The “war on drugs” is a policy term in the United States that describes the government’s longstanding campaign aiming to combat drug trafficking and drug use, both on the domestic and international levels. The US government’s measures included prohibitive legislation, military assistance to other states in the fight against drug cartels, and military intervention (Godlee & Hurley, 2016). This paper aims to discuss the concept of the “war on drugs” and identify its adverse effects on society.
As can be seen from history, the consequences of the policies’ implementation are controversial. Hence, it cannot be stated that the “war on drugs” has been successful; instead, it caused more harm than good. As Lilly, Cullen, and Ball (2018) report, “testing replaces the due process assumption of innocence with an assumption of guilt until proven otherwise” (p. 308). Besides, prohibition has led to less safe drug consumption, made drugs more expensive, and paradoxically increased the spread of drug use (Godlee & Hurley, 2016). Thus, strict measures have proven to be unsuccessful.
To sum up, the “war on drugs” is a continuous and complex process aiming to decrease drug use among the US population, which has negatively affected society. As practice shows, the governmental measures have more adverse effects in the fields of health care, safety, and human rights, than positive effects in the fight against drugs. Therefore, the implementations need to be redesigned, and the issue of drug use needs to be approached with the consideration of social, economic, and human factors.
References
Godlee, F., & Hurley, R. (2016). The war on drugs has failed: Doctors should lead calls for drug policy reform. BMJ: British Medical Journal (Online), 355. Web.
Lilly, J.R., Cullen, F.T., & Ball, R.A. (2018). Criminological theory: Context and consequences (7th ed.). Bringing punishment back in: Conservative criminology (pp. 302–344). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.