On June 18, 1971, the then incumbent president Richard Nixon gave a speech whereby he vowed to put an end to the drug problem that America was facing. Soon after the phrase of the war on drugs has been in use in almost every instance where law enforcement against drug-related offenses is involved. However, four and a half decades later nothing significant has changed with regards to drug consumption in America; in fact, the situation has become worse. This is surprising considering the funds that goes into law enforcement agencies particularly the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) in combating drug supply and subsequently (Martínez-Solimán, 2016). As such, the war on drugs has failed miserably and it is high time that other alternatives to combat drugs are used.
First, it is imperative to comprehend how the conventional methods that law enforcement agencies use to combat drugs in America. According to Nixon at the time, drugs were “public enemy number one”. Ever since then, drugs have been treated as such by law enforcement agencies. However, the core problem is that instead of fighting drugs the government, police and even DEA were having a war with people involved with drugs (Martínez-Solimán, 2016). While it is true that in order to quell drug supply it is pivotal to stop suppliers, majority of those incarcerated have been either small peddlers and/or drug users. This is evidenced by the application of mandatory minimum sentences on persons with possession charges.
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Such a system has been highly detrimental to the American society in a number of ways. Veiras argues that by imprisoning and focusing efforts on individuals who have no meaningful impact on the drug market, law enforcement tends to waste time and resources which would have been otherwise been used to catch bigger fish (2016). However, it is important to acknowledge that very influential cartel leaders have been reprimanded as a result of American law enforcement agencies’ efforts i.e. Pablo Escobar and the Rodriguez brothers. Additionally, such actions eventually negatively affect the society in a variety of ways. For instance, the imprisonment of individuals who might have been breadwinners often leads to their children leaving under similar circumstances and thereby joining the drug trade again. Moreover, Csete, Kamarulzaman, Kazatchkine, Altice, Balicki, Buxton, and Hart assert that constant harassment by police and DEA agents result in hatred towards them in such unprivileged areas which not only hinders their work but gives people, even more, reason to actually deal in drugs (2016).
Drug abuse is not an individual phenomenon and that is where America’s policies got it wrong. The impacts of drug abuse cannot be stopped by capturing one man or even an entire cartel and consequently, drug abuse does not only affect one individual. Drug use affects the cultural, social and economic aspects of any society where such behavior is present. Carpenter points out that in America it is suggested that out of the estimated 2 million individuals incarcerated in the US a quarter are behind bars due to drug-related cases (2014). Thereby, it is pretty obvious that imprisoning 500,000 people will most likely not benefit anyone. As such the DEA and other related law enforcement agencies need to understand the drug issue in America is not a binary situation. That is to say, it goes beyond the scope of good guy bad guy or drug dealer and drug user as it affects society on a much grander scale.
As such it is important that America as a whole takes a new approach to solving the drug problem. According to London, a new strategy would have to inhibit a lot of things i.e. it must possess a criteria to correctly assess stagnation or progress while at the same time focusing on reducing the direct implications of drug abuse (2005). One of the main problems with the war on drugs was that progress was often associated incarceration of key players in the drug industry. In truth, capturing the big bad guys may seem like the most obvious way to put an end to the drug problem but it is not the most effective. Newer policies should align success with improvement within the society with regards to drug abuse e.g. reduction of teens become addicts.
It is imperative that there be a new direction in how drug policies are formulated and how they work. While it is important that the availability of drugs is hindered greatly it is also important to amend and also prevent harm caused by them. This implicates the focus of rehabilitating drug users and minor drug offenders instead of instantly reprimanding them and ruining their future lives (Rowan, 2016). Moreover, it would also be crucial that in highly affected areas both the government and local governments focus on awareness on how individuals can live better lives that is not reliant on drugs. All in all, there needs to be a new turn that is more positive to the people who are affected the most.
Unfortunately, some time in America people thought the best way to deal with a non-binary problem was to impose a war on it. As data and time, in general, has showcased, the war on drugs has been a big failure. Such subjugation driven policies have led to more impediments than benefits e.g. the increment of incarcerated persons who have little control over the drug market. The drug issue in America is a problem that affects a lot of societal dimensions and as such, it should be treated in a more society friendly manner.
References
Carpenter, T. G. (2014). Bad neighbor policy: Washington's futile war on drugs in Latin America . St. Martin's Press.
Csete, J., Kamarulzaman, A., Kazatchkine, M., Altice, F., Balicki, M., Buxton, J., ... & Hart, C. (2016). Public Health and International Drug Policy: Report of the Johns Hopkins–Lancet Commission on Drug Policy and Health. Lancet (London, England) , 387 (10026), 1427.
London, R. (2005). Is the war on drugs succeeding ? Retrieved from https://today.law.harvard.edu/feature/war-drugs-succeeding/
Martínez-Solimán, M. (2016). The war on drugs has failed: time to stop fighting and start thinking . Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2016/apr/18/the-war-on-drugs-has-failed-time-to-stop-fighting-and-start-thinking
Rowan, M. (2016). Thank God for (others’) unanswered prayers: the failure of the drug war… cheap drugs… lower rates of serious crime… the logic adds up, but what next?. Dialectical Anthropology , 40 (4), 377-384.
Veiras, J. (2016). A Decade of Failure in the War on Drugs . Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/10/opinion/a-decade-of-failure-in-the-war-on-drugs.html
