The US War On Drugs

1592 Words7 Pages
U.S. War on Drugs By: Rachel Johnson January 2014 Introduction: The United States has been in an ongoing war against drugs for almost a century. It is a war the United States is losing. There have been billions of dollars spent to eliminate the supply of drugs in America since the early19th century (“US War on Drugs” 1). Four of America's previous presidents have directly pursued the war on drugs. The view on drugs in society has constantly been changing throughout the past one hundred years. Even with all of the drug enforcement laws that the government has, we still see people using and abusing drugs. Is the War on Drugs really worth the time and money spent on it? History of U.S. Drug Policy: The use of drugs dates back to the…show more content…
He first declared the War on Drugs in 1971 and said, “America’s public enemy number one is drug abuse. In order to fight and defeat this enemy, it is necessary to wage a new, all-out offense. (“U.S. War on Drugs” 2).” It was President Nixon who discovered that many of the drugs were coming from Mexico. He decided that this drug source needed to be eliminated in order to decrease the supply. With that said, the U.S. Government spent millions of dollars securing the U.S.- Mexico border. In 1977 the decriminalization of marijuana was called for by President Carter. Carter did not want the punishment of possessing the drug to be more damaging than the drug itself (“U.S. War on Drugs” 3). There was a large rise of cocaine use during this time. Many people in society blamed marijuana for being a gateway drug to cocaine. This was a large reason why the marijuana decriminalization attempt fell short. President Reagan said, “It is far more effective if you take the customers away than if you take the drugs away from those who want to be customers. (“U.S. War on Drugs” 4)”. Reagan spent millions of dollars trying to get drug users off of the streets and into prisons. Drug users were treated as criminals and punished for their acts instead of getting help for their addictions. In the 1995 budget, President Clinton had an extra one billion dollars to help with the War on Drugs. Only fifty million dollars…show more content…
per year (“U.S. War on Drugs” 7). Alcohol is toxic to healthy cells and organs and causes about 35,000 deaths in the U.S. per year (Armentano 2). Anyone who is eighteen years of age or older is able to purchase cigarettes and other forms of tobacco. If you are twenty-one years of age or older, you are able to buy alcohol. Cigarettes have nicotine in them which is a highly addictive drug, yet it is legal for older teenagers to purchase them. Marijuana is a non-addictive plant that causes near zero deaths per year but is illegal. Marijuana is comparatively nontoxic to humans and unlike alcohol, is impossible of causing an overdose (Armentano 2). Marijuana is placed in the same category of methamphetamine, heroin and cocaine. Cocaine and heroin are very addictive drugs and both can kill you your very first time using (“U.S. War on Drugs” 8). It does not make sense to have marijuana categorized in the same category as those drugs. According to Armentano, tobacco-related health costs per user are over $800, and alcohol-related health costs are $165 per user (2). Comparably, health related costs for marijuana are only $20 per user (Armentano 2). Current day society has been changing its view on marijuana being illegal. Teenagers can get marijuana a lot easier than they can get tobacco and alcohol although marijuana is illegal. More and more people are trying marijuana and as long as the demand is still there, there will still
Open Document