The War On Drug War

To start, a little history behind the drug war. During Nixon’s campaign in 1968 and his presidency thereafter, there were two threats to Nixon at the time. One was the anti-war leftists and the other was black people. The reason is, during the war with Vietnam, the anti-war leftists, or also known as the hippies, would protest often in Washington.

Thousands upon thousands of lives have been taken due to the huge demand for drugs crossing from Mexico into the United States. The murder rate is extremely high, and has caused so much chaos between both countries because of this. Drug dealers in the United States contact drug dealers in Mexico, and vice versa, to cross the drugs between borders illegally. A high percentage of the time, either of the drug dealers from both sides will have a scape goat swim the border while carrying high amounts of drugs with them, or will attempt to cross it over smuggled in a vehicle. In Mexico, it is extremely corrupt and even the law enforcement is involved in the crossing of drugs illegally. This being done causes so much conflict

In many ways, the war on terror and the war on drugs have merged. The type of red scare rhetoric from the McCarthy era became nearly interchangeable with the drug war and terrorism during the Reagan administration. “We’re in the middle of a major epidemic...Parents have a right to feel terror,” said Donald Ian MacDonald, Reagan’s top drug advisor. He was referring to drugs. Marlin Fitzwater, Reagan’s Press Secretary openly admitted that “everybody wants to out-drug each other in terms of political rhetoric.” This battle of hyperbole was waged on both sides of the political aisle. Even liberals like former Rep. Stephen Solarz (D-NY) compared the danger from the cartels to “intercontinental ballistic missiles” and wondered “why we treat (their) threat so lightly?” Likewise, former Rep. Thomas F. Hartnett (R-SC) declared that drugs were a “national security threat...worse than any nuclear warfare or any chemical warfare waged on any battlefield.”

The drug war in the U.S. has been waged on civil fronts for over four decades and has not only proven to be not only futile but at times even more damaging to society than the drugs themselves. The once virtuous intent of this ‘war’ has been corrupted by police unions and dirty politicians who have turned it into a carefully crafted system of capitalistic enterprise, designed push their political agenda by perpetuating the myth that drugs are the primary threat to our nation. Zero tolerance laws and strict prohibition have failed to achieve their goal of eliminating the supply and demand for drugs. In contrast, legalization in the Netherlands and Europe has already been in place for several years now, and with great success. Portugal has lived with 14 years of full legalization after their government admitted to both the futility, and counter-productive failure of their drug war. Income that was used to imprison part of the population is now being used to educate, counsel, and rehabilitate those who are caught in possession of substances. The U.S. government must also come to realize that their efforts to fight this invisible war have in reducing drug use, while at the same time, escalating violence, intensifying racism, and creating broken homes and families. The best way to demolish this corrupt system is through the legalization of all class B drugs along with the use, but not the production, or trafficking of all Class A drugs.

Before reading this, I had no idea that the drug war started because of such blatant politics. I originally thought it was conceived out of mistaken altruism and as a response to increased drug traffic from the South Americas. This made me a little bit more cynical when it came to policy, as literally anything politically related probably has less to do with helping the average citizen, but instead helping a politician stay in power and grow wealth.

The drug war has never been focused on rooting out drugs kingpins or violent offenders. Federal funding flows to those agencies that increase dramatically the volume of drugs arrests, not the agencies most successfully in bring down the bosses. What get rewarded in most this war is sheer numbers of drugs arrests to make matters worse, federal drugs forfeiture

The War on Drugs, like the war on Terrorism, is a war that America may not be able to afford to win. For over forty years the United States has been fighting the War on Drugs and there is no end in sight. It has turned into a war that is about politics and economics rather than about drugs and criminals. The victims of this war are numerous; but perhaps they are not as numerous as those who benefit from the war itself.

Over 45 years ago, U.S. President Richard Nixon declared drug abuse public enemy number one, initiating an unprecedented global campaign, the War on Drugs. Today, the War on Drugs is a huge failure, with devastating unintended consequences. It led to corruption, violence, and mass incarceration. It negatively affected the lives of millions of people. All of this while we waste billions of dollars every year only to create and fuel powerful drug cartels. This global conflict has to end.

The Mexican Drug War was a sad time when Mexico was trying to have firearms, tobacco, alcohol, etc... come over the border into their country illegally. During this time many lives were lost and sadly forgotten.

Mexico is currently the largest foreign supplier of methamphetamine, cocaine, marijuana, and heroin to the United States. Corruption in Mexico’s political system has allowed drug trade operations to flourish and for cartels to become lethal and powerful forces. Along with the influx of drugs, the wave of violence that followed President Calderon’s declaration of war on drug trafficking in 2006 has taken an estimated 164,000 lives as of July 2015.2 The United States has been waging a war on drugs for over 40 years. President Nixon was the first president to declare a war on drugs in June 1971 to combat a rise in

The Mexican Drug War is a war that’s never going to end mainly because of the corruption that takes place in Mexico. Drug Trafficking dates back to the 1900s, but nobody knows for sure how long this has been going on. It’s said that it all started with liquor during prohibition (Al Capone era); after prohibition liquor was then replaced with drugs like Cocaine, Methamphetamine, and Marihuana. Forward to a century later The US of America made a deal with the Mexican government a few years ago that allowed Drug cartels not only to push weight into the US but also receive information about the opposite cartels from Mexico and in return for Mexico to receive fire arms to supply the deadly cartels. Cartels like the Sinaloa

The Modern War on Drugs sparked in the early 1970s, when President Richard Nixon declared the War on Drugs in America. Nixon discussed the necessity to take action against not only the illegal drug use, but also to focus on ridding the illegal drug trade. The war on drugs contributes to America’s economic system specifically benefiting four major industries: the drug testing industry, the alcohol industry, the addiction recovery industry, and lastly the private prison industry. The United states contributes to less than five percent population to the world; however, we hold nearly twenty-five percent of the incarcerated population holding 2.2 million people behind bars. With this flourishing number of inmates resulting from the war on drugs,

Mexico’s War on Drugs differs from many other wars since it isn’t a war between two parties but instead between the government and their own people. It is fueled by the United States’ desire for drugs, which allowed many Mexican cartels to prosper. Long before Felipe Calderon took office, the drug trade thrived without much opposition for the government. However, in 2006, Calderon mobilized troops to combat drug traffickers, thus sparking what is now known as the Mexican drug war("Mexico"). The ongoing war has had devastating consequences for both sides, with a total of 106,000 lives lost("Mexico"). Among these lives, numerous atrocities against independent reporters and children have been committed, yet the war continues to rage on. Currently,

In relations to the origins of the War on Drugs in the United States, the current and most common drug war being fought is against the drug kingpin, Joaquín Guzmán Loera and his organization, the Sinaloa Cartel. Mexico has been a producer and distributer of illegal drugs for generations and since the late 20th century, the country is currently undergoing a battle with powerful and well-financed cartels. As of today not much is being imposed to put a halt to the corruption in Mexico, for the trafficking of weapons and the violence has made it almost impossible for powerful countries like the United States to overthrow the long-established, most powerful drug cartels in Mexico. The few attempts that have been made to stop distribution of drugs

The War on Drugs first coined by Richard Nixon in a press conference (1971) with the Congress on Drug Abuse Prevention and Control where he publicly declared drug abuse as “public enemy number one” and requested federal funds for “an all-out campaign of