and others.  Fighting drug use is an integral part of the criminal justice system.  Special taskforces have been created to combat the influx of illegal drugs into the United States. The cost of paying police and border control agents is just the beginning of the equation.  Obviously, the detriment to the US economy is tremendous.  But the emotional stress on the friends and family of the drug user represent the human cost of illegal drugs.  Families are literally torn apart by this phenomen.

(1). The cost of police resources to fight the drug war is exorbitant, but necessary .  In order for a war against drugs to be successful, federal, local and state authorities must make sure that there a plenty of drug enforcement officers to make the appropriate arrests.  This means that drug enforcement officers must be provided with the latest equipment, including technology to detect illegal drugs (Benson).  The cost of providing all the necessary equipment to border patrol agents and the policemen and policemen on the frontlines is well justified.  It is necessary to have a budget that will ensure that drug enforcers have everything they need to combat illegal drugs at their disposal.

(2). The government has the responsibility to protect its citizens.   If a substance is illegal, it should be hunted down by law enforcement authorities and destroyed.  The drug user is a victim of society who needs help turning his or her life around.  Without a proper drug policy in effect, the drug user will continue to purchase drugs without the fear of criminal punishment.  That is why the drug war is appropriate.  The government has a right to tell citizens what it cannot ingest, particularly substances that when ingested can cause severe harm to the individual.  This harm may take on the form of addiction.  Once a person is addicted to drugs, the government has treatment programs to help him or her get off drugs.  The economic cost of preventing illegal drugs from getting into the wrong hands, and the cost of drug treatment is worth the financial resources expended because people who are not addicted to drugs are more involved in society and in life in general (Belenko).

(3). Anti-drug policies tend to make citizens act responsibly .  Adult drug users must understand that what they are doing is negatively impacting society.  Purchasing illegal drugs drains the nation’s economy.  These users have probably been in and out of drug rehabilitation programs many times with little to no success.  These drug programs are run by either the federal, state, or local governments (Lynch).   Each failed incident of a patient going back to the world of drugs costs the taxpayers money.  Once the drug user is totally rehabbed, he or she will realize the drag that he or she has been on society.  Therefore, the drug treatment centers are a way to teach adults how to be more responsible.

(4). Drug regulation in the United States has an effect on the international community.  America’s image to the rest of the world is at stake.  If America cannot control its borders, rogue leaders of other countries will think that America is soft on drugs.  This in turn makes America’s leaders look weak (Daemmrich).  Border patrol agents on the United States-Mexican border represent the best that America has to offer in preventing illegal drugs from entering the United States.  It is imperative that part of the drug policy of the United States provides enough financial resources for the agents to do their job.  The international community must see a strong front from the United States against illegal drugs.  Anything less is a sign of weakness in the eyes of international leaders, including our allies.

(5). Women are disproportionately affected by illegal drug use and therefore neglect their children.   As emotional beings, women have to contend with many issues that evade men (Gaskins).  The woman’s primary responsibility is to her children.  If a woman is a drug user, her children will be neglected.  Most of the children end up becoming wards of the state.  Having to cloth and feed children places a major burden on organizations that take these children of addicts in.  A drug addict cannot take care of herself, and she certainly cannot take care of her children.  Both the woman and her children will become dependent on the government for food and shelter.  This person is not a productive member of society.  Increased prison sentences may seem harsh for women with children, but these sentences may serve as deterrence from using drugs.

(6 ). If students know that the criminal penalty is severe, it may serve as a deterrent to drug related crimes.   Educating students, while they are still in school about the harmful effects and consequences of using drugs is imperative in fighting the drug war.  However, many students may tune out the normal talk about how drugs affect them physically.  The key to effectively making the point to students that illegal drug use is wrong is to present them with the consequences of having a felony drug conviction on their record (Reynolds). In fact, having a criminal record is bad enough without the felony drug conviction.  Students should know that such a record can prevent them from obtaining employment in the future.  It should be stressed that many companies will not hire anyone with a criminal record, especially if the conviction was related to illegal drugs.  The threat of extensive incarceration should also deter students from using illegal drugs or participating in drug related activities.

(7). Parents who use drugs in front of their children are bad influences and contribute to the delinquency of the minor.    Children are extremely impressionable, and starting to use drugs at a young age can be devastating to their future.  The government fights the drug war to protect law abiding citizens, and to punish criminals.  People who use illicit drugs are criminals, and parents who influence their children by introducing and approving of their drug use need to suffer severe penalties under the law (Lynch).  It is more than likely that the parents that use drugs have been incarcerated at one time or the other.  This incarceration may be drug related.  Children see their parents go in and out of jail, so that becomes their “normal.” Thus you have generational incarcerations which are an expense to prison sector and taxpayers.  The government is right in ramping up the penalties on drug use in front of children.

(8). People who use drugs are likely to drive under the influence which has all sorts of possible negative outcomes. There are so many consequences resulting from illegal drug use that they are too numerous to list.  One of the “unspoken” consequences is driving under the influence.  The entire population has made a concerted effort to curtail drinking and driving, and the deaths from alcohol related traffic accidents gave gone down significantly since strict laws have been put in place.  The government needs to find a way to crack down on drivers who are under the influence of illegal drugs (Belenko).  Drivers must be clear headed and focused to driver responsibly.  The government should get harsher, and find a way to test (as in the breathalyzer for alcohol) for marijuana.  The government has been successful in keeping the number of drunken drivers down.  However, many drivers are still legally able to pass a breathalyzer test if they are smoking marijuana, or using other drugs.  Accidents can still happen regardless of what drug the driver is under the influence of.  The government must find a way to crack down on these drivers who think that they are beating the system.

If the United States wants to get serious on the war on drugs, it should wage the war more vigorously.  Although the war on drugs is a valid policy, it needs to receive more attention and financial resources from the Federal government.  Preventing illegal drugs from crossing our borders is costly, but highly effective if there are plenty of border patrol agents on the United States-Mexican border.  This is the main avenue by which illegal drugs make it into the United States.  The argument that the government has the right to tell citizens what they can ingest is correct.  This is because it is the government’s responsibility to protect its citizens.  Keeping people off of drugs makes for productive citizens who contribute to building a drug free society.

Works Cited

Belenko, Steven R., ed. Drugs and Drug Policy in America: A Documentary History. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2000. Questia. Web. 2 Nov. 2012.

Benson, Bruce L., Ian Sebastian Leburn, and David W. Rasmussen. “The Impact of Drug Enforcement on Crime: An Investigation of the Opportunity Cost of Police Resources.” Journal of Drug Issues 31.4 (2001): 989+. Questia. Web. 2 Nov. 2012.

Daemmrich, Arthur A. Pharmacopolitics: Drug Regulation in the United States and Germany. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina, 2004. Questia. Web. 2 Nov. 2012.

Gaskins, Shimica. “”Women of Circumstance”-The Effects of Mandatory Minimum Sentencing on Women Minimally Involved in Drug Crimes.” American Criminal Law Review 41.4 (2004): 1533+. Questia. Web. 2 Nov. 2012.

Lynch, Timothy, ed. After Prohibition: An Adult Approach to Drug Policies in the 21st Century. Washington, DC: Cato Institute, 2000. Questia. Web. 2 Nov. 2012.

Reynolds, Marylee. “Educating Students about the War on Drugs: Criminal and Civil Consequences of a Felony Drug Conviction.” Women’s Studies Quarterly 32.3/4 (2004): 246+. Questia. Web. 2 Nov. 2012.

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War on Drugs

Our editors will review what you’ve submitted and determine whether to revise the article.

• National Center for Biotechnology Information - PubMed Central - How the war on drugs impacts social determinants of health beyond the criminal legal system
• Cato Institute - The International War on Drugs
• Academia - The "War on Drugs" as Imperialism
• The Guardian - Nixon's 'war on drugs' began 40 years ago, and the battle is still raging
• Drug Policy Alliance - A Brief History of the Drug War
• PBS Frontline - Thirty Years Of America's Drug War
• History Today - Has a War on Drugs Ever Been Won?
• GlobalSecurity.org - War on Drugs

War on Drugs , the effort in the United States since the 1970s to combat illegal drug use by greatly increasing penalties, enforcement, and incarceration for drug offenders.

The War on Drugs began in June 1971 when U.S. Pres. Richard Nixon declared drug abuse to be “public enemy number one” and increased federal funding for drug-control agencies and drug-treatment efforts. In 1973 the Drug Enforcement Administration was created out of the merger of the Office for Drug Abuse Law Enforcement, the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs, and the Office of Narcotics Intelligence to consolidate federal efforts to control drug abuse.

The War on Drugs was a relatively small component of federal law-enforcement efforts until the presidency of Ronald Reagan , which began in 1981. Reagan greatly expanded the reach of the drug war and his focus on criminal punishment over treatment led to a massive increase in incarcerations for nonviolent drug offenses, from 50,000 in 1980 to 400,000 in 1997. In 1984 his wife, Nancy , spearheaded another facet of the War on Drugs with her “ Just Say No” campaign, which was a privately funded effort to educate schoolchildren on the dangers of drug use. The expansion of the War on Drugs was in many ways driven by increased media coverage of—and resulting public nervousness over—the crack epidemic that arose in the early 1980s. This heightened concern over illicit drug use helped drive political support for Reagan’s hard-line stance on drugs. The U.S. Congress passed the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986, which allocated $1.7 billion to the War on Drugs and established a series of “ mandatory minimum ” prison sentences for various drug offenses. A notable feature of mandatory minimums was the massive gap between the amounts of crack and of powder cocaine that resulted in the same minimum sentence: possession of five grams of crack led to an automatic five-year sentence while it took the possession of 500 grams of powder cocaine to trigger that sentence. Since approximately 80% of crack users were African American , mandatory minimums led to an unequal increase of incarceration rates for nonviolent Black drug offenders, as well as claims that the War on Drugs was a racist institution.

Concerns over the effectiveness of the War on Drugs and increased awareness of the racial disparity of the punishments meted out by it led to decreased public support of the most draconian aspects of the drug war during the early 21st century. Consequently, reforms were enacted during that time, such as the legalization of recreational marijuana in an increasing number of states and the passage of the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010 that reduced the discrepancy of crack-to-powder possession thresholds for minimum sentences from 100-to-1 to 18-to-1. Prison reform legislation enacted in 2018 further reduced the sentences for some crack cocaine–related convictions . While the War on Drugs is still technically being waged, it is done at a much less intense level than it was during its peak in the 1980s.

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War on Drugs

By: History.com Editors

Updated: December 17, 2019 | Original: May 31, 2017

The War on Drugs is a phrase used to refer to a government-led initiative that aims to stop illegal drug use, distribution and trade by dramatically increasing prison sentences for both drug dealers and users. The movement started in the 1970s and is still evolving today. Over the years, people have had mixed reactions to the campaign, ranging from full-on support to claims that it has racist and political objectives.

The War on Drugs Begins

Drug use for medicinal and recreational purposes has been happening in the United States since the country’s inception. In the 1890s, the popular Sears and Roebuck catalogue included an offer for a syringe and small amount of cocaine for $1.50. (At that time, cocaine use had not yet been outlawed.)

In some states, laws to ban or regulate drugs were passed in the 1800s, and the first congressional act to levy taxes on morphine and opium took place in 1890.

The Smoking Opium Exclusion Act in 1909 banned the possession, importation and use of opium for smoking. However, opium could still be used as a medication. This was the first federal law to ban the non-medical use of a substance, although many states and counties had banned alcohol sales previously.

In 1914, Congress passed the Harrison Act, which regulated and taxed the production, importation, and distribution of opiates and cocaine.

Alcohol prohibition laws quickly followed. In 1919, the 18th Amendment was ratified, banning the manufacture, transportation or sale of intoxicating liquors, ushering in the Prohibition Era. The same year, Congress passed the National Prohibition Act (also known as the Volstead Act), which provided guidelines on how to federally enforce Prohibition.

Prohibition lasted until December, 1933, when the 21st Amendment was ratified, overturning the 18th.

Marijuana Tax Act of 1937

In 1937, the “Marihuana Tax Act” was passed. This federal law placed a tax on the sale of cannabis, hemp, or marijuana .

The Act was introduced by Rep. Robert L. Doughton of North Carolina and was drafted by Harry Anslinger. While the law didn’t criminalize the possession or use of marijuana, it included hefty penalties if taxes weren’t paid, including a fine of up to $2000 and five years in prison.

Controlled Substances Act

President Richard M. Nixon signed the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) into law in 1970. This statute calls for the regulation of certain drugs and substances.

The CSA outlines five “schedules” used to classify drugs based on their medical application and potential for abuse.

Schedule 1 drugs are considered the most dangerous, as they pose a very high risk for addiction with little evidence of medical benefits. Marijuana , LSD , heroin, MDMA (ecstasy) and other drugs are included on the list of Schedule 1 drugs.

