Is the US Policy of the War on Drugs Effective?

Is the War on Drugs Effective?

Melinda Duplichan

University of Southern California, Fall 2011

Professor: Alyson Mischels

Is the War on Drugs Effective?

Introduction

In society drugs have been nothing but a social problem, a burden per say from Edgar Allen Poe smoking opium in an attempt to make his poetry more creative, to Vietnam soldiers coming back from the war addicted to heroin. Drugs were not a serious issue at back then, only a small hand full of people were actually doing the drugs, and they were just simply looked down upon. It was not until the late nineteen sixties when recreational drug use became fashionable among young, white, middle class American citizens, in the United States. (Farnsworth, 1999).

The War on Drugs has made little to no positive changes in terms of trafficking and use. It is also very expensive and has negatively affected many people. Despite our nations’ efforts, there are better ways to combat society’s growing drug problem. If America makes the right decisions, this war can end peacefully.
Our country is battling a serious drug epidemic. Lots of money is being spent to combat this problem and so far, there have been few positive results. Jonathon P. Caulkins, RAND researcher, describes just how concerned American citizens really are about the war on drugs.
Illegal drugs are a $60-billion-per-year industry patronized by at least 16 million Americans, 7 percent of the U.S. population over the age of 12. The level of usage has clearly worried the rest of the population from 1985 until 2001. So when americans were asked what they thought was the most important problem facing the nation. So is the war on drugs effective.

Policy Analysis

The Controlled Substances Act known as Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970 passed by President Nixon. The term War on Drugs was first formally used by former president Richard Nixon in 1971 to describe a new plan to enforce drug prohibition. It is an initiative taken by the United States, with help from other countries, to combat the illegal trading of drugs. In 1969, Nixon stated that drug abuse is America’s public enemy number one. Shortly After, the Controlled Substances Act of 1970 was passed by U.S. Congress and this law is the base of the modern drug war. Soon after mostly all narcotics became classified as illegal substances. Enforcing this latest law was a new agency, called The Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) (Farnsworth, 1999).

The Controlled Substance act of 1970 was passed due to the abuse of illegitimate drugs. Nixon claimed it as public enemy number one and. The United States War on Drugs began in response to cocaine trafficking. As the war continues to go on, winning it hardly seems feasible, as stated by News Hour the National Office of Drug Control Policy spends approximately nineteen billion dollars a year trying to stop the drug trade. The expenses shoot up, indirectly, through crime, and hospital admits. However, people spend about three times the money to buy drugs then the government spends fighting against ...

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Drugs that are illegal in the United States have been historically used all over the world for various reasons, and not all users of these drugs have developed problems from using them. In his book Sense and Non-Sense about Crime and Drugs. Samuel Walker states drugs have been a symbolic interpretation as a necessary component of order. In other settings in society drugs have been considered a source of disorder (Walker, 2006). He explains that drugs can be used in a positive sense to maintain order in society or in an individual’s life, but they can also cause problems or disorder. Walker also explains the way that drugs fit, or does not fit, into the scheme of depending on a specific alliance and descent needs of particular societies and cultures (Walker, 2006).

C. Policy Impact on Community

The War on Drugs was supposed to improve the quality-of-life of Americans. Drugs are a great danger to the community’s health, social, and economic costs. The war on drugs has become a major issue in our community. Our community does not have many programs to make the situation better, and some have failed and the situation has become worse. The war on drugs is a very big part of our society. As the people in my community suffer every day from drugs. There are many of them on drugs it feels like the whole community is falling because of it. Children as 12 years of age are selling or doing drugs. It has caused a ripple effect in the community some a generation of drug abusers in each family. The city is not helping when it comes to trying to provide help for them. for the ones who are more effected by watching a love one completely lose their life to drugs, says no one cares. Children are being killed, and losing their lives over nothing. Just recently an women lost her daughter and grand-daughter, because her boyfriend was doped up and beat her with an crowbar. The mother state she was glad her daughter passed away, because she was going to die anyway from the drugs. This is what left of my community families giving up hope, and facing the harsh reality of what drugs have done to our community.

Policy Question

So is the war on drugs effective? Even before the research I had come to the conclusion it was not effective the war on drugs. We spend so much money on the war on drugs and research trying to find ways to contain the situation. Some law enforcement agencies are saying they are winning the war on drugs, due to a couple of raids and arrest, but are that all we need to say the war is won. It is difficult, if not impossible, to remove the political elements from the evaluation of any social policy, and therefore, assessing the impact of the war on drugs is problematic. Local police may interpret increases in drug arrests and drug seizures as indicators of the war's success: more drug users and dealers are being arrested and more drugs are kept off the market. On the other hand, anti-drug programs such as community policing organizations and neighborhood prevention groups see decreases in arrests and seizures as indicators of success: fewer people are using and therefore fewer people are being arrested; fewer drugs are being smuggled into the neighborhood and therefore there are fewer seizures. The problem with most of the indicators used in the evaluation of the war on drugs is that there is little agreement on how to interpret them (Farnsworth, 1999).

Recommendation/ Conclusions

My recommendation is to pursue a policy of reducing the harm to individual drug users, to their families, and to society in general without legalizing drug use. Whether we choose to keep marijuana, cocaine, opiates and designer drugs illegal or whether we eventually legalize, decriminalize, or depenalize them (Reuter & Macoun, 2001)There are so many different issues than the one at hand. So what should social workers do in the aftermath of the drug war. We do not even agree on whether substance abuse is a disease, although defining it as such does have implications for policy. We must only agree that the current federal policy for combating drug use, endorsed by most state and local governments, has not only failed, but has exacerbated the problem.

All Americans at one point or another have used some psychoactive substance, whether caffeine or nicotine or marijuana. In many cases, the use of cocaine and heroin represents a form of self-medication against physical and emotional pain among people who do not have access to psychotherapy or Prozac(Walker, 2006). The market in illicit drugs is as great as it is in the inner cities because palliatives for pain and depression are harder to come by and because there are fewer economic opportunities that can compete with the profits of violating prohibition (Walker, 2006)

Drugs are here to stay and its time has to abandon the concept of a drug-free society. We need to focus on learning to live with drugs in such a way that they do the least possible harm. So far as I can ascertain, the societies that have proved most successful in minimizing drug-related harm aren't those that have sought to banish drugs, but those that have figured out how to control and manage drug use through community discipline, including the establishment of powerful social norms (Walker, 2006). That is precisely the challenge now confronting American society regarding alcohol: How do we live with a very powerful and dangerous drug more powerful and dangerous than many illicit drugs that, we have learned, cannot be effectively prohibited?

Attachments:

References

Canlkins, J., Reuter, P., Iguchi, M. Y., & Chiesa, J. (2001). How goes the War on Drugs? An assessment of U.S Drug Problems and Policy, RAND Corporation.

Farnsworth, E. (1999, August 11). Criminal Justice, Drug Policy and Human Resources. Retrieved October 5, 2011, from PBS.ORG:

Gray, J. P. (2001). Why Our Drug Laws Have Failed and What We Can Do About It: A Judicial Indictment of the War on Drugs. Philadelphia: Temple University Press .

McVay, D. (2000). Drug War Facts. Retrieved October 5, 2011, from drugwarfacts:

Reuter, P., & Macoun, R. (2001). Drug War Heresies: Learning from Other Vices,. Journal of Economic Literature , 540–544.

Walker, S. (2006). Sense and Non-Sense about Crime and Drugs. A policy Guide. Thomson Wadsworth.