For the past 5 decades, the way to demonstrate rebellion, especially amongst the youth has been drugs. The United States has been at war with drugs since June 1971, after president Nixon “declared a “war on drugs,” (A Brief History of the Drug War, 2019) He dramatically increased the size and presence of federal drug control agencies” and insisted in going through with taking extensive measures to do anything to take control over it, because he was sure that the number one enemy against the public were the drugs.
Between his presidency and Ronald Reagan’s, there had been various states who had decriminalized marihuana, but once Reagan became president, long periods of incarceration skyrocketed, due to his “unprecedented expansion of the drug way,” (A Brief History of the Drug War, 2019). Reagan and his wife began publicizing anti-drug campaigns all while the public grew more and more concerned on illicit drug use due to the media and the way they were “portraying the addiction of the smokable form of cocaine dubbed “crack”,” (A Brief History of the Drug War, 2019).
In the late 1980’s, not only was the public concerned, but there was political hysteria being created, which then led to a higher prison population once again. Bill Clinton did not believe in eliminating the disparity between crack and powder cocaine sentences, but he did state before leaving office that marijuana should once again, be decriminalized. Years passed and the drug war was only intensifying, until George W. Bush arrived in the White House. Bush witnessed the “rapid escalation of the domestic drug law enforcement,” and then the growth of drug war began to slow down, (A Brief History of the Drug War, 2019).
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During the Obama administration, the drug consumption was addressed openly, normalizing the use of these substances, but the current president, Donald Trump, has once again began moving forward and is pushing to build a wall “to keep drugs out of the country,” as well as having harsher sentences for drug law violations. (Will President Trump’s Border Wall Keep Drugs Out of The U.S.? (2019).
After reviewing the history of war on drugs, it is obvious that war against drugs has been around for a long time, but is that really helping the issue and decreasing the problem or is it only making matters worse? Some state that drug abusers continue to be the main criminals filling up prisons, while others state that the way drugs have been addressed is being successful and crime rates have dropped. The four questions that will be addressed in order to get a deeper perspective of the war on drugs will be:
- What is the war on drugs and how is it interpreted differently by scholars, religion and politicians?
- Where is this war happening that the U.S. is getting involved and what are the statistics of it?
- How is it impacting the U.S. economically and within society?
- What rules & regulations in place right now are helping solve this issue & are there any proposed regulations that could help in the future?
What is the war on drugs and how is it interpreted?
The war on drugs is differently interpreted across areas, such as scholars and their point of view, religions overall and politicians. Russell Crandall, a professor of American foreign policy at Davidson College in North Carolina, and Savannah Haeger, a recent graduate of Davidson College are authors of Latin America’s Invisible War, in which they state their point of view and explain how drug war is viewed. Crandall and Haeger begin by explaining that the war on drugs is rooted from Mexico, in which the country and the U.S. is fighting “criminal gangs, which are more organized than ever before, have been able to take advantage either through corruption or extortion,” (Crandall, R., & Haeger, S., 2016). Through this Article, Crandall and Haeger continue by defining this war on drugs as “more complex and violent I the past decade,” (Crandall, R., & Haeger, S., 2016). The war has begun to revolve much more than within trying to control the drugs, but the cartels have had more than 60,000 intentional homicides within a span of 6 years (2006-2012).
Although the definition in the scholastic field includes lots of negative connotations and describes a lot of violence occurring due to the consumption, making, and exportation of drugs, religion has a different point of view up to a certain extent. Orivaldo Lopes and Janaina Costa are the authors of an article that expresses the debate of drug and religion. Through this journal, the two authors explain that they conducted a research since 2014, which has led them to understand that “religious groups have played different roles,” (Lopes, O., & Costa, J., 2018). After lots of researching and engaging with the community, they have come to conclude that religious groups see the drug as the problem and that a war against drugs, is a war against all humans that consume it, therefore it is worsening the problem. The solution is for “religious representatives to offer a type of support for the “recovery” of the people using drugs, and the “support” for their families.
War on Drugs can be interpreted in many ways, especially when there are so many groups of people that can give their opinion on it, but the main group behind this is the politicians and the politics of the United States. Because politics believe in what they choose to believe, they get to decide how the country moves forward with the issues. There are two stands on this, just like everything, one being that the “U.S. funding of security or drug enforcement forces whose members have been credibly implicated in human rights violations,” (Bartilow, H. A., 2014).
