The War on Drugs in America and the Failure of US Policy

Dating back to the 1960s, the supply of and demand for illegal drugs has perhaps been the worst threat to the United States justice system. In late June of 1971, President Richard Nixon stated: “America’s public enemy number one, in the United States, is drug abuse.” Due to the rise of illegal heroin, crack cocaine, opioid, and marijuana usage in adults and teenagers, the White House and the United States Congress acted with the goal of erasing the epidemic, not controlling it. Faced with the task of solving the illegal drug problem, Nixon and many future leaders, including Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush strongly supported a greater use of law enforcement and the incarceration of all offenders. Backed by Congressional funding of upwards of 105 million dollars, the “solution” for sobriety began.

As Nixon, Congress, and law enforcement agencies prioritized the “war on drugs,” however, the intentional negative impacts became apparent. Richard Nixon’s President of Domestic Affairs, John Ehrlichman, confessed in an interview for Harper’s Magazine:

“We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin. And then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did” (LoBianco, Tom).

While race-driven convictions targeted America’s streets, however, New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller attempted an approach that, unfortunately, was not adopted. Prior to his famous Rockefeller Laws, he created the Narcotic Addiction and Control Commission in 1967 (Gray, Madison.) During its short existence despite a lack of funds and efficiency, the organization recommended a far more effective approach for treatment rather than a punishment.

Even today, President Donald Trump and his Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, are continuing to declare a war on drugs, countering the acts of President Barack Obama (Brico, Elizabeth). By shifting the drug policy to treatment, Obama increased budgets to increase the opportunities to ultimately benefit the general public health. Michael Botticelli, the past Director of the White House’s National Drug Control Policy Office, supports the Obama administration when stating:

“The President’s 2017 budget calls for our country’s largest investment in treating and preventing substance use disorders in history. By funding public health and public safety efforts at near-identical levels, this budget demonstrates the Obama Administration’s ongoing commitment to a balanced approach to drug policy” (Ingraham, Christopher).

Although the cost of treatment may increase over time, the final budget compares quite similarly to that of incarceration rates and prison overpopulation. By focusing America’s attention towards rehabilitation and beneficial health organizations, convictions, addictions, and death will decrease, and availability in prisons for serious offenders will increase. To put an end to Richard Nixon’s “war on drugs,” the opioid crisis, or any drug-related epidemic, it is important that the money and energy filtered into harsh convictions of first time or low level offenders shift into various treatment options and medical centers; cleaning up addicts, not imprisoning them.

Following the resignation of Richard Nixon, the war on drugs continued through the presidential terms of Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter. These presidents, leading the United States through the majority of the 1970s into the early 1980s, continued to turn a blind eye towards the rehabilitation of addiction, which resulted in the extreme jump of incarceration numbers. Throughout these terms, each president backed the “war on drugs” and promoted aggressive enforcement while adding little to no treatment options as a solution. A statement included within Gerald Ford’s message to Congress regarding drug abuse exclaims:

“More than 5,000 Americans die each year from the improper use of drugs. … But these statistics—ominous as they are—reflect only a part of the tragic toll which drug abuse exacts. For every young person who dies of a drug overdose, there are thousands who do not die but who are merely going through the motions of living. They sit in classrooms without learning. They grow increasingly isolated from family and friends. At a time when they should be preparing for the future, they are 'copping out' on the present” (Backup).

But instead of recommending treating addiction, he stated:

“The first need for stronger action is against the criminal drug trafficker. These merchants of death, who profit from the misery and suffering of others, deserve the full measure of national revulsion. They should be the principal focus of our law enforcement activities—at the Federal, State, and local level. In this regard, I am pleased to note that arrests by Federal law enforcement officers of major drug traffickers are up substantially over previous years. However, the progress we have made in improving our ability to apprehend these traffickers will be lost unless major changes are made in the way our criminal justice system deals with drug traffickers after arrest” (Backup).

As displayed, President Gerald Ford falls back into place of targeting the offenders instead of the affected. By using this approach, he edges the snowball further, encouraging harsher sentences, overpopulating prisons, and increasing the punitive effects of the war on drugs.

Jimmy Carter, an American politician, was elected as the 39th president after Gerald Ford. Throughout his term, similar examples of acknowledging the public’s struggles, yet turning towards punishment appear. In another Letter to Congress, Carter states:

“I strongly support the work of the United Nations Fund for Drug Abuse Control (UNFDAC), the United Nations Commission on Narcotic Drugs, the International Narcotics Control Board, the World Health Organization, and other organizations working within the framework of the United Nations in their efforts to help drug-producing countries find alternate crops, improve drug control measures, and make treatment resources available” (Jimmy Carter).

Furthermore, Carter compliments and admires other countries within the United Nations that have developed thriving organizations to combat the threat of drug abuse. The statement above is one of seven points that list Carter’s personal solutions for curing the international drug problem. Like President Ford, President Carter shifted his argument and supported the need for aggressive law enforcement:

“We must vigorously enforce our laws against those who traffic in drugs, so that the attraction of large profits is outweighed by the risk of detection and the likelihood of conviction. … Through the cooperative efforts of the various agencies involved, we will attack the financial resources of these traffickers who provide the capital needed to support the smuggling of drugs into the country. Drug traffickers must understand that they face swift, certain, and severe punishment; and our law enforcement and judicial systems must have the resources to make this prospect a very real threat. We must allocate our resources intelligently, revise our penalty structure where necessary to concentrate on the actions (and the drugs) that are most dangerous, and improve the administration of justice” (Jimmy Carter).

