War on Drugs Essay

Words: 1746
Pages: 7

The so-called “War on Drugs,” as declared by the Nixon administration in the signing of the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970, marked the beginning of the current era of mandatory minimum sentencing, racism, privatized prisons, and a powerful constituency that profits as a result of the prohibition of drugs. Psychoactive substances have been apart of the human experience as long as humans have walked the earth. There is little hope that drug production will ever be curtailed, so long as there is a demand; a demand that has remained steady even though it has been forty years since the beginning of said war. As Judge James P. Gray from the Superior Court of Orange County has so plainly put it: “Where did this policy …show more content…
On one side the government is telling it’s citizens that’s drugs are evil and on the other hand this very same government is importing the very products that they claim to be protecting people from. Whatever is happening here is for you to decide.

There are also many vested interests of United States corporations that lobby to keep current policies. The tobacco, alcohol and pharmaceutical industries emphasize the difference between illegal and legal drugs, in an effort to lock down the market for drug use. Alcohol, tobacco and some pharmaceuticals are equally harmful and addictive, yet they distinguish themselves as different. There is a group called a Partnership for a Drug Free America that advocates against the use of illegal drugs. Seems harmless enough, until you look at the main funders. The predominant funders are, ironically, from the tobacco, alcohol and pharmaceutical companies. This demonstrates that these industries have a market lockdown on legal psychoactive substances and are threatened by the possibility of legalization, which would dramatically cut into their profits. These industries have an enormous amount of money from which to lobby against all legislation that would advocate for any kind of policy change in regards to the drug laws. Money is incredibly influential, and there is a lot