Generally, the United States has been fighting the use of drugs over a century now. The American government has put more effort in criminalizing drug users. As a result, it has spent billions of money to ensure that there is the eradication of drug supply. However, it is important for the government to move from spending its finances on law enforcement to treatment, education, and prevention of drug usage. The criminal system has greatly changed since the law enforcers focus more on arresting drug users and tend to forget other crimes that take place within the country. State officials have taken the issue on drugs to their advantage especially during campaign rallies. They promise to mitigate the use of drug and arrest drug lords hence getting the majority votes in those areas. It is evident that the law enforcement officers tend to discriminate the offenders racially. They believe that the blacks are more involved in the drug cartels than the white people. This has led to the arrest of innocent blacks from different parts of America.it is not a surprise that drug prohibition has greatly inflated the value of drugs which has caused an improvement in profits made through the drug business. However, a number of negative consequences have occurred since the war on drugs started. One of the main impacts has been death of innocent civilians during fights that are involved between drug cartels. Therefore this paper seeks to discuss the major issues surrounding war on drugs in a more precise and detailed manner.
Availability of drugs since PresidentNixon’s coined the term “war on drugs”
On a press conference in June 1981, President Nixon vowed to fight the illegal drug trade in the U.S terming drugs as the number one public enemy of the state. Through a set of drug policies aimed at curbing the menace, the war on drugs gradually but slowly gained fruits. Through fighting drug abuse on both the supply and demand facades, Nixon waged a sturdy war on substance abuse. Nixon argued that as long as there was demand, people would take the necessary risks to meets the strains hence he focused on regulating the stresses of the drug users. By pressuring Mexico to standardize its marijuana farmersand decriminalizing it, the availability of Marijuana gradually declined in the states ( Weili, Pinheiro & Kuznetsova, 2014 ). However, with the deterioration in the availability of marijuana, the claim for cocaine increased to staggering levels as many drug abusers now opted for it.
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The demand for cocaine increased to 700 percent in just six years’ time. This dragged about an upsurge in the consumption of cocaine with intake levels hitting 73 to 143 tons ( Weili, Pinheiro & Kuznetsova, 2014) . The war on drugs now seemed futile as it yielded fewer results. Despite the numerous methods adopted to curb this menace, drugs are readily available in the U.S market with major drugs lords freely walking down in the streets of the United States. Besides cocaine, the readiness of other drugs is equally easy as the government is focused with dealing on the small time users and young addicts where else violent drugs gangs and key drug suppliers roam freely enjoying the fruits of their businesses ( Weili, Pinheiro & Kuznetsova, 2014) . Similarly, the government is more focused on the demand front instead of on targeting the major suppliers. This has prompted the increase in small-scale consumption and the easy availability of drugs in the American soil.
The cost of ho using drug offenders and enforcing drug prohibition
The war on drugs has dragged a significant cost on the state. Arguably, the state is wasting billions fighting a losing battle (Anglin, 2014). The states use a considerable amount in apprehending drug users, the administration had used over a trillion worth of cash in the past decades in its fight against drug and substanceabuse. Further, maintaining prison facilities and managing rehabilitation centers is a burden that the administration has proven to be too heavy to bear. The war on drugs began in the sixties and had barely yielded results. Similarly, the regime has spent a fortune in funding an inoperable war. In this battle, the administration has put almost half a million citizens in state prisons and has spent billions of shillings annually in expansion and enforcement of drug laws. Through these laws, the administration has enriched criminal organizations at the expense of its citizens (Duke, 2018). The fiscal costs of war include a million arrests yearly for drug possession (Hall, 2010). This shows that the government is wasting enormous amounts of cash to fight petty drug charges where else the critical stakeholders in the drug industry are walking freely. Similarly, the drug war supporters still linger to plea formore cash for the similar guidelines that have been confirmed to be futile.
Changes in the criminal system in regards to war on drugs
The war on drugs has changed the criminal system majorly because the war has taken a political dimension. First, the law enforcement bodies have shifted their attention from other crimes and instead put all their focus on enforcing the failed drug laws. Police officers are now targeting low-level drug offenders in an attempt to lift their careers by obtaining easy promotions easily. To make easy arrests, law enforcing bodies often rely on untrustworthy informants who end up giving false and biased information. Similarly, they also carry out dangerous home invasions, frame suspects and commit mendacity all in the name of seeking glory and getting promotions ( Weili, Pinheiro & Kuznetsova, 2014) . This was then given a chance for murderers, rapists and crucial other time crime offenders to partake their daily practices without fear of being apprehended. Besides, the assets forfeiture laws permit law execution agencies to maintain possessions seized during drug seizures with nominal or no evidence hence letting the load flow to the accused who have to show their blamelessness. Consequently, law execution organizations have focused on drug seizuresfrequently at the outlay of more challengingcommunalsecurityprerequisites. Also, various programs demand to fund to the many anti-drug task forces which are arguably the epicenter of copious scandals involving false government records, fabricated evidence, stolen property, deceitful custody, witness meddling and cases of racial profiling and sexual abuse. This shows that the criminal system has taken another route such as, instead of providing justice, it has shifted its focus to drugs cases at the extent of even marginalizing the very people it is supposed to serve without favor.