President Jimmy Carter reacts positively to the rehabilitation efforts of foreign countries, yet presses for harsh, generalized penalties. This harsh sentencing by American courts while disregarding treatment of the offender led to mass incarceration during the Reagan Presidency.

As the “war on drugs” continued to affect consumers and the demand of drugs through the election of President Ronald Reagan, the United States’s court and criminal justice system began to take their toll on the suppliers. Along with Ronald Reagan’s wife, Nancy, and her famous slogan, “Just Say No,” and the recently implemented zero tolerance policies, convictions for offenders increased dramatically (A Brief History). From the beginning of Reagan’s term, there were 50,000 people jailed due to nonviolent drug offenses. Also, a poll sent through the public to determine whether drug abuse was relevant showed a result of two to six percent. A decade later, however, the number of prisoners incarcerated due to nonviolent drug offenses increased to 400,000 in 1997, resulting in overpopulated and new prisons. Following this extreme increase, the same poll was sent out again: over 64 percent of the American population viewed drug abuse as the United States’s major issue (A Brief History).

Similar to drug rehabilitation, there is no easy fix for America’s failing drug policy. Even today, a solution for the epidemic continues to remain unknown. However, states such as Minnesota are desperately trying to adopt the treatment option to combat addiction. By embracing and funding treatment, America can put a stop to addiction and benefit the country as a whole. Under the current leadership of Donald Trump, an individual who disregards the past failures of the incarceration system, the difficulty of transforming into the treatment option may rise. According to Trump’s Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, America’s drug policy is able to thrive by sweeping addiction under the rug and throwing offenders behind bars. The official policy changes are yet to be announced, yet Sessions’s most recent target has been to increase and lengthen the already absurd sentences for all drug users or suppliers. Despite America’s crime rate at an all-time low, Sessions feels the need to bring back the “war on drugs” and crack down on offenders. Jeff Sessions supported his claim when he stated, “Our nation needs to say clearly once again that using drugs is bad, … It will destroy your life” (Horwitz, Sari). Kevin Ring, the president of Families Against Mandatory Minimums, speaks the truth of the situation when he argued against Sessions, “They are throwing decades of improved techniques and technologies out the window in favor of a failed approach” (Horwitz, Sari). Donald Trump and the republican party choose to balance the weight of a developing criminal justice system on a failed system. To prove this system has failed once again, on Sunday, December 17th, 2017, an article from The New York Times described the future Cherokee Nation to be under a major threat to opioids and pharmaceutical companies. While fighting these big pharmacies, the Nation’s territory seems to be filling with children who have been born addicted to opioids. The majority of the blame lies upon the pharmaceutical companies, of course, and the Cherokee Nation is arguing that “the pharmacy chains, Walmart, Walgreens, and CVS Health, as well as the giant drug distributors Mckesson, Cardinal Health, and AmerisourceBergen, flouted federal drug-monitoring laws and allowed prescription opioids to pour into the Cherokee territory at some of the highest rates in the country.” As the financial greed of corporations rises, the amount of care for the customers and general public plummets. While there is enough blame to go around, in order to continue positive advances towards providing the various treatment options as opposed to the incarceration methods, the companies, government, and American people must come to an agreement.

The war on drugs provided an era of violence, and mistreatment, and has become the United States's number one priority in terms of the criminal justice system for the last forty years. When considering presidential acts or public statements, the nationwide drug policy begs for change. As the tides begin to change once again, it is important to press for the rehabilitation and health centers needed for this public to survive. When incarceration ratings begin to skyrocket, jails clog, addiction rises, and suppliers supply. To combat the epidemic, funding or supporting a local treatment center can result in changes that may apply to America as a whole. The United States drug policy has failed time and time again, yet progress through treatment can change the definition of justice and its punishments.

Works Cited

Backup. “Gerald R. Ford's Special Message to the Congress on Drug Abuse.” Gerald R. Ford's Special Message to the Congress on Drug Abuse, April 27, 1976, www.fordlibrarymuseum.gov/library/speeches/760368.htm.

Brico, Elizabeth, et al. “Trump Is Continuing the War on Drugs That Kept Me Addicted.” POLITICO Magazine, 28 Nov. 2017, www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/11/28/donald-trump-opioids-drug-war-215872.

“A Brief History of the Drug War.” Drug Policy Alliance, www.drugpolicy.org/issues/brief-history-drug-war.

Gray, Madison. “New York's Rockefeller Drug Laws.” Time, Time Inc., 2 Apr. 2009, content.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1888864,00.html.

Horwitz, Sari. “How Jeff Sessions Wants to Bring Back the War on Drugs.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 8 Apr. 2017, www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/how-jeff-sessions-wants-to-bring-back-the-war-on-drugs/2017/04/08/414ce6be-132b-11e7-ada0-1489b735b3a3_story.html?utm_term=.0ccea2ffee21.

Ingraham, Christopher. “The Radical Way Obama Wants to Change the Drug War.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 10 Feb. 2016, www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/02/10/the-radical-way-the-presidents-spending-plan-would-change-the-drug-war/?utm_term=.dd6b31123718.

“Jimmy Carter: Drug Abuse Message to the Congress. - August 2, 1977.” The American Presidency Project, www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=7908.

LoBianco, Tom. “Report: Nixon's War on Drugs Targeted Black People.” CNN, Cable News Network, 24 Mar. 2016, www.cnn.com/2016/03/23/politics/john-ehrlichman-richard-nixon-drug-war-blacks-hippie/index.html.