The substances considered least likely to be addictive, such as cough medications with small amounts of codeine, fall into the Schedule 5 category.

Nixon and the War on Drugs

In June 1971, Nixon officially declared a “War on Drugs,” stating that drug abuse was “public enemy number one.”

A rise in recreational drug use in the 1960s likely led to President Nixon’s focus on targeting some types of substance abuse. As part of the War on Drugs initiative, Nixon increased federal funding for drug-control agencies and proposed strict measures, such as mandatory prison sentencing, for drug crimes. He also announced the creation of the Special Action Office for Drug Abuse Prevention (SAODAP), which was headed by Dr. Jerome Jaffe.

Nixon went on to create the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) in 1973. This agency is a special police force committed to targeting illegal drug use and smuggling in the United States. 

At the start, the DEA was given 1,470 special agents and a budget of less than $75 million. Today, the agency has nearly 5,000 agents and a budget of $2.03 billion.

Ulterior Motives Behind War on Drugs?

During a 1994 interview, President Nixon’s domestic policy chief, John Ehrlichman, provided inside information suggesting that the War on Drugs campaign had ulterior motives, which mainly involved helping Nixon keep his job.

In the interview, conducted by journalist Dan Baum and published in Harper magazine, Ehrlichman explained that the Nixon campaign had two enemies: “the antiwar left and black people.” His comments led many to question Nixon’s intentions in advocating for drug reform and whether racism played a role.

Ehrlichman was quoted as saying: “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.”

The 1970s and The War on Drugs

In the mid-1970s, the War on Drugs took a slight hiatus. Between 1973 and 1977, eleven states decriminalized marijuana possession.

Jimmy Carter became president in 1977 after running on a political campaign to decriminalize marijuana. During his first year in office, the Senate Judiciary Committee voted to decriminalize up to one ounce of marijuana.

Say No to Drugs

In the 1980s, President Ronald Reagan reinforced and expanded many of Nixon’s War on Drugs policies. In 1984, his wife Nancy Reagan launched the “ Just Say No ” campaign, which was intended to highlight the dangers of drug use.

President Reagan’s refocus on drugs and the passing of severe penalties for drug-related crimes in Congress and state legislatures led to a massive increase in incarcerations for nonviolent drug crimes. 

In 1986, Congress passed the Anti-Drug Abuse Act, which established mandatory minimum prison sentences for certain drug offenses. This law was later heavily criticized as having racist ramifications because it allocated longer prison sentences for offenses involving the same amount of crack cocaine (used more often by black Americans) as powder cocaine (used more often by white Americans). Five grams of crack triggered an automatic five-year sentence, while it took 500 grams of powder cocaine to merit the same sentence.

Critics also pointed to data showing that people of color were targeted and arrested on suspicion of drug use at higher rates than whites. Overall, the policies led to a rapid rise in incarcerations for nonviolent drug offenses, from 50,000 in 1980 to 400,000 in 1997. In 2014, nearly half of the 186,000 people serving time in federal prisons in the United States had been incarcerated on drug-related charges, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons.

A Gradual Dialing Back

Public support for the war on drugs has waned in recent decades. Some Americans and policymakers feel the campaign has been ineffective or has led to racial divide. Between 2009 and 2013, some 40 states took steps to soften their drug laws, lowering penalties and shortening mandatory minimum sentences, according to the Pew Research Center .

In 2010, Congress passed the Fair Sentencing Act (FSA), which reduced the discrepancy between crack and powder cocaine offenses from 100:1 to 18:1.

The recent legalization of marijuana in several states and the District of Columbia has also led to a more tolerant political view on recreational drug use.

Technically, the War on Drugs is still being fought, but with less intensity and publicity than in its early years.

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Essay on War on Drugs

Introduction to War on Drugs

The War on Drugs, a multifaceted campaign aimed at curbing the production, distribution, and consumption of illicit substances, has been a defining feature of global drug policy for decades. Originating in the United States in the 1970s, its influence has spread worldwide, shaping legislation, law enforcement practices, and public discourse on drug use and addiction. For instance, initiatives like the “Just Say No” campaign spearheaded by Nancy Reagan in the 1980s epitomized the fervent anti-drug sentiment of the era. This essay delves into the complexities of the War on Drugs, examining its historical roots, objectives, societal impact, controversies, and evolving strategies in the face of persistent challenges.

Historical Context

The historical context of the War on Drugs traces back to the mid-20th century, marked by increasing concerns over drug abuse and its perceived social, economic, and political implications. A number of significant occasions and elements influenced the growth of this campaign:

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• Post-World War II Era: The conclusion of World War II ushered in notable social transformations and economic expansion in numerous regions across the globe. However, it also saw an increase in the recreational use of drugs like marijuana and heroin, particularly among specific segments of society.
• Rise of Counterculture Movements: The 1960s and 1970s witnessed the emergence of counterculture movements that embraced alternative lifestyles and challenged traditional values. This period saw a surge in drug experimentation, with substances like LSD becoming emblematic of the era.
• Public Health Concerns: The 1960s also saw a growing recognition of drug abuse as a public health issue. High-profile cases of drug-related deaths and addiction prompted calls for action to address the problem.
• Nixon Administration and the “War on Drugs” Declaration: In 1971, President Richard Nixon designated drug abuse as “public enemy number one” and unveiled plans for a comprehensive campaign to combat it. This marked the official beginning of the War on Drugs.
• Legislative Responses: In the following years, lawmakers enacted several pieces of legislation to strengthen drug enforcement efforts. The Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention & Control Act of 1970 & the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986 introduced mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenses.
• International Influence: The United States’ approach to drug control also had international implications, leading to the adoption of similar policies by other countries and the establishment of collaborative efforts to combat drug trafficking and abuse.

Impact of the War on Drugs

The impact of the War on Drugs has been far-reaching and complex, with both intended and unintended consequences. Here are some key points outlining its impact:

• Mass Incarceration: Mass incarceration is a phenomenon that has been greatly influenced by the War on Drugs, particularly in minority populations. Harsh sentencing laws, such as mandatory minimums for drug offenses, have resulted in a disproportionate number of persons of color being incarcerated and overcrowding in prisons.
• Economic Costs: The financial resources allocated to law enforcement, prosecution, and incarceration as part of the War on Drugs have amounted to billions of dollars annually. These costs have strained government budgets and diverted resources away from other social programs.
• Violence and Crime: The prohibition of drugs has fueled violence and crime, both domestically and internationally. Increased levels of violence are seen in the communities that are impacted by drug trafficking groups’ violent battles and turf wars over control of profitable drug markets.
• Stigmatization and Discrimination: The stigma associated with drug use and addiction has perpetuated discrimination against individuals with substance abuse disorders. This stigma can hinder access to healthcare, employment, and social support services, exacerbating the marginalization of affected populations .
• Public Health Crisis: The criminalization of drug use has hindered efforts to address drug addiction as a public health issue. Fear of legal repercussions may discourage individuals from seeking treatment, leading to untreated substance abuse disorders and associated health risks, such as overdose and transmission of infectious diseases.
• Racial Disparities: Despite comparable drug use rates among all racial and ethnic groupings, communities of color have been disproportionately targeted by the War on Drugs. Black and Latino individuals face a higher likelihood of being arrested, prosecuted, and incarcerated for drug offenses compared to their white counterparts, thus perpetuating racial disparities within the criminal justice system.
• Erosion of Civil Liberties: The enforcement of drug laws has sometimes encroached upon civil liberties and constitutional rights. Practices such as racial profiling, warrantless searches, and asset forfeiture have raised concerns about violations of due process and individual freedoms.
• Drug Market Dynamics: The War on Drugs has influenced the dynamics of the illegal drug market, leading to the proliferation of more potent and dangerous substances. The pursuit of profit in underground markets incentivizes the production and distribution of increasingly potent drugs, contributing to public health risks and overdose deaths.
• Global Impact: The War on Drugs has had far-reaching implications beyond national borders, shaping international drug control policies and fostering geopolitical tensions. Resistance and unintended consequences, including environmental degradation and political instability, have often met efforts to eradicate drug production in source countries.
• Social Fragmentation: The criminalization of drug use has contributed to social fragmentation and mistrust within communities. Law enforcement crackdowns on drug-related activities can disrupt social networks and undermine community cohesion, exacerbating social isolation and alienation among affected populations.

Evolution of the Campaign

The War on Drugs has undergone significant evolution since its inception, with changes in approach, emphasis, and strategies over the years. Here are the key stages in the evolution of the campaign:

• Emergence (1970s-1980s): The War on Drugs was officially declared by President Richard Nixon in 1971, marking the beginning of a concerted effort to combat drug abuse and trafficking. This period saw the implementation of strict enforcement measures and the adoption of punitive policies, such as mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenses.
• Intensification (1980s-1990s): The 1980s and 1990s witnessed a dramatic escalation of the War on Drugs, characterized by increased funding for law enforcement, expansion of the prison system, and harsher penalties for drug offenses. The era also featured high-profile anti-drug campaigns, such as the “Just Say No” campaign led by First Lady Nancy Reagan.
• Shift in Focus (2000s): In the early 2000s, there was a growing recognition of the limitations and failures of the punitive approach to drug policy. There has been a move towards a more balanced approach, emphasizing prevention, treatment, and harm reduction alongside enforcement efforts.
• Rise of Alternative Approaches (2010s-present): A growing movement stressing decriminalization, legalization, and control of drugs has taken an alternate approach to drug policy in recent years. Countries like Portugal, Uruguay, and Canada have implemented progressive drug policies prioritizing public health and human rights.
• Current Trends: The prevailing trend in drug policy is shifting towards a more evidence-based and pragmatic approach, acknowledging that punitive measures alone are inadequate to tackle the multifaceted issues related to drug use and addiction. There is a growing consensus that principles of harm reduction, human rights, and social justice should guide drug policy.

Objectives and Strategies

The objectives and strategies of the War on Drugs have evolved over time, reflecting changing perceptions of drug use and addiction. Some key objectives and strategies include:

• Reduce Drug Availability: The primary objective of the War on Drugs is to reduce the availability of illicit drugs by targeting drug production, trafficking, and distribution networks. This includes efforts to interdict drug shipments, dismantle drug cartels, and disrupt drug markets.
• Prevent Drug Use: Another objective is to prevent drug use by implementing prevention programs aimed at educating individuals, particularly youth, about the dangers of drug use and promoting healthy behaviors. These programs often focus on building resilience, life skills, and drug refusal skills.
• Enforce Drug Laws: Enforcement of drug laws is a central strategy of the War on Drugs, involving the arrest, prosecution, and incarceration of individuals involved in drug-related activities. This includes both low-level drug users and major drug traffickers.
• Reduce Demand for Drugs: In addition to targeting the supply side of the drug trade, efforts include reducing the demand for drugs through treatment and rehabilitation programs for individuals with substance abuse disorders. These programs aim to help individuals overcome drug addiction and adopt drug-free lifestyles.
• International Cooperation: The War on Drugs is not limited to national borders, and international cooperation is essential to combat drug trafficking and transnational organized crime. This includes sharing intelligence, coordinating law enforcement efforts, and implementing joint drug control initiatives.
• Alternative Development: To address the root causes of drug production, authorities implement alternative development programs in drug-producing regions. These programs aim to provide farmers with alternative sources of income, reducing their reliance on illicit drug cultivation.
• Harm Reduction: Recognizing the public health implications of drug use, authorities also employ harm reduction strategies. These include needle exchange programs, supervised injection sites, and access to overdose-reversal medications to reduce the negative consequences of drug use.
• Community Policing: Certain strategies concentrate on fostering trust and collaboration between law enforcement agencies and communities impacted by drug-related crime. Community policing initiatives aim to address underlying social issues and improve community safety.

