The War on Drugs: Has It Been Successful?

Introduction 

The United States is in the center of the toughest war in the nation’s history, not against a country or a terrorist group, but against drugs. President Richard Nixon started the war against drugs in 1971 and he consistently demonstrated a commitment to eradicating the cases of illegal drugs from the nation (Walker, 2015). This included funding the whole exercise with a huge amount of money. This war against drugs in America went down in the 1980s because of heightened exchange rates between American customers and the suppliers from Latin America. At this point, the Reagan and George Bush administrations founded several reforms to influence the consumption rates of the drugs. Despite these efforts of implementing reforms, the war on illegal drugs has not been successful in bringing down their use and entrance in the country through immigrants. 

The war against drugs is not just an absorbing challenge in the United States, but a contemporary problem worldwide. To some level, however, drugs have remained a taboo within the political framework of the nation. Efforts to regulate the utilization of some drugs have not come up just recently. The United States and other Europeans nations for more than two centuries have increased their consumptions of the drugs despite the struggle to eliminate such use and abuse (McRae & Short, 2009) . The vast involvements of making laws and establishing procedures to eliminate illicit drugs have not been successful. The United States, which forms about 5 percent of the global population, remains to be the largest consumer of drugs worldwide. In fact, the war against drugs has been so much costly overtime as well as not much has been achieved in reducing their consumption. 

Drug use and abuse have a long history globally, but the transatlantic region was the first to show interests in fighting against it globally. The growth of opium abuse, particularly in Asia, influenced the global trade in the late nineteenth century. Regions such as America had business interests in Asia and they quickly determined that a joint war against the drug menace would be successful. The first event that steered Nixon to declare war on drugs is the increased use of drugs in America that started in the 1960s (Bagley & Rosen, 2015) . Nixon started the war against drugs in America in 1971, and he instituted laws to stop consumption (Bergen-Cico, 2015). However, because of the risen exchange rates in the 1980s between the consumers of suppliers of the drugs in Latin America, the war against the drugs reduced. 

Analysis and Observation 

Encouraged by the intake of prescription opioids, the level of drug overindulgence death rate has heightened by 137 percent in the nation between 2000 and 2016 (Bagley & Rosen, 2015) . In just 2016, there were above 52,000-drug overdose fatalities, making it be the most challenging year (Bergen-Cico, 2015). Such remarkable records of drug overdoses that have increasingly been experienced coincide with correspondingly substantial trends in undocumented immigration. Between 1990 and 2016, the number of unauthorized migrants has tremendously increased, from 3.5 million to 12.1 million (Walker, 2015). The comparison of these two social issues has motivated significant debates on whether or not, unauthorized immigrations amount to increasing drug problem in the United States. For instance, President Donald Trump has consistently indicated that immigration enforcement is fundamental to stopping the drug use and overdose problem. His administration is committed to returning many undocumented migrants back to their country for the period that Trump has been the president. According to Walker (2015), alcohol problems, drug arrests, and deaths happening because of drug overdose can strongly be associated with undocumented immigration that takes place within the country. 

The war against drugs in America has been the longest and most costly war that they have ever been involved. Many events promoted Nixon to declare war on drugs. The first event happened in the final years of the 1960s where many Americans were consuming drugs (Bagley & Rosen, 2015) . To respond to this situation, the government created the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs in 1968. This initiative was combined with the efforts of other agencies that had been fighting to avoid competition against one another, but to complement themselves to eradicate the menace. In 1971, Nixon declared that drug abuse was to be the number one citizen’s public enemy in the country (Walker, 2015). The combined efforts of the CIA, BNDD, and Customs and other independent agencies have not yet been successful in dealing with this drug problem. The war against drugs is still being fought in America until today. 

The war against drugs has existed for more than forty years now, and not much success has been guaranteed. In this time, many trillion dollars have been devoted so far to address the drug use and abuse issue in America. Despite all funds that have been spent as well as drug laws made in the country, America is still topping the list of nations in the world as far as drug use is concerned. According to a study done by Walker (2015), only 4 percent of American adults indicated that they had tried marijuana in 1969, which was compared to a similar survey that was done in 2014 where they established that 41 percent of American adults had tried the same drug. This confirms decades of drug use. This trend has persistently risen. In 2014, it was determined that 8.3 percent of American age 12 and older had tried illegal drugs and this rose to 10.4 in 2015 (Bergen-Cico, 2015). The war of drugs has greatly succeeded in terms of assessing people that are arrested for it, but not much has been achieved in terms of the major goal of eradicating the use of illegal drugs entirely. 

In 1980, approximately 40,000 citizens of America had been jailed for illicit drug crimes, whereas in 2014 alone, above 1.89 million people were arrested for nonviolent drug use in the United States. Among this population, approximately 750,000 Americans had been arrested for marijuana charges and 650,000 of the 750,000 had been arrested for possession of it. Unfortunately, it is absurd because 20 states in America allow the usage of medicinal marijuana. Thus, within the same country, as some states are fighting the use of the drug, other states are encouraging its use. The government should be strict in the people that are entering the nation through illegal means (McRae & Short, 2009) . All the smuggled goods through borders should be sternly prevented from coming into the country without compromise. 

