President Nixon's "war on drugs" began in the early 1970s to reduce the illegal drug trade in the United States, but it tragically changed the lives of millions of black people. and Latinos forever. As a result of this war on drugs, Blacks and Latinos have been and continue to be arrested more than their white counterparts for drug crimes. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay To understand why the war on drugs began, we need to study how America has previously handled drug addiction. The first recorded drug epidemic occurred in the 1800s with opium, followed by morphine and heroin at the turn of the 20th century. This marked increased awareness of addictive drugs. When local governments began banning drug dens (safe havens for drug use), the first major drug-related racial tensions emerged. Most people viewed opium as a drug smuggled in by Asian immigrants and thus became victims of violent crime. The Harrisons Narcotics Act of 1914 was the first federal policy to restrict the manufacture and sale of certain drugs. In 1930, the Federal Bureau of Narcotics advocated longer minimum sentences and punitive drug policies, focusing on drug enforcement and not rehabilitation. The Boggs Act of 1951 granted parole only to first-time offenders; the death penalty is authorized for anyone who sells heroin to a minor. While in the mid-1900s the majority of the public was anti-drugs, the 1960s marked the popularization of recreational drugs, such as marijuana, psychedelics, and hallucinogens. Another contributing factor to drug use in the 1960s was the return of Vietnam veterans home. Many soldiers returned with a drug addiction or developed it later. After the marijuana and psychedelics epidemic, there was the cocaine and crack epidemic of the 1980s and 1990s. In 1966, the Johnson administration signed into law the Narcotics Addicts Rehabilitation Act, which clarified that addiction is a mental illness even though drug use remained a crime. Although the law funded prevention and treatment programs, it was no match for drug use in the United States. Although this law funded drug treatment and prevention programs, it did not keep up with the amount of drugs Americans used. President Nixon took a more aggressive stance on drugs than any politician before him. During his first year as president (1969), Nixon launched Operation Intercept after determining that the Mexican government was not doing enough to stop the flow of marijuana into the United States. This operation closed the US-Mexico border and searched all vehicles crossing it. In the following weeks, borderlands from Texas to California lost tens of millions of dollars, and Nixon faced massive political pressure to end the operation. After it ended, the Boston Globe reported that "almost no marijuana was seized" because Mexican drug traffickers had opted for newer, safer air supply routes. In 1971, Nixon declared: "America's public enemy number one...is drug addiction...to combat and defeat this enemy it isnecessary to lead a new all-out offensive.” In 1973, Nixon created the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), which dealt with drug smuggling, trafficking, and abuse. At this point, all anti-drug policies had, at most, reorganized the flow and international trade of drugs, but had failed to eradicate drugs. usage.. The next president, Gerald Ford, had similar views to Nixon – including mandatory minimum sentences and the criminalization of drug addicts and Latino immigrants. Unlike his predecessor, Jimmy Carter, the 39th president, views on drugs differed from those of Nixon. In 1977, Carter called for an end to the War on Drugs, stating that "punishments for drug possession should be no more damaging than the drugs themselves." He opposed the legalization of marijuana, but approved more lenient sentences for the charges against it. During Carter's presidency, cocaine use increased 700% in 6 years, suggesting that a complete change in public health and health care policies was needed to curb the drug epidemic. In 1981, President Reagan continued to combat growing drug use. This quote from his first year sums up his work in the war on drugs: "It's much more effective if you take away customers than if you try to take drugs away from people who want to be customers." Reagan focused drug funding on prohibition and eradication, but increased the fund from $437 million to $1.4 billion. Although he provided grants to treatment programs, these were insufficient to deal with the enormous amount of drug addiction now plaguing America. First Lady Nancy Reagan launched the Youth Substance Abuse Project, called “Just Say No.” Despite its catchy slogan, the campaign did little to combat drugs. In a study published by the Archives of General Psychiatry, it was revealed that around 81% of adolescents had access to medications, while 42% actually tried them. Many also question Reagan's motivation on drug policy. One of Reagan's colonels, Colonel Oliver North, wrote in his diary how $14 million in drug money was diverted to covert operations, one of which was used to prosecute suspected Nicaraguan Sandinista drug traffickers. After Reagan, President George Bush Sr., whose famous slogan “Trade not Aid” became a popular