The War on Drugs has been the subject of significant criticism and controversy since its inception. Some of the key criticisms include:

• Failure to Reduce Drug Use: Despite decades of enforcement efforts and substantial financial investments, drug use rates have remained relatively unchanged. Critics contend that the War on Drugs has not succeeded in its primary goal of reducing drug use and addiction.
• Disproportionate Impact on Minorities: The War on Drugs has disproportionately focused on minority communities, resulting in higher rates of arrest, prosecution, and incarceration among Black and Latino individuals than their white counterparts. This has exacerbated racial disparities in the criminal justice system.
• Mass Incarceration: The aggressive enforcement of drug laws has played a role in the phenomenon of mass incarceration, with a considerable portion of the prison population incarcerated for drug-related offenses. Critics argue that this approach has resulted in the imprisonment of non-violent offenders, leading to overcrowded prisons and strained resources.
• Human Rights Violations: The enforcement of drug laws has sometimes led to human rights violations, including police brutality, racial profiling, and violations of due process rights. In the name of drug control, authorities have eroded civil liberties and individual freedoms.
• Stigmatization of Drug Users: The War on Drugs has perpetuated stigma and discrimination against individuals with substance abuse disorders. Drug addiction is frequently perceived as a moral failing rather than a multifaceted health issue, which can impede access to treatment and support services.
• Unintended Consequences: The War on Drugs has led to several unintended consequences, including the proliferation of more potent and dangerous drugs, such as fentanyl, in response to enforcement efforts targeting traditional drugs like heroin and cocaine.
• Diversion of Resources: Critics have criticized the vast financial resources allocated to drug enforcement for diverting funds away from other social programs, such as education, healthcare, and drug treatment. This has hindered efforts to address the root causes of drug abuse and addiction.
• Undermining Public Health: The criminalization of drug use has undermined public health efforts to address drug addiction as a health issue. Fear of legal repercussions may deter individuals from seeking treatment, exacerbating health risks and contributing to the spread of infectious diseases.
• Failure to Address Root Causes: Critics contend that the War on Drugs has predominantly emphasized enforcement and punishment, overlooking underlying social and economic factors that contribute to drug abuse, such as unemployment , poverty , and inadequate access to education and healthcare.
• Lack of Effectiveness: In the view of many critics, the War on Drugs has ultimately been ineffective in accomplishing its stated objectives of reducing drug use, trafficking, and associated crime. Instead, it has perpetuated a cycle of violence, incarceration, and social marginalization without addressing the underlying issues driving drug abuse.

Alternatives to the War on Drugs

Several alternative approaches to the War on Drugs focus on public health, harm reduction, and addressing the root causes of drug abuse. Here are some key alternatives:

• Decriminalization: Decriminalizing drug use entails eliminating criminal penalties for personal possession and consumption of drugs, treating it as a public health concern rather than a criminal offense. This approach aims to reduce stigma, encourage individuals to seek treatment, and free up resources for prevention and harm reduction efforts.
• Legalization: Legalizing certain drugs involves regulating their production, distribution, and sale, similar to alcohol and tobacco. This approach aims to undermine the illegal drug market, reduce crime and violence associated with drug trafficking, and generate tax revenue for public health and education programs.
• Regulated Access: Some advocates propose regulating access to drugs through government-controlled programs, such as supervised injection sites, where individuals can use drugs under medical supervision. These programs aim to mitigate the harms associated with drug use, such as overdose and transmission of infectious diseases.
• Harm Reduction: Harm reduction strategies concentrate on reducing the adverse effects of drug use without necessarily mandating abstinence. These encompass needle exchange programs, safe consumption spaces, and access to overdose-reversal medications, all designed to curb the transmission of infectious diseases and prevent overdose fatalities.
• Treatment and Rehabilitation: Investing in treatment and rehabilitation programs for individuals with substance abuse disorders is a key alternative to the War on Drugs. These programs provide support and resources to help individuals overcome addiction and lead healthy, drug-free lives.
• Community-Based Approaches: Community-based approaches involve engaging communities in drug prevention and intervention efforts. This includes providing education, support, and resources to help communities address the underlying social, economic, and environmental factors that contribute to drug abuse.
• International Cooperation: Addressing drug trafficking and production at the international level requires cooperation between countries to implement effective drug control measures, strengthen law enforcement efforts, and support sustainable development in drug-producing regions.
• Evidence-Based Policy: Adopting evidence-based policies and programs is essential to ensuring that drug policies are effective and achieve their intended goals. This includes evaluating the impact of drug policies and interventions to inform future decision-making.

International Perspectives on Drug Policy

International perspectives on drug policy vary widely, reflecting different cultural, political, and social contexts. Here are some key perspectives from around the world:

• United States: Historically, the United States has been a proponent of a tough stance on drugs, leading the global War on Drugs. However, there has been a shift towards a more balanced approach in recent years, emphasizing treatment and prevention alongside enforcement.
• Portugal: Portugal decriminalized the possession and use of all drugs in 2001, focusing on treatment and harm reduction rather than punishment. Experts widely praise this approach for reducing drug-related deaths, HIV/AIDS transmission, and drug-related crime.
• Netherlands: The Netherlands is known for its policy of tolerance towards soft drugs, such as cannabis. While the sale and use of cannabis are technically illegal, the country widely tolerates it in designated “coffee shops.” Additionally, the country emphasizes harm reduction and prevention.
• Switzerland: Switzerland has implemented a comprehensive harm reduction approach to drug policy, including needle exchange programs, supervised injection sites, and heroin-assisted treatment for severe addicts. These programs have been effective in reducing drug-related harm and improving public health.
• Uruguay: In 2013, Uruguay became the first nation in the world to allow the cultivation, sale, and recreational use of cannabis. The government regulates the cannabis market to reduce illegal drug trafficking and promote public health.
• Iran: Iran faces one of the highest rates of opiate addiction globally, prompting the government to enact stringent drug enforcement policies, which include severe penalties for drug-related offenses. However, there are also efforts to expand access to treatment for addicts.
• Russia: Russia has taken a hardline approach to drug policy, focusing on strict enforcement and criminalization of drug use. Critics have criticized this approach for failing to address underlying issues and its impact on human rights.
• Global South: Many nations in the Global South, especially those in Latin America and Southeast Asia, have borne the brunt of the global War on Drugs. These countries often face challenges related to drug trafficking, violence, and corruption, leading to calls for alternative approaches to drug policy.

The War on Drugs has been a complex and controversial campaign with far-reaching implications. While it aimed to reduce drug use and trafficking, it has been criticized for its heavy reliance on enforcement, leading to issues such as mass incarceration, racial disparities, and human rights violations. In recent years, alternative approaches emphasizing public health, harm reduction, and addressing the underlying causes of drug abuse have gained momentum. Moving forward, a more balanced and evidence-based approach that prioritizes treatment, prevention, and social justice is needed to address the challenges posed by drug abuse and trafficking effectively.

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Home — Essay Samples — Nursing & Health — Drugs — A Brief History of the War on Drugs

A Brief History of The War on Drugs

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Race, Mass Incarceration, and the Disastrous War on Drugs

Unravelling decades of racially biased anti-drug policies is a monumental project.

• Nkechi Taifa
• Cutting Jail & Prison Populations
• Social & Economic Harm

This essay is part of the  Brennan Center’s series  examining  the punitive excess that has come to define America’s criminal legal system .

I have a long view of the criminal punishment system, having been in the trenches for nearly 40 years as an activist, lobbyist, legislative counsel, legal scholar, and policy analyst. So I was hardly surprised when Richard Nixon’s domestic policy advisor  John Ehrlichman  revealed in a 1994 interview that the “War on Drugs” had begun as a racially motivated crusade to criminalize Blacks and the anti-war left.

“We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or blacks, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin and then criminalizing them 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 in the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did,” Ehrlichman said.

Before the War on Drugs, explicit discrimination — and for decades, overtly racist lynching — were the primary weapons in the subjugation of Black people. Then mass incarceration, the gradual progeny of a number of congressional bills, made it so much easier. Most notably, the 1984  Comprehensive Crime Control and Safe Streets Act  eliminated parole in the federal system, resulting in an upsurge of  geriatric prisoners . Then the 1986  Anti-Drug Abuse Act  established mandatory minimum sentencing schemes, including the infamous 100-to-1 ratio between crack and powder cocaine sentences.  Its expansion  in 1988 added an overly broad definition of conspiracy to the mix. These laws flooded the federal system with people convicted of low-level and nonviolent drug offenses.

During the early 1990s, I walked the halls of Congress lobbying against various omnibus crime bills, which culminated in the granddaddy of them all — the  Violent Crime Control and Safe Streets Act  of 1994. This bill featured the largest expansion of the federal death penalty in modern times, the gutting of habeas corpus, the evisceration of the exclusionary rule, the trying of 13-year-olds as adults, and 100,000 new cops on the streets, which led to an explosion in racial profiling. It also included the elimination of Pell educational grants for prisoners, the implementation of the federal three strikes law, and monetary incentives to states to enact “truth-in-sentencing” laws, which subsidized an astronomical rise in prison construction across the country, lengthened the amount of time to be served, and solidified a mentality of meanness.

The prevailing narrative at the time was “tough on crime.” It was a narrative that caused then-candidate Bill Clinton to leave his presidential campaign trail to oversee the execution of a mentally challenged man in Arkansas. It was the same narrative that brought about the crack–powder cocaine disparity, supported the transfer of youth to adult courts, and popularized the myth of the Black child as “superpredator.”

With the proliferation of mandatory minimum sentences during the height of the War on Drugs, unnecessarily lengthy prison terms were robotically meted out with callous abandon. Shockingly severe sentences for drug offenses — 10, 20, 30 years, even life imprisonment — hardly raised an eyebrow. Traumatizing sentences that snatched parents from children and loved ones, destabilizing families and communities, became commonplace.

Such punishments should offend our society’s standard of decency. Why haven’t they? Most flabbergasting to me was the Supreme Court’s 1991  decision  asserting that mandatory life imprisonment for a first-time drug offense was not cruel and unusual punishment. The rationale was ludicrous. The Court actually held that although the punishment was cruel, it was not unusual.

The twisted logic reminded me of another Supreme Court  case  that had been decided a few years earlier. There, the Court allowed the execution of a man — despite overwhelming evidence of racial bias — because of fear that the floodgates would be opened to racial challenges in other aspects of criminal sentencing as well. Essentially, this ruling found that lengthy sentences in such cases are cruel, but they are usual. In other words, systemic racism exists, but because that is the norm, it is therefore constitutional.

In many instances, laws today are facially neutral and do not appear to discriminate intentionally. But the disparate treatment often built into our legal institutions allows discrimination to occur without the need of overt action. These laws look fair but nevertheless have a racially discriminatory impact that is structurally embedded in many police departments, prosecutor’s offices, and courtrooms.

Since the late 1980s, a combination of federal law enforcement policies, prosecutorial practices, and legislation resulted in Black people being disproportionately arrested, convicted, and imprisoned for possession and distribution of crack cocaine. Five grams of crack cocaine — the weight of a couple packs of sugar — was, for sentencing purposes, deemed the equivalent of 500 grams of powder cocaine; both resulted in the same five-year sentence. Although household surveys from the National Institute for Drug Abuse have revealed larger numbers of documented white crack cocaine users, the overwhelming number of arrests nonetheless came from Black communities who were disproportionately impacted by the facially neutral, yet illogically harsh, crack penalties.

For the system to be just, the public must be confident that at every stage of the process — from the initial investigation of crimes by police to the prosecution and punishment of those crimes — people in like circumstances are treated the same. Today, however, as yesterday, the criminal legal system strays far from that ideal, causing African Americans to often question, is it justice or “just-us?”

Fortunately, the tough-on-crime chorus that arose from the War on Drugs is disappearing and a new narrative is developing. I sensed the beginning of this with the 2008  Second Chance Reentry  bill and 2010  Fair Sentencing Act , which reduced the disparity between crack and powder cocaine. I smiled when the 2012 Supreme Court ruling in  Miller v. Alabama  came out, which held that mandatory life sentences without parole for children violated the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. In 2013, I was delighted when Attorney General Eric Holder announced his  Smart on Crime  policies, focusing federal prosecutions on large-scale drug traffickers rather than bit players. The following year, I applauded President Obama’s executive  clemency initiative  to provide relief for many people serving inordinately lengthy mandatory-minimum sentences. Despite its failure to become law, I celebrated the  Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act  of 2015, a carefully negotiated bipartisan bill passed out of the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2015; a few years later some of its provisions were incorporated as part of the 2018  First Step Act . All of these reforms would have been unthinkable when I first embarked on criminal legal system reform.

But all of this is not enough. We have experienced nearly five decades of destructive mass incarceration. There must be an end to the racist policies and severe sentences the War on Drugs brought us. We must not be content with piecemeal reform and baby-step progress.

Indeed, rather than steps, it is time for leaps and bounds. End all mandatory minimum sentences and invest in a health-centered approach to substance use disorders. Demand a second-look process with the presumption of release for those serving life-without-parole drug sentences. Make sentences retroactive where laws have changed. Support categorical clemencies to rectify past injustices.

It is time for bold action. We must not be satisfied with the norm, but work toward institutionalizing the demand for a standard of decency that values transformative change.

Nkechi Taifa is president of The Taifa Group LLC, convener of the Justice Roundtable, and author of the memoir,  Black Power, Black Lawyer: My Audacious Quest for Justice.

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Essay Service Examples Law War on Drugs

War On Drugs Essay

Table of contents

Introduction, war on drugs essay - essay 1 (200 words), war on drugs essay - essay 2 (300 words), war on drugs essay - essay 3 (400 words), war on drugs essay - essay 4 (500 words), war on drugs essay - essay 5 (600 words), ethical considerations:, societal consequences:, potential paths forward:, case studies and success stories:, conclusion and future outlook:.