War on drugs as a partisan issue
Arguably the war on drugs is a partisan issue that has turned out to be too political. Almost all the political parties and influential political voices want their ideas to be incorporated in the fight against drug use. State officials address the concerns that aid them to overwhelm democratic handicaps. Conventional gatherings generally back up financial strategies that aid in the well-off at the expense of the marginalized. Conventionalgatheringsselected policies that helped their wealthy counterparts at the cost of the deprived. Besides, the Republicans also campaign for tax guidelines that help the rich and marginalize the meager despite the economic distribution being skewed to benefit the marginal (Jacobs & Carmichael, 2001). This makes the democratic base additional protective of smaller parties than other left parties. Often the Conservatives applicants use ruling and command petitions to gain prosperous electorates who are most probably to be crime fatalities and who remain potential to be living in zones where there are no vicious crimes. By highlighting on street wrongdoing and extra drug delinquencies, the parties have a higher probability of winning the elections and getting many affluent voters who are majorly in their favor.
Racially discriminative policies on drug war
The drug wars policies have been said to be racially discriminative, and many cases of racial discrimination have been reported. Many drug charges have been attributed with the ethnic underclasses who are mostly the blacks. The drug war has created different results across racial groups, displayed by law enforcement through racial discrimination; the communities of color have suffered the misery of the war on drugs. The impact of these policies varies across cities and regions however the most affected racial inequalities are seen in the case of Latinos and African Americans (McWilliams, 1991). The high arrest and imprisonment rates for this groups is a clear reflection of the level of marginalization on this groups as law enforcement focus on eradicating them from urban areas as they are considered to be a lower income community and a community of color. Thedisparities in arrests and detention of drug possession and law violation, as well as small-scale sales, show the extent of racial segregation. Those doing small drugs trafficking may go to jail for decades where else those charged with shipping tones of drug shipment get lighter chargers or go scot free. This unequal implementation ignores the universality of drug dependence.
African Americans experience discrimination at every phase of the criminal justice system and are more likely to be clogged, searched, arrested and sentenced. Sadly they are burdened with heavy and often unfair sentences. Nearly 80percent of the inmates in federal prisons for drug charges are either blacks or Latinos. Research has further shown that prosecuting attorneys are more expected to pursue a compulsory slightest judgment for black folks compared to white people with the identical felony. Additionally, black persons or Inherent Americans are expected to be slain by law execution bodies compared to other ethnic or ethical collections. They are frequently characterized as being fierce or drug addicts. According to ( Thoumi, 2004) experts believe that the war on drugs has taken a racial discriminative path where a particular race is favored at the expense of another inferior race mostly the blacks or Latinos.
Lessons learnt from drug prohibition
The system of drug prohibition has been attributed to much-caused violence. Drug prohibition authorizes a precarious illegal market throughout the United States and the world at large. Drug prohibition has exaggerated the value of drugs hence the profits of drugs have substantially improved. Prohibition has also pushed the drug trade underground where there are no legal possibilities of solving disputes between the prospective competitors. The Lack of proper channels to resolve the inequalities has led to the increased number of death cases a result of the war between the two competitors. Besides, the conflict between two drug cartels as they fight for power or market has led to the death of innocent civilians (Anglin, 2014). Rather than recommending policies for increased prevention and treatment services to impact the drug use the government's approach in curbing this prohibition-related violence has been to raise more funds on the crackdowns on cartels and other drug operations. Additionally, the cost of confinement affects other social urgencies as the construction and maintenance of prisons is expensive. Similarly, the cost of hiring guards and purchase of secure modern equipment has proven to be a significant burden. Worse is that many of those in jails have been apprehended wrongly or are serving hefty sentences for petty crimes (Mauer, 2018).Again, mass imprisonment affects democratic society. In the U.S the conviction of a felony denies the culprit the ability to vote for a period. Most dramatically one can lose the ability to vote to prove the ban to be a restriction to a democratic right. This is a significant setback as a large prison populace is not a sign of success but a problem for a democratic society.
Unintended consequences of war on drugs
The death penalty that is still adopted by 33 countries is deemed to be evil. Human Right activists have condemned this vice; however, laws enacted have made the death sentence to be given to offenders who commit extrajudicial killings or crimes against humanity (De Waal, 2004). This means that drug offenders do not meet this threshold, many countries, however, ignore this law and publicly execute drug offenders, a key focus is Iran who publicly executes drug delinquents. The war on drugs has unintentionally led to mass illegalization which has been accustomed to the steadfast arrest of strict criminal sanctions for drug offenders with minimal differentiation between user and possession. This has prompted an increase in the number of persons unfairly outlawed for small-scale drug offenses (Blumstein & Cohen, 1980).Additionally, drug detention centers occasionally fail to offer adequate physical or mental treatment, there have been reported cases of forced labor, torture and other abuse to human rights. This has made these facilities to be rendered useless as they do not benefit the detainees.
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