defense against criticism. “Trade, not aid” encouraged poor countries to grow crops rather than illegal drugs, giving rise to the North American Free Trade Agreement, which Bush Sr. was very fond of. He also met with the leaders of Colombia, Peru and Bolivia to sign the Cartagena Declaration in 1990, which provided a framework to help the four countries better coordinate their international drug policy. The persecution and imprisonment of Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega during the first Bush era sent a strong message to drug traffickers, who saw one of the world's biggest drug traffickers disappear for 120 years. President Bill Clinton continued to make drug policy more progressive. He supported the medical use of marijuana and wanted to leave questions of recreational use to individual state governments. He launched Plan Columbia, which trained and equipped Colombian forces to fight drug lords throughout the Andean countries,so that the defeat of a drug lord in one country does not result in the reappearance of that drug lord in another country. Clinton launched the National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign, which provided resources for parents, teachers and students to combat drug use in their communities. This program is often credited with the decline in drug use rates between 1997 and 1998 and the increase in the average age of first use. Drug use had been declining since its peak in the 1970s, and drug-related murders had declined 48 percent since 1992. Clinton's strategies included targeting young people for education and prevention, get addicts off the streets and into treatment, and reduce the cost of drug abuse. to the health and social protection system, and block drug trafficking at the southern border. George W. Bush, president from 2001 to 2009, is one of the only presidents with a famous history of drug use. The fact that Bush jr. used cocaine but suffered no repercussions, symbolized the fact that wealthy white men often get off with, at best, a slap on the wrist, while poor minority populations receive harsher punishments. Bush's successor was Barack Obama, who, like Clinton, focused more on rehabilitation and treatment than punishment. Obama has shown support for needle exchange programs to reduce the rate of HIV/AIDS infections, and he has long fought the methamphetamine epidemic. Obama's "Plan for Change" states that his plan to reduce drug use involves expanding the use of drug courts for nonviolent first-time offenders, which has been shown to be more effective than prison. He also aimed to reduce criminal recidivism by providing support to ex-offenders through job training and substance abuse and mental health programs, and also wanted to address the sentencing disparity put in place by Nixon between crack and powder cocaine. Although he was not the first president to use drugs, he was the first to be open and honest about it. His self-described use of marijuana (and some cocaine) marked a generational shift in attitudes toward drugs. His outspokenness is believed to have contributed to Americans' attitudes toward illegal drugs. While Nixon launched the official War on Drugs to supposedly end the raging drug epidemic, many question Nixon's true motivations. John Ehrlichman, one of Nixon's aides, claims that Nixon wanted to break and weaken his opponents, liberal Americans and black people. Ehrlichman made this statement in an interview: “You want to know what it was really about. Nixon's campaign in 1968 and the Nixon White House thereafter had two enemies: the anti-war left and black people. You understand what I'm saying. We knew we couldn't make it illegal to be against the war or against black people, but by getting the public to associate hippies with marijuana and black people with heroin, and then heavily criminalizing both, we could disrupt these communities. We could arrest their leaders, search their homes, interrupt their meetings and defame them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about drugs? Of course we did. Tragically, Nixon's greed and blatant disregard for human rights, life and liberty contributed to the mass incarceration of Blacks and Latinos. He destroyed life andcommunities of millions, and its greed continues to affect people today. Few understand the scope of the war on drugs and its effects on Black and Latino communities. For example, black people today face the greatest amount of discrimination in all areas of the justice system, including those most likely to be stopped, searched, and arrested by law enforcement, most likely to be given longer sentences and most likely to be barred from voting. and given a criminal record. Nearly 80% of people incarcerated in federal prisons and 60% of those incarcerated in state prisons for drug offenses are black or Latino, although blacks and Latinos make up about 36% of the population. Prosecutors are more likely to impose a mandatory minimum sentence on Black Americans than on whites with the same offense. Blacks and Latinos are also likely to receive longer sentences or longer minimum sentences than their white counterparts. Law enforcement is also more likely to kill black people than any other ethnic group. While many