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• Reconsideration of Drug Laws: Many states have begun to reevaluate and reform drug laws, moving towards decriminalization and a more humane approach to addiction. For instance, policies that favor treatment over incarceration for non-violent drug offenses are becoming more common. Additionally, legalizing marijuana in several states significantly shifts the national attitude toward narcotics regulation.
• Opioid Crisis: The opioid epidemic has exposed the complexities of addiction and the limitations of a punitive approach. It has prompted a more compassionate perspective, recognizing addiction as a medical rather than a criminal issue. Efforts to expand access to treatment and support those struggling with addiction have become central to the contemporary approach.
• Mass Incarceration and Racial Disparities: The legacy of the war on drugs continues to affect the criminal justice system, contributing to mass incarceration and glaring racial disparities. Activists and policymakers increasingly call for comprehensive criminal justice reform, acknowledging the systemic biases impacting marginalized communities.
• International Implications: The war on drugs has also had global ramifications, affecting U.S. foreign policy and relationships with countries involved in drug production and trafficking. Efforts to eradicate drug production have often led to violence and instability in regions like Latin America, leading to a reevaluation of international drug control strategies.
• Economic Considerations: The financial burden of the war on drugs continues to be a concern, with some arguing that resources would be better invested in education, healthcare, and social services. The debate over how to allocate funds reflects broader questions about societal priorities and the role of government in addressing complex social issues.
• Emphasizing Treatment and Prevention: There is a growing consensus that addiction should be treated as a health issue rather than a criminal one. This includes expanding access to evidence-based treatment programs, investing in prevention and education, and supporting harm reduction strategies like needle exchange programs.
• Criminal Justice Reform: Reducing the penalties for non-violent drug offenses and focusing on rehabilitation over incarceration is part of a broader movement toward criminal justice reform. This includes addressing racial disparities in arrests and sentencing and considering restorative justice practices.
• Legalization and Regulation: Some argue for the legalization and regulation of certain drugs, such as marijuana, to reduce the power of criminal organizations and create a safer environment for users. The regulation allows for control over the quality and safety of substances and can generate tax revenue for public services.
• Addressing Underlying Causes: Recognizing that drug addiction is often linked to broader social and economic factors, there is a call for comprehensive social policies that address poverty, lack of education, mental health issues, and other underlying causes of addiction.
• Community-Based Approaches: Engaging communities in developing and implementing drug policies can foster a more tailored and effective approach. This involves working closely with local organizations, healthcare providers, and community leaders to develop strategies that reflect the specific needs and values of the community.
• Data-Driven Policies: Implementing evidence-based policies guided by scientific research and evaluation ensures that the strategies are effective and aligned with public health goals. Ongoing monitoring and assessment allow for the continuous improvement of policies and programs.
• Human Rights Considerations: Adopting a human rights framework that recognizes the dignity and autonomy of individuals can guide a more compassionate and fair approach. This includes considering the rights of users, families, and communities affected by drug policies.
• Public Engagement: Open dialogue and public engagement in drug policy formulation ensure that a diverse population's views and experiences are considered. This includes engaging with people who use narcotics, families, healthcare providers, law enforcement, and other stakeholders.
• Human Rights: The criminalization of drug use often leads to human rights abuses, such as disproportionate sentencing, denial of medical care, and infringement of personal freedoms.
• Racial and Social Inequality: The drug war has disproportionately affected minority communities, leading to racial bias and systematic discrimination accusations.
• Medical Perspective: Viewing addiction solely as a criminal rather than a health problem raises ethical questions about the appropriate treatment and compassion for individuals struggling with substance abuse.
• Mass Incarceration: The U.S. prison population has ballooned, with a significant percentage incarcerated for non-violent drug offenses. This has social and economic implications, including family disruption, community destabilization, and financial strain on the penal system.
• Impact on Communities: Particularly in marginalized communities, the drug war has contributed to cycles of poverty, violence, and lack of opportunity.
• Public Health Concerns: The focus on criminalization over treatment has hindered public health efforts to manage addiction, leading to increased overdose deaths and spread of diseases like HIV through shared injection equipment.
• Holistic Approach: Adopting a multifaceted approach that combines law enforcement with public health, education, social support, and community engagement can create a more balanced and humane strategy.
• Legalization and Decriminalization: Considering the decriminalization or even legalization of certain drugs may reduce the power of criminal organizations and allow for more focused public health interventions.
• Investing in Communities: Redirecting resources from punitive measures to community development, education, and healthcare can address underlying causes of drug addiction and create healthier communities.
• International Collaboration: A more compassionate and cooperative international policy can promote global stability and reduce the harms associated with drug production and trafficking.
• Portugal's Drug Decriminalization: Portugal's decriminalization of all drugs in 2001 and focus on treatment over punishment provides a compelling example of an alternative approach.
• Local Community Programs: Grassroots initiatives that emphasize community engagement, harm reduction, and support for individuals with substance use disorders offer promising models for change.
• Policy Reforms in the U.S. States: Several U.S. states have already begun to enact reforms, such as marijuana legalization and sentencing changes, demonstrating potential paths forward within the American context.
• Embracing Complexity: Recognizing the complexity of the drug issue requires a nuanced approach that transcends simple punitive measures.
• Ethical Leadership: The ethical implications of the war on drugs call for responsible leadership considering the humanity and dignity of all affected individuals.
• Public Engagement: Continued public dialogue and democratic engagement are vital for crafting policies that reflect a diverse society's values, needs, and aspirations.

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Introduction

• Published: November 2021
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Over the past fifty years, the United States government has spent over a trillion dollars fighting a “War on Drugs.” This massive budgetary expenditure and concomitant commitment to a fiercely punitive treatment of illegal drug users and sellers represents a major inflection point in Americans’ much longer campaign against the distribution and use of cocaine, cannabis, heroin, and a number of other targeted intoxicants. As this collection demonstrates, the scope, strategy, and tactics of that extraordinarily costly and punitive war have changed over time.

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• v.54(1); 2022

How the war on drugs impacts social determinants of health beyond the criminal legal system

Aliza cohen.

a Department of Research and Academic Engagement, Drug Policy Alliance, New York, NY, USA

Sheila P. Vakharia

Julie netherland, kassandra frederique.

b Drug Policy Alliance, New York, NY, USA

Associated Data

Data sharing is not applicable to this article as no new data were created or analysed in this study.

There is a growing recognition in the fields of public health and medicine that social determinants of health (SDOH) play a key role in driving health inequities and disparities among various groups, such that a focus upon individual-level medical interventions will have limited effects without the consideration of the macro-level factors that dictate how effectively individuals can manage their health. While the health impacts of mass incarceration have been explored, less attention has been paid to how the “war on drugs” in the United States exacerbates many of the factors that negatively impact health and wellbeing, disproportionately impacting low-income communities and people of colour who already experience structural challenges including discrimination, disinvestment, and racism. The U.S. war on drugs has subjected millions to criminalisation, incarceration, and lifelong criminal records, disrupting or altogether eliminating their access to adequate resources and supports to live healthy lives. This paper examines the ways that “drug war logic” has become embedded in key SDOH and systems, such as employment, education, housing, public benefits, family regulation (commonly referred to as the child welfare system), the drug treatment system, and the healthcare system. Rather than supporting the health and wellbeing of individuals, families, and communities, the U.S. drug war has exacerbated harm in these systems through practices such as drug testing, mandatory reporting, zero-tolerance policies, and coerced treatment. We argue that, because the drug war has become embedded in these systems, medical practitioners can play a significant role in promoting individual and community health by reducing the impact of criminalisation upon healthcare service provision and by becoming engaged in policy reform efforts.

KEY MESSAGES

• A drug war logic that prioritises and justifies drug prohibition, criminalisation, and punishment has fuelled the expansion of drug surveillance and control mechanisms in numerous facets of everyday life in the United States negatively impacting key social determinants of health, including housing, education, income, and employment.
• The U.S. drug war’s frontline enforcers are no longer police alone but now include physicians, nurses, teachers, neighbours, social workers, employers, landlords, and others.
• Physicians and healthcare providers can play a significant role in promoting individual and community health by reducing the impact of criminalisation upon healthcare service provision and engaging in policy reform.

Introduction

Social determinants of health (SDOH) are “the conditions in the environments where people are born, live, learn, work, play, worship, and age that affect a wide range of health, functioning, and quality-of-life outcomes and risks.” [ 1 ] There is a growing recognition in the fields of public health and medicine that SDOH play a key role in driving health inequities and disparities, such that a focus on individual-level medical interventions will have limited effects without the consideration of the macro-level factors that dictate how effectively individuals can manage their health. For instance, differences in access to nutritious foods, safe neighbourhoods, stable housing, well-paying job opportunities, enriching school environments, insurance, and healthcare can lead to differential health outcomes for individuals, their families, and their communities. And as these mid- and downstream SDOH have gained more attention, we must also focus on more macro SDOH in order to understand “how upstream factors, such as governance and legislation, create structural challenges and impose downstream barriers that impact the ability and opportunity to lead a healthy lifestyle.” [ 2 ]

One underexplored upstream SDOH is the “war on drugs” in the United States and how it exacerbates many of the factors that negatively impact health and wellbeing, disproportionately affecting low-income communities and people of colour who already experience structural challenges including discrimination, disinvestment, and racism [ 3 ]. President Richard Nixon launched the contemporary drug war in the U.S. in 1971 when he signed the Controlled Substances Act and declared drug abuse as “public enemy number one.” [ 4 ] Since the declaration of the U.S. drug war, billions of dollars each year have been spent on drug enforcement and punishment because it was made a local, state, and federal priority [ 5 ]. For the past half century, the war on drugs has subjected millions to criminalisation, incarceration, and lifelong criminal records, disrupting or altogether eliminating access to adequate resources and supports to live healthy lives.

Drug offences remain the leading cause of arrest in the nation; over 1.1 million drug-related arrests were made in 2020, and the majority were for personal possession alone [ 6 ]. Black people – who are 13% of the U.S. population – made up 24% of all drug arrests in 2020, despite the fact that people of all races use and sell drugs at similar rates [ 6–8 ]. While incarceration rates for drug-related offences skyrocketed in the 1980s and 1990s, they have decreased in recent years motivated both by cost savings and criminal legal reform efforts to promote a public health approach to drug use. However, estimates still suggest that roughly 20% of people who are incarcerated are there for a drug charge, and racial disparities in incarceration persist [ 9 , 10 ].

Meanwhile, the illicit drug supply has become increasingly unpredictable and contaminated due to drug supply disruptions, contributing to an exponential increase in drug overdose deaths [ 11 , 12 ]. Estimates suggest that one million people died of a drug-involved overdose between 1999 and 2020, with over 100,000 deaths occurring in a calendar year for the first time in 2021 [ 13 , 14 ]. Since 2015, overdose deaths have disproportionately impacted racial and ethnic minorities; Black people have had the biggest increase in overdose fatality rates, and today, Black and Native people have the highest overdose death rates across the U.S [ 15 ]. The most recent “fourth wave” of the overdose crisis can be attributed to a fentanyl-contaminated drug supply caused by drug prohibition; criminalisation that leads to stigma and fear of punishment that deters people from getting support they might need; and a lack of robust, scaled-up investment in harm reduction and evidence-based treatment services [ 16 , 17 ]. Although harm reduction interventions, including supervised consumption spaces (also called supervised injection facilities, drug consumption rooms, or overdose prevention centres) and heroin-assisted treatment have been widely studied and found effective outside of the U.S., these strategies have not been widely adopted in this country [ 18–21 ].

The drug war has also become deeply embedded within many of the systems and structures of U.S. life well beyond the criminal legal apparatus [ 3 ]. Since the health impacts of incarceration have been studied elsewhere, this paper will specifically discuss the impacts of criminalisation in other facets of life [ 22 ].

We argue that an underlying drug war logic has fuelled the expansion of drug surveillance and control mechanisms in numerous facets of everyday life in the U.S. We define drug war logic as a logic that prioritises and justifies drug prohibition, criminalisation, and punishment to purportedly address the real and perceived health harms of drug use over a public health approach to address these issues. In coining this term, we hope to make more visible the implicit assumptions about drug use that are often unnamed but common in the policies and practices across different institutions. We acknowledge that many actors in these settings where drug war logic is embedded, including physicians and other healthcare providers, are often well-intentioned yet unaware of how they may be perpetuating this logic through their own actions. We argue that drug war logic defies and contradicts widely accepted understandings of addiction as a health issue and has, in many cases, made a public health approach more challenging to implement [ 23 ]. Notably, the American Society of Addiction Medicine defines addiction as “a treatable, chronic medical disease involving complex interactions among brain circuits, genetics, the environment, and an individual’s life experiences.” [ 24 ] As this paper will outline, drug war logic undermines rather than supports the health of people who use drugs, their families, and their communities by treating drug use as a criminal issue.

