Reagan Administration: A Case Study

The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) is a United States Department of Justice law enforcement agency. Their purposes in law enforcement is to stop the sale of illegal drugs, drug trafficking, investigate major crimes within the United States and internationally, and to secure and protect our communities from ever confronting drugs. DEA also cooperates with many major law enforcement agencies such as federal, state, local, and foreign law enforcement agencies to stop criminals from smuggling drugs in our neighborhoods and help the people from getting involved with drug substance. Other responsibilities include carrying out missions and responsibilities in investigating major crimes, and detain drug

The event I choose for the current events assignment is the recent DEA, FBI conduct raid on a Grant County meth ring. The event took place Thursday morning on April 30, 2015 in the grant county area. The event occurred after a 13 month investigation began in March of 2014 of an alleged meth ring in areas of Grant County including Silver City and Santa Clara. The investigation led law enforcement agencies to arrest 12 individuals on methamphetamine trafficking charges. Law enforcement agencies that participated in the investigation and events included Homeland Security officers, DEA agents and the FBI. It was stated in the press release that no local law enforcement had any part in the investigation or event that took place Thursday morning. All 12 defendants were arrested during the early morning of April 30. The arrested individuals included both male and females between the ages of 24 and 53 years of age. The law enforcement agencies involved set up a command post in Santa Clara early Thursday morning to issue arrest warrants in the grant county area, according to Santa Clara Police Chief Lonnie Sandoval.

During the presidencies of liberals, like Franklin D. Roosevelt and Lyndon B. Johnson, there were a number of government assistance program programs put in place to benefit the people and help the government regulate society. However, many of these program where dismantled in the 1980s and 1990s. Due to the work of President Reagan, President Bush Sr., and President Bush Jr., they were able to cut back the role of the federal government, and supported labor unions and regulatory structures.

They elected Ronald Reagan in 1980 who had a controversial plan for fixing the U.S. economy, later dubbed “Reaganomics.”

Moss, G. D. & Thomas, E. A. (2013). Moving on: the American people since 1945 (5th ed.).

Ronald Reagan was not only a master of foreign policy, but was also skillful with his domestic policy as well, such as his handling of illegal drug use within the United States. Reagan began his administration’s “war on drugs” in October 1982 (Glass). On that date he declared that illegal drugs and their production and transportation were hurting America (Glass). From then on, he made it clear that his administration would act against illegal drugs, and would do what it could to stop their influence. Congress, Reagan’s Vice President George H.W. Bush, and even his wife all put forth great contributions to the fight against illegal drugs. Ronald Reagan began to take action of his own in September 1986 when he helped to put forth and effectively pass Executive Order 12564 (Drug-Free Federal Workplace). The order was intended to create a drug-free work environment for every worker in America, and made it the law to not use drugs while at a workplace (Drug-Free Federal Workplace). Also, he signed the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988 into law (Anti-Drug Abuse Act). The Anti-Drug Abuse Act created different types of minor and major penalties for drug offenses, and also created the

Lugar launched multiple hearings on whether the C.I.A was selling crack in America, the report of the Committee, released on April 13, 1989, found that the C.I.A was working directly with drug traffickers in bringing crack into America and the government knew about it the whole time. It was sold mainly in lower income black communities of Los Angeles. “In 1982, surveys conducted by the National Institute on Drug Abuse showed significant drops in drug usage over long periods for a wide range of age groups” (academic.udayton.edu). We spent billions of dollars fighting the war on drugs yet addiction continued to rise because of the help the Reagan administration gave to these drug traffickers and in return Reagan would be able to secure his seat for his second

In 1971 President Nixon declared an all-out war on drugs, now over a million non-violent drug offenders live behind bars. The war on drugs has been the longest, most costly, and destructive war in the US history as of today (Booth , 2007). The war on drugs focuses on the poor people, and not the bankers that launder the money. In 1973 Nixon created the DEA, which stands for Drug Enforcement Agency. The DEA is a federal agency responsible for enforcing laws and regulations governing narcotics, and controlled substances. Their job is to immobilize drug trafficking organizations. When Nixon declared the war on drugs in 1971, the federal budget was 101 million dollars, going into the year 2000; the federal budget allegation was 20 billion dollars. Half of what we spend in the court systems and prison is drug related (Booth , 2007).