communities feel the impact of the war on drugs, immigrants experience it from a different perspective. For all naturalized citizens, any drug offense can result in automatic deportation, often without the possibility of return. A drug offense can be as minor as transporting marijuana. People who commit drug offenses are deported to their countries of origin, where they may no longer have a community or family. Some may be people born in another country and then brought to America when young. In these cases, they find themselves in countries where they do not even know the language. They may not have their basic survival needs met, such as access to food, shelter and health services, and their safety may be seriously threatened. Because they are generally barred from re-entering the United States for life, thousands are tragically separated from their communities. Since 2007, 250,000 people have been deported for drug offenses, while evictions for drug offenses increased 43 percent between 2007 and 2012. Simple possession of marijuana was the fourth most common cause of eviction. common, all offenses combined, in 2013, and the most common cause of expulsion. for drug-related evictions. More than 13,000 immigrants were deported in 2012 and 2013 for marijuana possession. Drug crimes follow people throughout their lives and continue to affect our young people today. They make the offender a second-class citizen because most drug offenses don't let you have custody or voting rights, a license, student aid, employment, public housing and other assistance. governmental. Statistics show that one in 13 Black people of voting age cannot vote due to felon disenfranchisement. 1 in 9 black children have an incarcerated parent, compared to 1 in 38 Latino children and 1 in 57 white children. The Higher Education Act, passed in 1988, delays or denies federal financial aid to drug offenders, whether crimes or misdemeanors. A drug offense committed by a single person can result in the eviction of an entire family from the family home. 32 states prohibit anyone with drug offenses from collecting food stamps. This reinforces the cycle of drug use, unemployment, poverty andhomelessness. If you can't find a job, you can't get federal aid, but you still need money and medication seems to be the easiest way to support yourself and your family . Young people also face the highest number of drug arrests, although teenage drug arrests delay their education and their new criminal records harm their employment prospects, once again reinforcing cycles of poverty, unemployment and drug addiction. neighborhoods a safer place to live and violated the rights and safety of thousands of people. Most drug-related violence stems from the prohibition of drugs, not their use. When people stop getting the drugs they want, they turn to violence to get them back, leading to an increase in violent crime in lower-class communities. This is why it is important to treat drug abuse so that people do not feel the need to commit violent crimes. to get me drugs. A loss of constitutional rights arises from drug law enforcement, such as the DEA. Militarized police forces burst into the homes of the accused, unannounced and without a warrant, into the homes of the guilty and the innocent. Prosecutors can seize private property without due process. The war on drugs has also had a huge impact on Latin America. Contrary to popular belief, the War on Drugs and U.S. foreign drug policy have not decreased drug activity in Latin America. Instead, it led to a bloodbath, with 600,000 people killed in Mexico's prohibition violence in 2006 alone. U.S. drug policy has only strengthened organized crime, corrupt the government, incite violence, harm the environment, and has displaced or endangered tens of thousands of people. Although most people recognize that drug use has public health effects, few realize the extent. For example, a common method of drug use involves injecting a syringe into the bloodstream. Syringes are often reused or shared and are responsible for hundreds of thousands of HIV/AIDS infections among drug users, their sexual partners and their children each year. The United States is also one of the only Western countries to refuse to fund free syringe programs and safe injection sites to slow the spread of infectious diseases. By offering these programs, hundreds of thousands of people are protected from HIV/AIDS. Although all of these numbers and statistics seem depressing, there are ways to ease the burden placed on these marginalized people. By decriminalizing drug possession and relying on rehabilitation rather than punitive sanctions, we can eliminate a major cause of the disproportionate incarceration of people of color and treat the 24.6 million drug users in the United States. United. While treating drug addicts and reducing the recidivism rate. , we could mitigate the impact of mass incarceration on minorities, while also helping to improve police-community relations. We should end policies that result in disproportionate arrests of marginalized people, including by reducing harsh minimum sentences, allowing special circumstances to influence sentencing, and eliminating sentencing disparities. End policies that exclude.