The second is that many countries who are “exposed to persistent narco-terrorist threats are likely to use U.S. counternarcotic aid to expand capabilities of the state,” (Bartilow, H. A., 2014). In 1990 “in a lunch with the Miami Herald newspaper, Trump deemed the drug war a “joke” and called for the legislation of all drugs,” (Romero, L. G., 2017). By 2016 during his presidential campaign, his stance had drastically changed. Current president, Donald Trump, called the legalization of marijuana in Colorado a “real problem,” and later reiterated by saying that he would leave that legislation up to the states.
Where is this war happening -Why is U.S. is getting involved & what are the statistics of it?
The War on Drugs has been a worldwide issue for almost a century, but the biggest number of importations that come to the United States are sent from Mexico. In Figure 1, a chart retrieved from the CBP Enforcement Statistics Fiscal Year 2020 is shown and states how many pounds of each drug were seizured from 2014 fiscal year up until 2020. Although these numbers do not look like much for a borderland compared to worldwide, the Drug Trafficking Across Borders made the following statement:
In 2010, the FBI released a statement detailing the southwestern border and Mexico’s involvement in the illicit drug trade within the United States. At the time, Mexico was the No. 1 foreign supplier of marijuana. While Mexico produces no cocaine, the cartels do move Colombian cocaine through South and Central America into the U.S. through Mexico. Mexico is also the largest supplier of methamphetamine. The country has labs established on both sides of the border that are controlled by Mexican drug cartels. Although Asia and the Middle East were the largest producers of heroin, 39% of heroin identified by DEA signature programs originated from Mexico, making the southwest border the source for many heroin overdoses west of the Mississippi River, (Drug Trafficking Across Borders., 2014).
The United States is not only reacting because of the amount of illegal activity that is occurring, but because of how close this illegal activity is happening, but because the economic benefits that Mexico is receiving by having its’ cannabis imported into the state of California from Mexico and that is being widely consumed by United States Residents. Combined with immigrant tensions and competition between small American Farmers and larger farms who benefit of the cheaper Mexican labor, “a whole host of drug laws was created that made illegal Mexican marihuana amongst others,” (Thompson, G. O., 2014).
How is it impacting the U.S. economically and within society?
Julien Mercille in this piece has recognized the role of the United States as a player in the coined War on Drugs as a concerned actor. This piece begins to unveil the United States and their involvement to fuel the cartel through inviting them with a market gleaming with addicts, loose gun regulations, and a policy of Mexican and South American political interest and failed regimes.
Mercille points out the heavy influence the drug trade has on the Mexican economy, accounting for about 1-3% of its Gross Domestic Product or about $11-$39 billion. As such, the War on Drugs fails to look into the economic and geopolitical interests of the U.S as one that drives this market. In a post WWII landscape, the U.S has opted to promote a heavy capitalist and profit driven mindset especially with Latin oil control, mixed with the interest of controlling Latin America to keep our “backyard” free of European or Asian influence. This interest is stated to largely overpowered genuine U.S interest to reform Mexico for the better. As certain political parties, such as PRI, “filled with corruption spurred by the drug-trade, maintained stability, as they were United States favored-anti-communist,” (Julien Mercille,2011).
Now in the modern age, certain economic factors had blown up the drug trade especially by Mexican citizens. Firstly, NAFTA has been targeted for failing to promote job growth in Mexico causing people to join the narcotics business for supplemental income. Second, neoliberal trade reforms allowed for larger quantities of drugs to be shipped into the U.S. Lastly, the U.S backed failed regime changes in Latin America as well as U.S Law Enforcement supporting cartel leadership monetarily to advance differing investigations. This article paints a different perspective on the failed drug war.
Although this topic is controversial, “most agree that the war on drugs has costed much more than it has helped to curb the addiction rate since 1970,” (Dai, S., 2013). In Figure 2, The Atlantic National posted an article that explained how Matt Groff compared the cost of drug control vs. the addiction rate and showed that the cost is much higher than the positive results it has given.
Not only has the country had economic stretches made by this war against drugs, but society has also been impacted, according to Gary S. Becker and Kevin M. Murphy, the authors of an academic journal named The Drug War and The Damage Done: Some Wars Can’t be Won. Becker & Murphy explain that when pushing towards more aggression in the war on drugs, dealers will also respond with the same or higher levels “of violence and corruption, so an increase in enforcement can worsen the costs imposed on society,” (Becker, G. S., & Murphy, K. M., 2013). The argument of Becker & Murphy is that many times, because the government wants to push on controlling this drug issue most of those killed are innocent civilians wo were only trying to help in the antidrug effort.