The Reagan Doctrine was the foreign policy in the United States, legislated by President Ronald Reagan. This doctrine was design to eliminate the communist governments in Africa, Asia, and Latin America that were indorsed and validated by the Soviet Union. This assignment will summarize how the United States provided open and private support to guerrilla and resistance movements during the Regan years. In addition, explicate the diplomatic doctrine specific events that occurred in Afghanistan when the Soviet Union invaded. Finally, this assignment will describe the advantages and disadvantages based on the Regan Doctrine. Summarize The Situation of U.S. Diplomatic of The Regan Doctrine Throughout the opening years of the Cold War, Presidents Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, and Jimmy Carter all sanctioned policies against communism in order to contain it. Ronald Regan rejected their détente policy in 1979, when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. This alone proved that policies that only contain communism were ineffective. Regan disapproved in the compromise policy when it came to any communist government. Instead, Reagan proposed the Rollback strategy. The making of the Reagan Doctrine shifted from containment and spreading to eliminating all current communist governments. Furthermore, the United States wanted to increase and encourage democracy and capitalism in replacement of ousted communistregimes (Conservapedia, 2012).Implementation of the Regan Doctrine was to provide

In the twenty-first century there is a plethora of drugs distributing from Mexico to the United States all the way to Canada causing numerous people to be sentenced to prison, to depart from their families, and to even die. Luckily, there is one law enforcement agency created by the U.S. government to banish these horrible facets, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). Breaking down and destroying drug empires, arresting the kingpin leaders of illegal narcotics, and trying to put an end to this terrorizing crime. Drug cartels have always been an enormous issue all across the globe, but the DEA is like the superhero trying to fight

Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs with various other law enforcement and intelligence gathering agencies, including the ODALE, was given the responsibility of enforcing the nation’s federal drug laws. It’s enormous sphere of influence is reflected in its Mission Statement which states among other things; “The mission of the Drug Enforcement Administration is to enforce the controlled substances laws and regulations of the United States and bring to the criminal and civil justice system of the United States, or any other competent jurisdiction, those organizations and principal members of organizations involved in the growing, manufacture, or distribution of controlled substances appearing in or destined for illicit traffic in the United States…”(15) The DEA was designed as an American agency with an international agenda.

During the same period, FBI resources devoted to drug enforcement increased from $8 million a year to over $100 million; U.S. Marshals resources from $26 million to about $80 million; U.S. Attorney resources from $20 million to about $100 million; U.S. Customs resources from $180 million to about $400 million; and Bureau of Prison resources from $77 million to about $300 million. Expenditures on drug control by the military and the intelligence agents are more difficult to calculate, although by all amounts they have increased by at least the same magnitude and total hundreds of millions of dollars per year (8-9). Federal, state, and local government spend about $75 billion a year on law enforcement and criminal justice programs. About $20 billion of that is directly related to drug law enforcement. Roughly another $15 billion is related to crimes committed to obtain drug money or is systematically related in some way to drug commerce. This means about $35 billion per year is spent on drug law enforcement and lost by crimes committed to obtain drug money. The $35 billion along with money squandered on the ineffective drug suppression activities of the government, and the money lost as a result of the unnaturally high price of drugs, creates a $100 billion total (Duke 354-355). Benson Roe believes, "It is time to recognize that the problem is

The War on Drugs is a term that is commonly applied to the campaign of prohibition of drugs. The goal of this campaign is to reduce the illegal drug trade across America. This term “ War on Drugs” was used during Nixon’s campaign in which he declared War on Drugs during a press conference in 1971. Following this declaration many organizations were created to stop the spread of drugs, like the DEA and Office of Drug Abuse Law Enforcement. Note that Nixon’s approach to this problem was to fund treatment rather than law enforcement. After Nixon’s retirement from office, most of the funding went from going into treatment to the law enforcement. Which militarized the police force giving the officer’s military weapons and gear. With this, the sentencing for possessing drugs was changed as well, resulting incarcerations rates to increase overtime. The increase of incarceration rates started to create many patterns that were soon noticeable. The funding’s that go into the law enforcement has shown to greatly have an affect on the incarceration rates.

The federal government has incentivized the drug related activities of local law enforcement through the disbursement of federal grants. The

President Ronald Reagan, the man who is accredited with ended the forty six year cold war was elected on Nov. 4, 1980. Reagan won his election with fifty percent of the popular vote over former President Jimmy Carter who had forty one percent. While Reagan as a president is praised for such successes as strengthening the national defense, stimulating growth in the U.S. economically, and as mentioned before he is considered the President who ended the Cold War. President Reagan had achieved many things by the end of his administration, but just as he had many successes his presidency was plagued with shortcomings and a handful of what could be considered flat out failures. The purpose of this writing is to establish and identify the ‘cons’ or failures of the Reagan administration, and provide a brief description of each different aspect of the administration.