Drug war logic is made concrete, not just within criminal legal systems, but also through mandated drug reporting and monitoring systems in treatment and healthcare settings, compulsory drug testing in employment and for the receipt of social services, the proliferation of zero-tolerance workplaces and school zones, mandated treatment in order to receive resources or avoid loss of benefits, background checks for work and housing, and numerous other measures which will be discussed in detail below. As a result, the drug war’s frontline enforcers are no longer police alone but now include physicians, nurses, teachers, neighbours, social workers, employers, landlords, and others who are required to engage in these forms of surveillance and punishment.

This commentary will use a SDOH lens to explore a number of systems where the drug war and its logic have taken root, impacting individual and community health and subjecting many people in the U.S. to surveillance due to suspected or confirmed drug use. Healthcare providers must have a robust understanding of the impact of drug war logic in employment, housing, education, public benefits, the family regulation system (commonly referred to as the child welfare system), the drug treatment system, and the healthcare system because these deeply impact the health of their patients, particularly their patients who use drugs (For the purposes of this paper, we are using the term “Family Regulation System,” coined by Emma Williams and used by other scholars, instead of the more commonly used term “Child Welfare System” to reflect the fact that, particularly for low-income families and families of color, state intervention often occurs in order to regulate their families rather than to prioritize the welfare of the entire family unit, of which the child is a part).

Employment, with its link to income and health insurance, is an important determinant of health. However, drug testing, criminal background checks, and exclusions of those with criminal histories from certain professions create significant barriers to obtaining and maintaining employment. Beginning in the 1980s, employment-based drug testing became widespread. In a 1994 report, the National Research Council noted that “[i]n a period of about 20 years, urine testing has moved from identifying a few individuals with major criminal or health problems to generalized programs that touch the lives of millions of citizens.” [ 25 ] Between 2017 and 2020, the National Survey on Drug Use and Health found that approximately 21% of respondents were tested as part of the hiring process, and 15% were subject to random employee drug testing [ 26 ].

Despite the widespread use of testing, less than 5.5% of results are positive for any drug, according to data from Quest Diagnostics, one of the largest testing companies in the country [ 27 ]. There is little evidence that these policies are effective in reducing drug use, improving workplace safety, or increasing productivity [ 28–30 ]. Notably, drug tests cannot specify how much of a drug was consumed, whether the person is currently intoxicated or impaired, or if they have a SUD. Drug tests cannot indicate if drug use will impact a person’s ability to perform their work or if they present a safety risk. Rather, drug tests simply show whether or not someone has a particular metabolite in their system [ 31–35 ].

Beyond workplace drug testing, hundreds of thousands are excluded from stable, well-paid work because of drug-related convictions. Over 70 million people – more than 20% of the U.S. population – have some type of criminal record [ 36 ]. A drug arrest or charge, even without a conviction, can be a barrier to getting a job because it can appear in many web searches and background checks [ 37 ]. Criminal background checks have become cheaper and easier to access, even though these records are notoriously inaccurate [ 38 , 39 ]. In addition, more than a quarter of jobs in the U.S. require some kind of licence, and a drug conviction history can automatically prevent people from getting a professional licence for their trade, like trucking or barbering [ 40 ].

These employment barriers disproportionately affect Black men, who already face additional impediments to employment and who are most harmed by the drug war and criminalisation [ 41 ]. The federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission issued guidance stating that denying employment based on criminal records could be a form of racial discrimination because people of colour are more likely to be targeted by law enforcement and thus more likely to have an arrest or conviction record [ 42 , 43 ]. As a recent report by the Brennan Centre points out: “the staggering racial disparities in our criminal justice system flow directly into economic inequality” [ 36 ]. This same report found that those with a history of imprisonment earned 52% less than those with no history of incarceration.

Employment is a health issue that should be of concern to healthcare providers because it provides income, access to health insurance and medical treatment, and social connection [ 44 ]. Precarious employment and low income are linked to poor health, and some research has shown that people who use drugs and who are precariously employed face increased vulnerability to violence and HIV infection [ 45–47 ]. Being unemployed can lead to poverty and negative health effects and is associated with increased rates of drug use and SUDs [ 48 ].

Rather than supporting people who use drugs in accessing employment and the health benefits attached to it, drug war logic in employment settings can erect barriers. Eliminating or greatly restricting workplace drug testing as well as banning criminal background checks and professional licencing restrictions are important steps towards restoring access to employment and the many health benefits it confers.

Housing is another key SDOH that is significantly impacted by drug war policies and practices. Drug war surveillance in housing began with the passage of the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988, which prohibited public housing authorities (PHAs) from allowing tenants to engage in drug-related activity on or near public housing premises and deemed such activity grounds for immediate eviction [ 49 ].

The Cranston-Gonzalez National Affordable Housing Act of 1990 expanded on this so that if a tenant’s family member or guest - regardless of whether they live on-site - engages in drug-related activity, the tenant and their household can be evicted [ 50 ]. Additionally, the Act states that evicted households must be banned from public housing for a minimum of three years unless the tenant completes an agency-approved drug treatment program or has otherwise been “rehabilitated successfully.” [ 50 ]

Six years later in 1996, Congress passed the Housing Opportunity Program Extension Act, which established “One Strike” laws and expanded on previous acts to give PHAs the authority to evict tenants if they or a guest was suspected of using or selling drugs, even outside of the premises [ 51 ]. This series of public housing policies requires neither a drug arrest nor proof that a tenant or their guest is involved in drug use, sales, or activity [ 52 ].

Private housing markets can also enforce zero-tolerance drug policies. In over 2,000 cities across the U.S., landlords can certify their property as “crime-free” by taking a class, implementing “crime prevention” architecture, and including clauses in their leases that allow for immediate eviction should a tenant, family member, or guest engage in “criminal activity,” particularly drug-related activity, on or off the premises [ 53 , 54 ]. Landlords, in close partnership with law enforcement, can invoke these laws by claiming to enforce crime-free ordinances, regardless of whether the alleged drug-related activity is illegal. In states across the U.S., private landlords have evicted tenants following an overdose [ 55–59 ]. In practice, these programs and ordinances increase the surveillance and displacement of low-income Black and Latinx tenants while not decreasing crime and potentially deterring someone from calling 911 for medical assistance in case of an overdose [ 55 ].

Evictions can lead to unstable housing or homelessness, which is associated with a host of chronic health problems, infectious diseases, emotional and developmental problems, food insecurity, and premature death [ 60–63 ]. Lacking a permanent address and reliable transportation makes it more difficult to receive and store medications and travel to a hospital or clinic; this is compounded with the stigma and discrimination that unhoused people often face from healthcare providers [ 64 ]. Being unhoused or housing unstable is also associated with difficulty obtaining long-term employment and education [ 65–67 ]. Longitudinal studies have found that family eviction has both short- and long-term impacts among newborns and children, including adverse birth outcomes, poorer health, risk of lead exposure, worse cognitive function, and lower educational outcomes [ 68 ]. These negative health outcomes are compounded for people with SUDs [ 69 ]. Unhoused people who use drugs are often forced into more unsafe, more unsanitary, and riskier injection and drug-using practices to avoid detection [ 70 ]. Evictions and homelessness are also associated with increased risk of drug-related harms, including non-fatal and fatal overdose, infectious diseases, and syringe sharing [ 71–73 ]. In addition, evictions can disrupt relationships between users and trusted sellers, making an already unregulated drug supply even more unpredictable [ 70 ].

While housing is understood as a key component of health and safety for all people, including people who use drugs, drug war logic can encourage and facilitate displacement, making it hard for housed people to remain so and creating barriers for those who are unhoused to find safe, affordable housing options. Solutions for improving housing access include ending evictions and removing housing bans based solely on drug-related activity or suspected activity, restricting landlords from using criminal background checks to exclude prospective tenants, and ending collaborations between housing complexes and law enforcement. Housing interventions that can improve the health of people who use drugs, in particular, include investing in Housing First programs and permanent supportive housing, providing eviction protection to people who call for help during an overdose emergency (i.e. expanding 911 Good Samaritan laws), and establishing overdose prevention centres.

Education is also understood as a strong predictor of health [ 74–76 ], but drug war logic in educational settings can subject young people who use drugs to punishment rather than needed support. Adolescent substance use is associated with sexual risk behaviour, experience of violence, adverse childhood experiences, and mental health and suicide risks, which should justify greater mental health and support services in schools [ 77 ]. Despite this, punitive responses to suspected or confirmed drug use, ranging from surveillance and policing to drug testing and expulsion, are commonplace in the field of education.

In 2018, 94% of high schools used security cameras, 65% did random sweeps for contraband, and 13% used metal detectors [ 78 ]. Twenty-four states and the District of Columbia have almost as many police and security officers in schools as they do school counsellors [ 79 , 80 ]. Drug use is one of the most common sources of referrals of students to police [ 80 ]. And recent estimates show that over a third of all U.S. school districts with middle or high schools had student drug testing policies [ 81–83 ].

Drug war policies also impact higher education, which is integral to economic mobility [ 84 ]. Prior to December 2020, federal law prohibited educational grants and financial aid to people in prison, one-fifth of whom were there for a drug offence, and drug convictions could lead to temporary or indefinite suspension of federal financial aid for students [ 85 ]. Still today, fourteen states have some temporary or permanent denial of financial aid for college or university education for people with criminal records [ 86 ].

These education policies – surveillance, policing, drug testing, zero tolerance, and barriers to financial aid – restrict access to education and ultimately impede economic wellbeing and positive health outcomes. For example, dropout risk increases every time a student receives harsh school discipline or comes into contact with the criminal legal system, including through school police officers [ 87 ]. Dropping out, in turn, is associated with higher unemployment and chronic health conditions [ 88 ]. In addition, discipline, such as expulsion for a drug violation, can contribute to more arrests for drug offences or the development of SUDs [ 89–91 ]. In contrast, school completion can help reduce higher risk substance use patterns [ 92 ], and education is a strong predictor of long-term health and quality of life [ 93 ].

Rather than supporting young people in completing their education and getting the support they may need, drug war logic prioritises punishing them in schools while often restricting access to financial aid and educational services for those seeking higher education. If we want to improve the health of young people, we need to reverse these policies. For example, the American Academy of Paediatrics opposes the random drug testing of young people based on an exhaustive review of the literature finding it did more harm than good [ 94 ]. Removing police from schools, ending zero-tolerance policies, and offering young people who use drugs counselling and support, instead of expulsion, could also help improve completion rates, ultimately leading to better health outcomes.

Public benefits

Though economic and food insecurity are linked with poor health outcomes, decades of drug policies have restricted access to public assistance programs. In 1996, Congress passed the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) [ 95 ], and one of the stated goals was to facilitate the transition from reliance on public assistance to full-time employment [ 96 ]. This law restricted benefits for people who use drugs, people with prior drug convictions, and their families in several ways.

The PRWORA introduced a lifetime ban on Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) cash assistance benefits for people with felony drug convictions, unless the state modified or opted out of the ban. Today, one state - South Carolina - fully bars people with felony drug convictions from receiving SNAP, and twenty-one states have instituted a modified SNAP ban [ 97 ]. Seven states fully bar people with felony drug convictions from receiving TANF, and seventeen states and the District of Columbia have instituted modified TANF bans [ 97 ]. Common features of modified bans can include mandatory drug treatment, drug testing, and parole compliance [ 98 , 99 ]. These zero-tolerance bans have discriminatory and disproportionate impacts among Black and Latinx people and women, who are disproportionately incarcerated for federal and state drug offences [ 100 ].

Drug testing of public benefits applicants is less discussed in the peer-reviewed literature [ 101 ]. Although the PRWORA authorised, but did not require, drug screenings of public benefits applicants, today 13 states drug test TANF applicants [ 102 , 103 ]. States that drug test as a condition of receiving TANF can only test if drug use is suspected. For example, some states automatically require people with felony drug convictions to take a drug test [ 104 ], while other states require all applicants to undergo a drug screening questionnaire and then require a test if there is suspicion of drug use [ 105 ]. Many TANF applicants, who are already low income, are expected to pay for their drug tests. The impact of drug testing on people with felony drug convictions is compounded since they are already disproportionately poor, unemployed, and food insecure compared to people who have never been incarcerated [ 106–108 ].

In most states that test, a positive drug test can temporarily or permanently disqualify a person from receiving TANF benefits [ 105 ]. Even if cash assistance is allocated to other household members (e.g. children) through a different parent or guardian, overall benefits for the family can be reduced. In some cases, a person who tests positive for drugs may still receive benefits but only if they complete mandated, abstinence-based treatment [ 105 ]. Such policies and practices can deter many eligible candidates and those in need of support from ultimately seeking these public benefits altogether [ 109 ].

There are numerous negative health consequences associated with food and economic insecurity [ 110–112 ]. In particular, studies have found that loss or reduction of SNAP is associated with increased odds of household and child food insecurity and increased odds of forgoing health or dental care [ 113 ]. Loss or reduction of TANF is associated with increased risk of hunger, homelessness or eviction, utility shutoff, inadequate medical care, and poor health [ 114 ].

