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War on drugs

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Operation Mallorca, U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, 2005 [1]
File:Drugs-PriceMarkUp2.jpg
Massive mark-ups for drugs, UK Govt report
File:DrugWarEffectsOnPrices.jpg
No significant impact on retail or wholesale prices, UK Govt report

The War on Drugs is an initiative undertaken by the United States to carry out an "all-out offensive" (as President Nixon described it) against the prohibited use of certain legally controlled drugs. The Congressional Research Service of the Library of Congress noted in a 1989 report that the nation's war on drugs could be considered to have started in public policy dating to November 1880, when the U.S. and China completed an agreement which prohibited the shipment of opium between the two countries. By February 1887, the 49th Congress enacted legislation making it a misdemeanor for anyone on American soil to be found guilty of violating this ban. It became officially the 'war on drugs' in the 1930's, with the marijuana scare that banned possession and cultivation of cannabis (including hemp).

The "War on Drugs" has sought to cause a massive surge in cost for illicit mind-altering substances, which it has succeeded in doing, from the perspective of mark-ups, in turn raising the market value of the trade in highly targeted drugs such as Cocaine and Heroin to over a trillion dollars, but failed in terms of retail prices in the long term. This has had several prominent sociological, economic and political effects. A case in point is the South American country of Colombia, which had developed a commodity market to manage their imports and exports by the late 1960's. The subsequent actions taken by the American government included dumping surplus corn and grain into the Colombian market below market prices, depressing domestic production. The following decade showed a substantial rise in the profile of Cocaine use in American pop culture.

Nixon's modern-day "War on Drugs" began in 1971. He characterized the abuse of illicit substances as "America's public enemy number one." This coincided with Colombia's destroyed domestic market, providing a fertile ground for the exploitation of the American hunger for narcotics. Thus began the rise of a culture that is still romanticized in popular media; drug cartel groups and families including Pablo Escobar's reign over Medellín became the norm in areas where the drug trade was an important part of the local economy. The political implications of the "War on Drugs" are extensive and the impact of the program has been severe.

Furthermore, according to a report released in March 2006 by the Justice Policy Institute, commissioned by the Drug Policy Alliance, America's "Drug-Free Zones" are ineffective at keeping youths away from drugs, and instead create strong racial disparities in the judicial system. [2]

Around the turn of the 20th century, a perception of widespread abuse of cocaine caused policy-makers in the U.S. to consider drug abuse a serious social problem rather than as cases of personal failures.

In 1988, towards the close of the Reagan Administration, the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) was created to centrally coordinate legislative, security, diplomatic, research and health policy throughout the government. In recognition of his central role, the director of ONDCP is commonly known as the Drug Czar.

Another milestone occurred in 1996, when 56% of California voters voted yes to Proposition 215, legalizing the growing and use of marijuana for medical purposes. This act has created significant legal and policy tensions between the Federal and State governments. Courts have since decided that neither this, nor any similar acts, will protect users from federal prosecution.

It should be noted, however, that regardless of public opinion, marijuana could be the single most targeted drug in the drug war. It contitutes almost half of all drug arrests, and between 1990-2002, out of the overall drug arrests, 82% of the increase was for marijuana. In this same time period, New York experienced an increase of 2,640% for marijuana possession arrests.

For U.S. public policy purposes, drug abuse is any personal use of a drug contrary to law. The definition includes legal pharmaceuticals if they are obtained by illegal means or used for nonmedicinal purposes. This differs from what mental health professionals classify as drug abuse per the DSM-IV, which is defined as more problematic drug misuse, both of which are different from drug use.

Many senior officials of the Reagan administration illegally trained and armed the Nicaraguan Contras, which they funded by the shipment of large quantities of cocaine into the United States using U.S. government aircraft and U.S. military facilities (National Security Archives, Documentation of Official U.S. Knowledge of Drug Trafficking and the Contras, http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB2/nsaebb2.htm; "Whiteout, the CIA, Drugs and the Press" by Cockburn and St. Clair). The funding for the Contras was also gained through the illegal sale of weaponry to Iran. When this practice was discovered and condemned in the media, it was referred to as the Iran-Contra affair.

The United States has also initated a number of military actions as part of its "War on Drugs", such as the 1989 invasion of Panama codenamed Operation Just Cause involving 25,000 United States troops. The U.S. alleged that Gen. Manuel Noriega, head of government of Panama, was involved in drug trafficking (Panama). As part of Plan Colombia, the U.S. has funded coca eradication through private contractors such as DynCorp and helped train the Colombian armed forces to eradicate coca and fight the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia).

See also

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