The war on drugs, besides affecting the public too, is one of the issues of importance in medical practice and law enforcement. At the federal level, various efforts have been to combat drug abuse, among them being President Richard Nixon’s announcement of a federal policy of the “War on Drugs”. This policy proposition would feature stricter drug legislation. These stringent measures to combat drug abuse and misuse, in combination with media reports, resulted in moral panic regarding illegal drugs in the United States (Ortiz, 2016). Arguments below discuss how shifting morality to include public moral panic by media affected the nation’s response to drug control and how shifting societal values by legalizing marijuana in eight states has influenced opioid abuse and overdose to its historically high levels.
During the late 1960s to the late 1970s, public opinion and public policy were more welcoming towards the treatment and rehabilitation of substance abusers and more negative toward law enforcement as the only remedy to the drug crisis. Most students in high school favored the legalization of marijuana and never agreed on the use of the drug being harmful. Some states even decriminalized small-quantity marijuana possession. The drug use came to rise during the mid-1960s and reached a twentieth-century pinnacle between the late 1970s and early 1980s; the consumption of alcohol also peaked around the same time (Ortiz, 2016).
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The war on drugs is viewed both as historic and contemporary major structural force responsible for isolating minorities into communities marked by structural social disorganization and cultural isolation. Public awareness about drugs has been shaped by public policy majorly brought about by politics. The use of drug scares has acted as a perfect scapegoat as they are considered moral panics, often brought out as responsible for pre-existing social problems. As argued out by Rainarman (1989), drug scares and the creation of repressive laws have nothing to do with crime but to political use to deflect attention from issues and attain political goals at the cost of the most disadvantaged groups of the population.
The constructed scare against alcohol use (portraying it as being responsible for societal decay) needed to be restricted. It was portrayed as a cause of violence, caused family breakdown and affected job performance poorly. It served as a scapegoat for existing social problems such as poverty, crime and moral deviance. Moral panics are intense media coverage of a subject to instill artificial focus and fear to the public. Moral panics are described as “typically involve an exaggeration of social phenomena, the public response is also often exaggerated and can create its own long lasting repercussions for society view of drastic changes in laws and social policy” (Ortiz, 2016).
The danger of moral panic is usually within the notion that they lead to changes that are not necessary in existing public policies or entirely new policies based on exaggerated threats. The individuals in powerful positions were able to take advantage and use media as their sounding board to pass laws and policies that had been ignored previously (Reinarman, 1989). The moral panics by the media without doubt aided significantly in creating moral panic over the drug consumption issue. If an individual is constantly exposed to news and stories covering drug issues, accompanied by visuals of blacks, they are more likely to equate the two in future (Ortiz, 2016).
Research showed that the media plays a large role in determining what is important as deemed by the society. Racial disparities like this are about and linked to proactive enforcement of drug laws and sentencing. For instance, despite the fact that the whites and Hispanics form the majority of crack users, African American comprise the majority of those convicted for cocaine offences (Ortiz, 2016).
Disparate incarceration rates in less well-off urban centers are also coupled with disparate violent victimization of its residents. By 1990 black women and men were four and six times more likely than their white counterparts to be murdered in their lifetime. The leading cause of death among blacks between 15 and 24 years of age was homicide (Planalp & Lahr, 2017) . This was due to the fact that the forces concentrate in poor, minority, urban places, the ripple effect caused can be disruptive which in turn affects social networks, local ties and informal social control.
Opioid-related deaths due to overdose have continued to soar in the U.S despite a widespread wave of marijuana legalization. In response to this, the government has emphasized on supply reduction strategies such as prescription drug monitoring programs and physicians specializing in pain management. Overdose prevention efforts support that grows continuously is an explanation of the crisis and also about who is affected most. In the past, the African American experience the opioid epidemics but currently, it is disproportionately affecting white, middle class people getting addicted to pharmaceutical opioids (Planalp & Lahr, 2017) .
From the year 2000 to 2015, statistics showing the number of annual deaths from drug overdose indicate a tripling of the figure, from 17,500 deaths in 2000, to 52,500 deaths in 2015 (Planalp & Lahr, 2017) . A significant number of these deaths was caused by opioids, including heroin and other prescription painkillers. While deaths related to opioid use have risen through the years, it was not until 2001 following the declaration of overdose from prescription killers as an epidemic by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that the issue drew substantial attention from the news media, the public and policy makers (Planalp & Lahr, 2017) .
An increase in the prescription of opioid painkillers serves as the primary cause of the rise of the opioid crisis. In the 1980s through to 1990s, pharmaceutical companies dispensed information in articles and peer-reviewed journals praising the effectiveness of opioids in treating pain and assuring the public of low risks of addiction. Consequently, opioid prescriptions by medical practitioners rose, accompanied by far-reaching misuse and diversion of the medications before the discovery that they are indeed highly addictive. In the decade following 1990, healthcare professionals emphasized on the importance of treating pain as pain was a vital sign of health problems, an emphasis that saw an increase in the use of opioid painkillers (Planalp & Lahr, 2017) .
Also responsible for the opioid crisis is the highly addictive nature of opioids. Repeated use of opioids for their euphoric effects, including illegal opioids like heroin, affects brain chemistry leading to addiction and a dependence on the drugs. Considering the similar effects of opioids on some parts of the brain, users of prescribed opioid painkillers may switch to illicit and illegal opioids such as heroin to achieve the same effects of prescribed opioids. Studies reveal that prescription opioid painkillers are a gateway to heroin use, with many heroin users having first begun with legal prescriptions for their pain treatment (Planalp & Lahr, 2017) .
The war on drugs affects the American way of life majorly. Limitations are placed on the individual and the community all in the aim of curbing narcotics. Most drug enforcement is targeted at the poor, the minority populations of America, who use narcotics. When drugs do get in to the hands of individuals and they are caught, the full force of the law is taken upon them. Rather than try and rehabilitate addicts, they are warehoused in American’s enormous prison industry. This endless cycle has resulted in the disenfranchisement of large portions of non-white America. Strict controls bring about underground markets and enormous law enforcement expenses. A successful balance needs to be established that limits the most harmful narcotics, rehabilitates those already addicted.
References
Ortiz, Ruben. (2016). War on Drugs: Examining the Effects on Social Disorganization and Crime in Cities, 42
Reinarman, C., & Levine, H.G. (1989a). Crack in context: Politics and media in the making of a drug scare. Contemporary Drug Problems, 16, 535-577.
Planalp, C., & Lahr, M. (2017). The Opioid Epidemic: National Trends in Opioid-Related Overdose Deaths from 2000 to 2015. Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Retrieved April 28, 2018.