When people are seeking financial and nutritional support to better care for themselves and their families, especially in crisis, drug war logic justifies more barriers to SNAP and TANF and the discontinuation of assistance precisely when people need it the most. To better support financial and economic security of low-income people, advocates can support removing TANF and SNAP bans for people who have felony drug convictions, ending drug testing requirements for public assistance, eliminating mandatory drug treatment requirements for public benefits applicants and recipients, and adequately investing in public benefit programs to ensure they provide enough assistance for families.

Family regulation

The family regulation system (FRS) often treats any drug use as a predictor of child abuse or neglect, even though research shows that poverty is one of the largest predictors of adverse infant and child health outcomes [ 115 ]. Drug war logic within the FRS justifies the separation and punishment of families for drug use even absent evidence of abuse or neglect. Half of all states and the District of Columbia require healthcare professionals to report any suspected drug use during pregnancy to FRS authorities, and eight states require them to drug test patients suspected of drug use [ 116 ]. Statutes in nineteen states and the District of Columbia define any drug use during pregnancy as a form of child maltreatment [ 117 ]. These policies exist even though most people who use drugs use them infrequently and do not meet criteria for SUDs [ 118 ]. Additionally, evidence proving causal links between prenatal drug use and child harm and maltreatment is limited. Research finds that in utero exposure to drugs may not have long-term negative developmental impacts on the child and that confounding variables, like poverty and food insecurity, have significant and often stronger impacts on child development than drug use [ 117 ].

Drug testing, mandatory reporting, and the prospect of punishments result in poorer health outcomes for pregnant people who use drugs, especially if they struggle with their use. A fear of punishment and family separation leads some pregnant people who use drugs to avoid honest, open conversations about healthcare needs or how to reduce drug use harms so that many delay, avoid, or forgo prenatal care altogether [ 119 , 120 ].

Like healthcare professionals, most school teachers, counsellors, social workers, and mental healthcare providers are required by law to report any suspicion of child maltreatment or neglect, which then initiates an FRS investigation [ 121 ]. A child can be removed from their home if the caregiver tests positive for drugs, even absent any other evidence of mistreatment or abuse. In addition, a positive drug test can lead to a parent being mandated to complete abstinence-based treatment even if the parent does not meet criteria for a diagnosable SUD [ 122 ]. Intervention by the FRS, such as placing children in foster care, can lead to adverse education, employment, and mental and behavioural health outcomes among children; increased parental mental illness diagnoses; and increased parental drug use to cope with the trauma of family separation [ 123–125 ].

These policies have disproportionate impacts on Black people. Black pregnant women are more likely to be tested for drug use, and Black women are reported to the FRS at higher rates than white women [ 126–128 ]. Over half of Black children will experience an FRS investigation at some point during their lifetime [ 129 ]. One study that analysed cumulative foster system removals between 2000 and 2011 found that 1 in 17 U.S. children, 1 in 9 Black children, and 1 in 7 Indigenous children will experience foster placement before they turn 18, and data show that many FRS cases involve allegations of parental drug use at some point [ 130 ]. These disparities in FRS involvement are not because Black parents are using drugs or mistreating their children at higher rates; rather, it’s because Black families, especially poor Black families, more often encounter state systems – like public hospitals and public benefits offices – and mandated reporters within these systems that monitor behaviour and drug use [ 131 ].

Drug war logic prioritises separation, coercion, and punishment in families where drug use occurs or is suspected. For pregnant people and parents who do use problematically, their use should be treated as a public health issue, according to international bodies like the United Nations General Assembly Special Session on drugs [ 132 ]. Advocates can support legislative policy changes to prohibit removals based on drug tests alone, eliminate mandatory reporting for drug use alone, and repeal laws that define drug use during pregnancy as de facto child abuse or maltreatment. Healthcare professionals can also advocate to only allow drug testing when medically necessary and when the parent provides informed consent; support practices that keep parents and infants together, like breastfeeding and skin-to-skin contact, that can mitigate the effects of neonatal abstinence syndrome [ 133 , 134 ]; and create programs providing both perinatal healthcare and SUD treatment to improve access and continuity of care as well as initiation and maintenance of medications for addiction treatment.

Substance use treatment system

Substance use treatment can be an essential lifeline for people with SUD working towards recovery. Yet surveillance and punishment are embedded into SUD treatment through the numerous constraints placed upon clients because of the role of institutional referral sources in treatment, such as the criminal legal system, the FRS, social services, and others. Studies suggest that roughly 25% of clients in publicly funded treatment were referred from the criminal legal system as a condition of their probation, parole, or drug court program [ 135 ]. This has led to therapeutic jurisprudence: the belief that the criminal legal system can support and facilitate efforts towards rehabilitation using the threat of incarceration [ 136 ]. Another 25% of clients are referred to treatment by other sources, including the FRS, social services, schools, and employers [ 133 ]. Criminal legal controls such as those from the courts, or formal social controls such as those from the other aforementioned institutions, coerce clients to either comply with treatment or face other harsh consequences, like incarceration, the termination of parental rights, or losing public benefits [ 137 ].

Treatment providers monitor client compliance and abstinence by conducting and observing routine urine drug tests, and providers are often in regular contact with referral sources about client progress in treatment. Any drug use or negative progress reports can be used as grounds to sanction those on probation, parole, or in drug court which can lead to incarceration and, in cases of drug courts, longer sentences than if participants had accepted a jail sentence [ 136 ]. Clients referred by other sources can also face ramifications for positive drug tests or treatment non-compliance, impacting child custody hearings as well as their ability to secure certain social services and resources, stay enrolled in school, or remain employed.

Referral sources influence the type of care that clients receive in facilities, including evidence-based treatments. Research suggests that only 5% of clients with opioid use disorder (OUD), who were referred to treatment from the criminal legal system, received either methadone or buprenorphine, compared to nearly 40% those who were not referred by the system [ 138 ]. This represents an extension of a broader problem within the criminal legal system wherein access to these gold standard medications for OUD is almost nonexistent in most jails and prisons across the U.S [ 139 ].

Drug war logic is also deeply rooted in the restrictions for prescribing and dispensing methadone and buprenorphine since they are controlled substances under the oversight of the Drug Enforcement Agency, a federal law enforcement entity. When taken in effective doses, these life-saving medications can cut the risk of overdose and all-cause mortality dramatically among people with OUD [ 140 ]. However, due to tight federal restrictions and guidelines for these controlled medications, patients can be subjected to routine drug testing, counselling requirements, daily clinic visits, and observed or highly monitored medication dispensing. Patients deemed non adherent to medications or who test positive for other drugs can then be subjected to dose reductions, required to attend treatment more frequently, or even terminated from care altogether [ 141 ]. The tight restrictions on both methadone and buprenorphine, combined with the oversight of the DEA, create obstacles for prescribers and stigmatise these medications by conveying that they cannot be used like other medications in routine healthcare [ 142 ]. These policies have also contributed to striking racial disparities in who receives buprenorphine versus methadone due to costly co-pays and insurance coverage issues [ 143 ]. Studies also suggest that the DEA’s involvement in monitoring buprenorphine has made pharmacies reluctant to stock the medication or to dispense it to patients for fear of triggering an investigation [ 144 , 145 ]. Ultimately, it is estimated that only 10% of all people with OUD receive these medications [ 146 ].

Providers can take steps to extract the drug war from our substance use treatment system, through their conscious and judicious documentation of treatment progress since those records could be used by criminal legal and other referral sources in decisions about clients and their families. In addition, eligible buprenorphine prescribers should begin prescribing to patients and join advocacy efforts to change policies to expand access to buprenorphine and methadone through looser restrictions.

Healthcare system

People with SUDs often have high rates of co-occurring medical needs requiring treatment, including psychiatric disorders, infectious diseases, and other chronic health conditions. However, research suggests that people with SUDs are often deterred from seeking healthcare to address their medical needs due to prior negative and stigmatising experiences with providers, and that having experienced discrimination in healthcare is associated with greater risk behaviours, psychological distress, and negative health outcomes among people who use drugs [ 147–149 ]. Some of these challenges are due to a lack of training on how to work with patients with SUDs, in addition to pre-existing personal biases and stigmatising views held by healthcare professionals, which impacts the type of care they provide [ 142 ].

The widespread use of drug testing in healthcare settings also creates ethical challenges and conflicts for providers and patients since results are often entered into the electronic health record (EHR). While EHRs are typically thought of as beneficial and intended for greater transparency and access, they also pose challenges surrounding patient privacy, confidentiality, and autonomy; they can, therefore, make patients reluctant to disclose drug use or consent to drug testing [ 150 ]. For instance, medical records that include drug test results, can be accessed by a wide variety of actors in the medical system, subpoenaed for court, and used in future medical decision making without the patient’s knowledge or consent. Providers might not receive adequate training to weigh the need for these tests as part of treatment adherence monitoring with the potential social or legal ramifications of these tests for the patient. Patients might also not be adequately informed of these potential consequences prior to testing.

Universal drug screening and testing in obstetric and gynecological care is an example wherein testing intersects with the role of most healthcare providers as mandated reporters. Mandated reporting for suspected child abuse or neglect due to parental drug use is purported to protect the foetus or children in the parents’ custody, yet this can often be a deterrent for patients to seek medical treatment altogether if they believe that they may lose their children or be subject to other mandates. The racial and class disparities in how such testing is used, as well as the punitive measures used against families, have been noted earlier in the text but is a compelling reason for healthcare providers to consider making recommendations for counselling or supportive case management in order to address family challenges.

Healthcare providers need more training and resources to work with patients with SUDs to ensure that they are engaging them in evidence-based treatments and treating their complex medical needs while avoiding some of the lifelong and harmful ramifications that can occur when drug testing, health records, and mandated reporting deter patients from seeking and receiving care.

Because of the social, economic, and health effects of drug policies, the work of ending the drug war cannot be situated within criminal legal reform efforts alone. The drug war and a punitive drug war logic impact most systems of everyday life in the U.S., subjecting people to surveillance, suspicion, and punishment and undermining key SDOH, including education, employment, housing, and access to benefits. Combined, these have resulted in poorer health outcomes for individuals, families, and communities, particularly for people who use drugs. These policies and practices, while race-neutral as written, are not [ 151 ]. The targeted effects on people of colour further entrench health and economic disparities. As the public and policymakers call for a health approach to drug use, it is vital to recognise how systems meant to care and support are often unable to serve their intended purposes; rather than help people who use drugs or are suspected of using drugs, they frequently punish them.

In their day-to-day practice, healthcare professionals must understand the deep roots of the drug war as well as their role in both perpetuating and undermining drug war logic and practices. Healthcare providers can treat people who use drugs with dignity, respect, and trust and ensure that healthcare and treatment decisions are made in partnership with individuals. Medical professionals can also work to situate drug use within a larger social and economic context [ 152 ], understanding that drug-related harms often stem from lack of resources – like housing and food precarity, economic insecurity, and insufficient healthcare – rather than from drugs themselves. Treatment need not be the only antidote for people who experience drug-related harms but should be one option among an array of health services, resources, and support.

At the mezzo- and institutional levels, healthcare providers can advocate to shift hospital and programmatic policies around drug testing, mandatory reporting, and collaborations with law enforcement. As outlined in this paper, drug testing is not an effective monitoring strategy for care and support, but rather, it is more often a punitive tool of surveillance. If drug testing cannot be eliminated, at the very least, patients should have the right to understand the implications of drug testing and provide explicit consent for the test. To the extent possible, providers should not share private patient information with police or state agencies. Healthcare professionals should understand the implications of reporting positive drug tests and suspicion of use and should work to change these policies where possible and inform their patients of them. Providers can ensure that their patients who use drugs have access to evidence-based, non-coercive harm reduction and treatment options in addition to robust and supportive primary healthcare. Healthcare professionals involved with medical education and licensure can work to ensure that all students graduate with a deep understanding of SDOH and the impact of the drug war on individual and community health.

Finally, healthcare providers can get involved with policy-level changes to end drug testing, mandatory reporting, zero-tolerance policies, coerced treatment, and denial of services and resources based on arrest or conviction records at the municipal, state, and federal levels. Providers can follow the leadership and expertise of people who use drugs, some of whom have organised themselves into user unions [ 153 ]. Policy advocacy can include drafting and joining sign-on letters, delivering expert testimony, speaking to media, writing op-eds, and lobbying medical professional organisations to release policy statements. Providers, who see firsthand the consequences of the war on drugs, are well positioned to be effective advocates in undoing these harmful policies that have for too long undermined key SDOH [ 154 ]. In order to improve individual and collective health, healthcare providers should resist drug war logic and work to transform these systems so they can truly promote health and safety.

For the purposes of this paper, we are using the term “Family Regulation System,” coined by Emma Williams and used by other scholars, instead of the more commonly used term “Child Welfare System” to reflect the fact that, particularly for low-income families and families of color, state intervention often occurs in order to regulate their families rather than to prioritize the welfare of the entire family unit, of which the child is a part.