Overcrowding of prisons has elicited more problems in the United States. In 2011, 1 in every 100 Americans was imprisoned, which was the highest to have even been recorded globally (Walker, 2015). In 201l, the Bureau of Prisons system was 40 percent beyond its potential. This percentage had increased to 45 by 2018 (Bagley & Rosen, 2015) . The overcrowded prisons make both the inmates and guards at risk. Cases of violence have heightened because more inmates are confined in smaller spaces and a similar amount of guards is expected to take charge of this increasing number of inmates. Prisons budgets are being reduced and there is less access to libraries, training, and development, treatment frameworks as well as general education. This increases the probability of inmates that have been captured because of drugs to be repeat criminals. People are released to the society from prisons but they are not trained on how to keep away from these drugs and they end up in the same mess again. 

Inference and Recommendation 

The war against drugs has harshly led to many deaths, with the United States’ economy dropping generally. Above a trillion dollars have been spent beginning 1971 to date and over 51 billion dollars are channeled to this war annually (Bergen-Cico, 2015). Considering all of these and the notion that much is spent on people that are incarcerated in a year than when he could have been educated, it is significant to suggest that America need to have their priorities right. California alone received about 1.4 billion dollars through legalization and taxation of marijuana (Walker, 2015). The United States could likewise raise about 46.8 billion dollars annually (Bagley & Rosen, 2015) . Thus, the nation should stop spending more than 51 billion dollars in an unending war, but rather counterbalance this by earning 46.8 billion dollars from taxing and regulating the sales of these drugs. 

The police officers must be aggressive in dealing with growers, sellers, and users of drugs. They should not accept any form of corruption while dealing with this issue. In addition, the government should insist on controlling the sales of the presently illicit drugs in much a similar way as alcohol and tobacco are being regulated. Nations such as Portugal have been successful in their liberalized drug policies and regulating the sales of the drugs. Notably, they have experienced lower drug use, reduced expenditure on public health, heightened drug rehabilitation and increased public revenues received from taxing these drugs. In addition, more resources should be dedicated to training and development as well as creating awareness to the American communities on the harmful effects of marijuana use. The government should take leadership is spearheading this creation of awareness and sought out issues such as poverty in the society. Poverty is a major motivator to drug abuse because many people would want to indulge in drugs as a way of forgetting their miseries of life. Therefore, if they are facilitated to do something meaningful in the community, they can lead a healthy life. 

Conclusion and Explanation 

The ultimate decriminalization of presently illegal drugs will exist, undoubtedly, but it will occur in fits and starts, continually taking two strides forward and one stride backward, and if the previous efforts are not improved. California can be used as an example of how the legalization of drugs may not make a great change. Legalization of use of these drugs, such as marijuana, should be taken with utmost care. Legalization of marijuana because of medical conditions may be challenging if the healthcare system does not act with integrity. This is because someone can quickly compromise the doctor to give him or her the chance to use the drugs when it is not in real sense recommendable. The priority for a first time offender should be to enroll him for an education and rehabilitation program rather than a prison sentence. 

The efforts of the United States through drug policies that they institute are costly. Much socioeconomic harm amounts from the drug policies and not much success is realized in eliminating drug use and abuse, as well as other criminal activities emanate from it. It would be insanity if more funds were invested further in this war against drugs, unlike offering training and education. Failure of the government to solve the problem of poverty in the society will leave a vulnerable population with no option but to be immensely involved in drugs. 

Self-Regulation 

Personally, I feel that something different has to be done. A major change should be implemented, which requires not only the input of the government but also other agencies (inclusive of non-governmental organizations) to deal with the menace. Much money has been channeled on this war against drugs in America and minimal results have been attained. I strongly feel that the approach on War on Drugs that has been adopted over time is not how President Nixon had originally thought it would be. About 75 percent of his budget was channeled to the treatment of drug addicts, compared to the year 2000, when about 30 percent of the budget had been channeled to treatment options. Consequently, the cases of repeat offenders have risen and they get back in jail since they did not take lessons in the first place. The government is also not thorough in its dealing with undocumented immigrants. Overcrowding in most prison cells is a real issue that the prison system should quickly address. My thought is that drug offenders should not be incarcerated so quickly but be directly engaged in training and education so that they understand the repercussions of indulging in drugs to their health, family, and society. The money spent on doing incarcerations should be shifted to treatment options and training the offenders on positive healthy living. 

References 

Bagley, B. M., & Rosen, J. D. (2015).  Drug trafficking, organized crime, and violence in the Americas today . University Press of Florida. 

Bergen-Cico, D. K. (2015).  War and drugs: The role of military conflict in the development of substance abuse . Routledge. 

McRae, M. B., & Short, E. L. (2009).  Racial and cultural dynamics in group and organizational life: Crossing boundaries . Sage. 

Walker, M. A. (2015). Borders, one-dimensionality, and illusion in the war on drugs.  Environment and Planning D: Society and Space ,  33 (1), 84-100.