Authors contribution

All authors (AC, SV, JN, KF) were involved in the conception and drafting of the paper, revising it critically for intellectual content; and the final approval of the version to be published. All authors agree to be accountable for all aspects of the work.

Disclosure statement

All authors are employed by the Drug Policy Alliance, a non-profit policy advocacy organisation. No other interests to disclose.

Data availability statement

The views expressed in the submitted article are those of the authors.

War on Drugs

Introduction.

In the United States, the “War on Drugs” has been a major governmental undertaking with far-reaching effects on people and society. This paper will cover its history, the idea of “racial capitalism,” Purdue Pharmaceuticals’ part in the opioid problem, unfavorable effects, evidence-based remedies, and individual thoughts on Modules 6 and 7.

The War on Drugs began in response to social and political changes during the 1970s. The Nixon administration enacted severe punitive measures and declared drug abuse to be the nation’s top public enemy in an effort to combat drug use. Policies that strengthened specific individuals and companies at the expense of weaker communities were shaped by racialized narratives. The way that racism and capitalism are linked to exploiting racial inequalities for financial gain is known as “racial capitalism” (Murch, 2019). Michelle Alexander highlights fundamental racial disparities and portrays the War on Drugs as an instrument of racial capitalism in her speech. Due to its aggressive marketing of opioids, Purdue Pharmaceuticals is a shining example of how Big Pharma contributes to the rise in addiction for financial benefit.

The unintended repercussions of the war on drugs include mass incarceration, racial inequities in drug enforcement, and the erosion of fundamental liberties. More people of color have been arrested and given harsher sentences for drug crimes as a result of the war on drugs (Bartilow, 2019). Overemphasis on drug enforcement has also added to prison overcrowding and taken money away from treatment and prevention programs. Kalief Browder, who spent three years in jail without being convicted, is a tragic example of the damage that can come from overzealous drug enforcement (Bartilow, 2019). Also, the war on drugs has granted police enforcement broad new powers to conduct warrantless searches, seizures, and surveillance of citizens.

Research has shown that harm reduction is one approach to treating drug addiction. In an attempt to mitigate the harmful effects of drug use, these strategies put public health and safety ahead of punishment (Murch, 2019). Strategies for reducing harm, funding programs for treatment and recovery, and addressing the socioeconomic issues that contribute to addiction are examples of evidence-based remedies. Numerous research studies have validated Portugal’s decriminalization policy, which prioritizes treatment over punishment and has had favorable consequences (Bartilow, 2019).

Criminal law challenged my thinking in Unit 6 by demonstrating how social, economic, and political factors impact legislation and the criminal justice system. It demonstrated to me that institutional and structural factors, rather than individual choices, shape criminal justice. This helped me see crime as a social problem rather than a criminal one. Unit 7 exposed the flaws and dangers of the drug war, calling my worldview into question. It caused me to question punitive techniques and look into public health and damage reduction strategies. This unit aided my development by fostering critical thinking and a more thorough, evidence-based drug policy.

There have been adverse effects from the War on Drugs, which has been motivated by racial capitalism. It is necessary to comprehend the drawbacks before looking into evidence-based alternatives that put rehabilitation ahead of jail. My viewpoint has been widened, and my ability to recognize systemic problems and the need for creative solutions to drug laws and criminal justice systems has improved thanks to modules six and seven.

Bartilow, H. A. (2019).  Drug war pathologies: embedded corporatism and US drug enforcement in the Americas . UNC Press Books.

Donna, M. (2019). How Race Made the Opioid Crisis.  Murch, Racist Logic , pp. 7–21.

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War On Drugs - Free Essay Samples And Topic Ideas

Writing argumentative essays on War on Drugs is pretty challenging as it unleashes the current problem of modern society in America. It requires thorough research of lots of data to introduce the relevant paper. This is a broad matter which can be split into different essay topics. For example, you can raise the issue of drug trafficking or provide arguments on the harmful effects of abused drug consumption. Also, you can touch on the engagement of the government in fighting against illegal drug use, current drug prohibition rights, etc.

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War On Drugs Essays (Examples)

War On Drugs

ACLU (2020). Against drug prohibition. Retrieved from:   https://www.aclu.org/other/against-drug-prohibition  " target="_blank" REL="NOFOLLOW">

Effectiveness Of The War On Drugs

Fbi drugs and wmds.

Manchikanti, Laxmaiah, Jaya Sanapati, Ramsin M. Benyamin, Sairam Atluri, Alan D. Kaye, and Joshua A. Hirsch. "Reframing the prevention strategies of the opioid crisis: focusing on prescription opioids, fentanyl, and heroin epidemic." Pain physician 21, no. 4 (2018): 309-326.

Pablo Escobar

Teenage health vulnerabilities with substance abuse us.

Youth.gov. (2019). Substance abuse agencies. Retrieved from   https://youth.gov/youth-topics/substance-abuse/prevalence-substance-use-abuse-and-dependence  .

The US Sentencing System Disparities And Discrimination

Race and incarceration rates.

Plessy v. Ferguson. 1896. Retrieved July 30, 2019 (  https://www.oyez.org/cases/1850-1900/163us537  ).

The Rise Of The Opium Trade In Afghanistan Following The US Invasion

Kiras, J. D. (2002). Terrorism and Irregular Warfare, in John Baylis, James Wirtz, Eliot Cohen and Colin Gray eds., Strategy in the Contemporary World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 208–232.

Counterterrorism Strategy For The Next U S Presidential Administration

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Human Rights and Duterte’s War on Drugs

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs has led to thousands of extrajudicial killings, raising human rights concerns, says expert John Gershman in this interview.

Interview by Michelle Xu , Interviewer John Gershman , Interviewee

December 16, 2016 3:56 pm (EST)

Since becoming president of the Philippines in June 2016, Rodrigo Duterte has launched a war on drugs that has resulted in the extrajudicial deaths of thousands of alleged drug dealers and users across the country. The Philippine president sees drug dealing and addiction as “major obstacles to the Philippines’ economic and social progress,” says John Gershman, an expert on Philippine politics. The drug war is a cornerstone of Duterte’s domestic policy and represents the extension of policies he’d implemented earlier in his political career as the mayor of the city of Davao. In December 2016, the United States withheld poverty aid to the Philippines after declaring concern over Duterte’s war on drugs.

How did the Philippines’ war on drugs start?  

When Rodrigo Duterte campaigned for president, he claimed that drug dealing and drug addiction were major obstacles to the Philippines’ economic and social progress. He promised a large-scale crackdown on dealers and addicts, similar to the crackdown that he engaged in when he was mayor of Davao, one of the Philippines’ largest cities on the southern island of Mindanao. When Duterte became president in June, he encouraged the public to “go ahead and kill” drug addicts. His rhetoric has been widely understood as an endorsement of extrajudicial killings, as it has created conditions for people to feel that it’s appropriate to kill drug users and dealers. What have followed seem to be vigilante attacks against alleged or suspected drug dealers and drug addicts. The police are engaged in large-scale sweeps. The Philippine National Police also revealed a list of high-level political officials and other influential people who were allegedly involved in the drug trade.

“When Rodrigo Duterte campaigned for president, he claimed that drug dealing and drug addiction were major obstacles to the Philippines’ economic and social progress.”

Philippines

Rodrigo Duterte

Drug Policy

The dominant drug in the Philippines is a variant of methamphetamine called shabu. According to a 2012 United Nations report , among all the countries in East Asia, the Philippines had the highest rate of methamphetamine abuse. Estimates showed that about 2.2 percent of Filipinos between the ages of sixteen and sixty-four were using methamphetamines, and that methamphetamines and marijuana were the primary drugs of choice. In 2015, the national drug enforcement agency reported that one fifth of the barangays, the smallest administrative division in the Philippines, had evidence of drug use, drug trafficking, or drug manufacturing; in Manila, the capital, 92 percent of the barangays had yielded such evidence.

How would you describe Duterte’s leadership as the mayor of Davao?

After the collapse of the Ferdinand Marcos dictatorship, there were high levels of crime in Davao and Duterte cracked down on crime associated with drugs and criminality more generally. There was early criticism of his time as mayor by Philippine and international human rights groups because of his de facto endorsement of extrajudicial killings, under the auspices of the “Davao Death Squad.”

Duterte was also successful at negotiating with the Philippine Communist Party. He was seen broadly as sympathetic to their concerns about poverty, inequality, and housing, and pursued a reasonably robust anti-poverty agenda while he was mayor. He was also interested in public health issues, launching the first legislation against public smoking in the Philippines, which he has claimed he will launch nationally.

What have been the outcomes of the drug war?

By early December , nearly 6,000 people had been killed: about 2,100 have died in police operations and the remainder in what are called “deaths under investigation,” which is shorthand for vigilante killings. There are also claims that half a million to seven hundred thousand people have surrendered themselves to the police. More than 40,000 people have been arrested.

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Although human rights organizations and political leaders have spoken out against the crackdown, Duterte has been relatively successful at not having the legislature engaged in any serious oversight of or investigation into this war. Philippine Senator Leila de Lima, former chairperson of the Philippine Commission on Human Rights and a former secretary of justice under the previous administration, had condemned the war on drugs and held hearings on human rights violations associated with these extrajudicial killings. However, in August, Duterte alleged that he had evidence of de Lima having an affair with her driver, who had been using drugs and collecting drug protection money when de Lima was the justice secretary. De Lima was later removed from her position chairing the investigative committee in a 16-4 vote by elected members of the Senate committee.

What is the public reaction to the drug war?

The war on drugs has received a high level of popular support from across the class spectrum in the Philippines. The most recent nationwide survey on presidential performance and trust ratings conducted from September 25 to October 1 by Pulse Asia Research showed that Duterte’s approval rating was around 86 percent. Even through some people are concerned about these deaths, they support him as a president for his position on other issues. For example, he has a relatively progressive economic agenda, with a focus on economic inequality.

Duterte is also supporting a range of anti-poverty programs and policies. The most recent World Bank quarterly report speaks positively about Duterte’s economic plans. The fact that he wants to work on issues of social inequality and economic inequality makes people not perceive the drug war as a war on the poor.

How is Duterte succeeding in carrying out this war on drugs?

The Philippine judicial system is very slow and perceived as corrupt, enabling Duterte to act proactively and address the issue of drugs in a non-constructive way with widespread violations of human rights. Moreover, in the face of a corrupt, elite-dominated political system and a slow, ineffective, and equally corrupt judicial system, people are willing to tolerate this politician who promised something and is now delivering.

“Drug dealers and drug addicts are a stigmatized group, and stigmatized groups always have difficulty gaining political support for the defense of their rights.”

There are no trials, so there is no evidence that the people being killed are in fact drug dealers or drug addicts. [This situation] shows the weakness of human rights institutions and discourse in the face of a popular and skilled populist leader. It is different from college students being arrested under the Marcos regime or activists being targeted under the first Aquino administration, when popular outcry was aroused. Drug dealers and drug addicts are a stigmatized group, and stigmatized groups always have difficulty gaining political support for the defense of their rights.

How has the United States reacted to the drug war and why is Duterte challenging U.S.-Philippines relations?

It’s never been a genuine partnership. It’s always been a relationship dominated by U.S. interests. Growing up in the 1960s, Duterte lived through a period when the United States firmly supported a regime that was even more brutal than this particular regime and was willing to not criticize that particular government. He noticed that the United States was willing to overlook human rights violations when these violations served their geopolitical interests. He was unhappy about the double standards. [Editor’s Note: The Obama administration has expressed concern over reports of extrajudicial killings and encouraged Manila to abide by its international human rights obligations.] For the first time, the United States is facing someone who is willing to challenge this historically imbalanced relationship. It is unclear what might happen to the relationship under the administration of Donald J. Trump, but initial indications are that it may not focus on human rights in the Philippines. President-Elect Trump has reportedly endorsed the Philippine president’s effort, allegedly saying that the country is going about the drug war "the right way," according to Duterte .

The interview has been edited and condensed.

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Prohibition: War on Drugs Essay

• To find inspiration for your paper and overcome writer’s block
• As a source of information (ensure proper referencing)
• As a template for you assignment

When and why alcohol prohibition was passed in the United States

Prohibition of alcohol in the United States took place between 1920 and 1933. The reasons for this move were to minimize crime and exploitation, provide remedies to social issues, reduce revenue burden enhanced by prisons and shanties, and make health and hygienic standards in America better (Thornton 1). In short, it was thought that less drinking would lead to better lives.

Some scholars have referred to the ban as a prohibition experiment, rather than a law enforcement action. This is because compared to all other reforms, it is the only one that was intentionally and decisively repealed (Burham 1). Whereas this perspective regards prohibition as a total failure, others regard it as a success. Nevertheless, the lessons learned from prohibition are relevant and applicable to the contemporary world debate over the war on drug and substance abuse, abortion, gambling, and other issues.

Alcohol prohibition was a failure

According to Thornton (1), alcoholism declined shortly after Prohibition began. On the other hand, the Schaffer Drug Library (1) states that most indicators show alcohol consumption declined just before national prohibition began. However, by 1926, it had increased over its previous rates, leading to a rise in both crime and corruption that really strained the courts and prison systems.

There were also various newer problems; for instance, a drinking epidemic among children. The Introduction of Prohibition also triggered many drinkers into the use of other dangerous drugs such as opium, marijuana, and cocaine. This could not have taken place in the absence of the alcoholic prohibition.

In the workplace, Prohibition did not have positive effect on levels of productivity and absenteeism. American Labor Leader Andrew Furuseth spoke before Congress in 1926 and noted that just after prohibition began, there was a large change in the working population, but he also added:

“Two years afterwards I came through the same identical place, staying in Portland for about three days, and went to the very same place for the purpose of looking at the situation, and the condition was worse than it had been prior to the passage of the law” (Schaffer 1).

Prohibition did not only lead to a large loss in business revenue, it also affected the government spending. Primarily, tax revenues declined as alcohol traders closed shop or switched to underground market where the taxman could not reach them, while at the same time, production and distribution of alcohol business declined resulting to lower taxes.

In addition, as noted above, productivity and absenteeism at workplaces led to reduced income thus lower taxes to the government. In relation to government’s spending, large sums of money were spent on policy implementation and enforcement. In the perspective of its supporters, Prohibition related advantages were dependent on reduced quantity of alcohol consumption. Shortly after the ban, there were indicators that the quantity of consumption had indeed been lowered.

The iron law of Prohibition

The Eighteenth Amendment was the culmination of a long campaign by church and women’s organizations; they wanted an iron law that would keep people away from alcohol and its immoral behaviors.

Four conditions that indicate a reduction of alcohol intake: first, there must be a decrease in alcohol usage after Prohibition began. Although it was discovered that the amount of alcohol bought had declined some years before the ban, Prohibition did not exactly eliminate alcohol consumption as speakeasies became an underground sensation and gangsters ran liquor everywhere.

Secondly, although the drinking of alcohol had initially dropped, this did not hold in subsequent years as consumption eventually soared beyond its previous numbers. The annual degree of consumption had been reducing from 1910; however, it reduced greatly during the 1921 recession and shot up again after the ban in 1922. Even investment in enforcement resources showed little results such that, despite the 1933 repeal of Prohibition, alcoholic consumption levels exceeded the pre-prohibition period.

Thirdly, increase in enforcement resources were directly proportional (rather than inversely proportional, as they should have been) to alcoholic consumption. Therefore, this did not discourage consumption either.

The fourth condition is the most imperative in that, a decrease in alcohol consumption does not actually equate to a success of Prohibition. In this vein, the overall social implications of Prohibition must be analyzed.

Prohibition did not only have degenerating effects on alcoholic consumption, but also on its production and distribution, leading to unprecedented repercussions in the whole system. The most notable of those repercussions is “the iron law of Prohibition” which states that the more harsh the enforcement law, the more potent the prohibited product becomes.

Statistics reveal that prior to Prohibition, most Americans spent equally on beer and spirits; however, during Prohibition, beer became a liability because of its expense and bulkiness leading to increased consumption of both homemade and near beer.

Hence, the alcohol dealers turned their attention to cheaper and stronger liquors (whiskey) instead of beer in order to meet the needs of the consumers. The usual beer, wine, or whiskey was more highly alcoholic by volume during Prohibition than was during either pre-Prohibition or post-Prohibition (Thornton 4).

The production standards were compromised during Prohibition, resulting in largely non-uniform quality. Moonshine production by amateurs during Prohibition resulted to products that were detrimental to human health and contained dangerous ingredients. It was also reported that during Prohibition, the death rates due to consumption of toxic illicit liquor rose (Thornton 6).

Primarily, prohibitionists looked at alcohol related deaths as those occurring from cirrhosis of the liver. However, they did not count deaths stemming from other elements of prohibition drinking such as blood poisoning, fighting, car crashes, and other seemingly unrelated issues. These resulted in public relations constraints since the deaths were not necessarily accidental, though they were considered accidental.

In the 20’s there were no restrictions on the portrayal of drinking and smoking in film. Among the youth, the product became attractive due to its associated glamour. Young people gained interest in these vices by watching their parents and seeing glamorous stars drinking in the movies.

Apart from selling to the youth, the sellers successfully built up their businesses during Prohibition by selling to people who would not otherwise drink. Moreover, most old-fashioned Americans and new immigrants were unwilling to be left out making the whole period a moment when people drank more dedicatedly than at any other time.

One large deficit to Prohibition was that it changed the distribution pattern of alcohol. It eliminated the government-overseen bars and restaurants, replacing them with many covert speakeasies. In this, Prohibition increased the availability of alcohol such that, there were many places where people could buy alcohol from during this period than there were during pre-Prohibition.

Prohibition led to the elimination of alcohol production, location, and distribution regulations. Before Prohibition, the government had rules that could help deter selling alcohol; for example, near churches and schools on weekends and holidays.

However, during Prohibition, the regulations and oversight were eliminated while speakeasies opened up and dominated various areas that were initially dry. Following Prohibition, more Americans turned to increased intake of other forms of ‘legally’ distributed alcohol such as sacramental alcohol and patent medicines.

This happened despite existence of new regulations. Although the prohibitionists’ intention was to help people change from using alcohol to using dairy products, what was witnessed was an increase in spending on both alcohol and its substitutes. Apart from alcoholic medicine, those who could not consume alcohol switched to the use of other more addictive and dangerous drugs such as marijuana, hashish, and tobacco, to mention but a few.

The harmful consequences of the iron law of Prohibition proved more hindrance than benefit, thereby resulting to greater consumption. By these standards, it was only a mirage that alcoholic consumption decreased.

Prohibition was not a healthy initiative

Both American health and hygiene did not improve during Prohibition. This is indicated by the continued stream of deaths due to cirrhosis arising from increased intake of alcohol and other dangerous alcoholic beverages during the prohibition (Thornton 8). Those deaths, however, should not stand alone as indicators, since alcohol consumption went underground.

As noted earlier, there are other important indicators of drinking as well as cirrhosis. Contrary to the expectations of the prohibitionists that drunkards should be forgotten to let the young benefit from Prohibition, the health of young people was only at its best before Prohibition. For instance, during Prohibition, most young people’s lives were swept away due to increased alcohol intake.

Whereas it is medically proven that moderate alcoholic consumption is not harmful to one’s health but rather improves it, excess drinking on the other hand has devastating consequences on one’s health (Thornton 8). What took place during Prohibition was excessive alcoholism that had no positive impact on the American people.

Therefore, if the prohibitionists were concerned about the health of the public, they could have championed for moderate alcohol intake that has more health benefits, rather than banning alcohol as a whole. As we know now, to change the behavior of the people, one must change the sensibility of the culture.

Prohibition increased crime rate

The proponents of prohibition expected it to be a solution to all social evils (Thornton 10). Early reformers were right to assert that alcoholism led to poverty, broken homes, tax burden, and suffering. In this vein, America had registered a decline in crime rate towards the end of the 19 th century and at the beginning of the 20 th century (Thornton 10). That trend was disrupted by launching the prohibition on alcohol. Increased cases of homicide were noted during this time.

Records show that during this period, more funds were spent on police and many people were arrested for flouting prohibition regulations. Furthermore, although drunkenness and disorderly arrests increased, the rate of drinking did not decline. This meant that instead of helping to decongest prisons prohibition and its enforcement seemed to fill prisons. This in turn increased spending on police and prisons. Along with expected crimes, there were also increased cases of burglary, robbery, and murder during the prohibition period.

Prohibition raised corruption levels

Thornton points out that there was increased bribery among politicians and the police, as they dealt with the cottage industry of moonshine, speakeasies, and organized crime bosses and their families. There was also corruption inside the bureau of Prohibition itself, leading to an influx of cases in the courts regarding corruption and lessening the efficiency of the judicial system.

Prohibition was a success

To begin with, contrary to the views of many, the enforcement law was not all-embracing (Moore 6). The amendment banned the commercial production and distribution of alcoholic products; however, it did not ban both use and production of alcoholic beverages for personal consumption.

In addition, the enforcement was to be effected after one year in order to give people sufficient time to amass supplies. Secondly, Prohibition led to a decline in alcohol intake, reduction in deaths due to cirrhosis, and a reduction in admission to state hospitals for drinking psychosis.

In addition, alcoholic consumption declined leading to a drop in arrests that resulted from drunkenness and disorder (Moore 7). Thirdly, Prohibition did not contribute to organized crime because this existed before and after it. Moreover, other forms of crime did not rise dramatically during Prohibition (Moore 8). Fourth, after the repeal, there was increased alcohol intake. However, in the recent past, both thousands of motor vehicle deaths and homicides have been attributed to the use of alcohol (Moore, 10).

The modern war on drugs

Modern prohibition on drugs began in the nineteenth century due to a rise in production of both potent and habituating drugs from the medicinal industry (DuPont and Voth 3). Initially, drugs like cocaine were used for medical purposes, but later on, their use by public increased to unprecedented levels, resulting to distasteful consequences.

However, this period of carefree sale and consumption of illicit drugs ceased after the first two decades of the 20 th century (DuPont and Voth 4), with several acts requiring not only labeling but also prohibition of some drugs. This led to sparing sale of habituating drugs mainly for medical rather than addictive reasons.

This move by the social contract to regulate drugs of abuse also led to great reduction of drug abuse epidemic. Moreover, the United States drug control laws were internationally recognized and their enforcement led to a decline in use of habituating drugs between 1920 and 1965 (DuPont and Voth 7).

The non-use of both dangerous and alcoholic drugs continued until the culture of the ascendant youth who incorporated drugs as part of their life style. However, the use of hard drugs such as marijuana, cocaine and the hallucinogens resumed with increased calls for their legalization under allegations that they were better in comparison to alcohol and tobacco. This led to negative effects, a situation that continued until recent calls for legalization.

Lessons in relation to the current war on drug abuse

Prohibition, which failed to reduce alcoholism in America, can be likened to the modern war against drug abuse. However, repeal of Prohibition led to a dramatic decline in many types of crime and corruption (Thornton 15). The result of this was that, not only were jobs created, but also new voluntary actions came in to help alcoholics.

In addition, the lessons on prohibition should be used to suppress the desire to prohibit. Current prohibition of alcohol and other drugs may lead to a rise in crime rate, corruption and increased use of other dangerous substances that may be a threat to people’s health. It may also lead to increased government regulation on its citizen’s lives (Thornton 15).

Prohibition was supposed to lead to reduced crimes, reduced alcohol consumption, cut in taxes and generally a boost in the moral and economic aspect. However, although some theorists claimed that alcohol consumption declined following prohibition, others claimed that the consumption was lower before prohibition, and further claiming that the actual result of prohibition was an increase in other social vices.

For instance, prohibition led to increased crime, corruption, and use of hard drugs. From another perspective, alcohol consumption per se did not decline, as people turned to underground market for cheap and illicit alcohol. Modern war on drugs has however had some impact mainly due to regulations that have set up to regulate sale of addictive drugs. In this case, due to the failure of prohibition, legalization has been incorporated in regulation to provide a viable solution to the problem of substance abuse and related vices.

Recommendations

America government has done a lot with regard to war against alcoholism drug use. This ranges from funding social initiatives that provide awareness on drugs to prohibition by establishment of laws through the office of National Drug Control. These efforts have not yet led to a drastic drop in the use of drugs as fighting drug use in most cases seems to attract violent war from dealers.

Neither prohibition nor legalization can end drug use as it will only aggravate drug usage, crime, death and other drug – use related consequences. The government reserves the right to protect its citizens from the adverse effects of drugs and alcoholism use. However, in regulating this, force should not be used as in prohibition.

In an attempt to regulate, two approaches are recommended. First, the government should devise policies that focused on drug harm reduction and in this way concentrate on dealers rather than users. This will allow production of drugs with reduced potency and toxic composition. Secondly, a policy permitting only doctors to prescribe drugs to addicts can be put in place.

Works Cited

Burham, John C. “ New Perspectives on the Prohibition Experiment of the 1920s .” Journal of Social History. 1968. Web.

DuPont, Robert and Voth, Eric. “ Drug legalization, Harm reduction, and Drug policy .” Annals of Internal Medicine . 1995. Web.

Moore, Mark. “Institute for Behavior and Health: Actually Prohibition was a success.” The New York Times . 2009. Web.

Schaffer Library of Drug Policy “ Did Alcohol Prohibition Reduce Alcohol Consumption and Crime? ” Staff Writer. Web.

Thornton, Mark. “ Policy Analysis: Alcohol prohibition was a failure .” Policy Analysis , No. 157. 1991. Web.

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Bibliography

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