Global War on Drugs Assignment
The War on Drugs, an international and extremely expensive crusade to free the world of illicit drug use, has been going on for more than fifty years. It’s failed miserably. Not only is illicit drug use up, but illicit drugs are also cheaper and easier to get than ever before. Rather than stop or least slow down drug ease, the War on Drugs has unleashed violence, human rights abuses and infectious disease in much of the world. Guatemala, Columbia, and Mexico have been particularly hard hit by so-called narco-trafficking violence. Mexico has been so devastated by drug-related murders that between 2010 and 2016, life expectancy fell by more than half a year for men in the country (see life expectancy (Links to an external site.) (Links to an external site.)
Links to an external site.
). Guatemala, Columbia, and Mexico lobbied for a special session of the United Nations General Assembly, to revise the approach on drugs. The idea was to replace the militarization, enforcement, and criminalization of current drug policy with a more humane approach. The UN special session was held in April 2016.
Go to Rethinking the war on drugs (Links to an external site.) (Links to an external site.)
Links to an external site.
, a Human Watch blog that highlights different aspects of drug policy both in general and in individual countries (Tanzania, Guatemala, Russia, etc.). Read one of the many blogs (“The War on Drugs – A Cure Worse Than the Disease” or “Drug Users Face Abuse in Russia’s Private Treatment Facilities”, for example).
In a short paragraph, summarize the blog. What was the final outcome of the meetings? Did drug policy change? Why or why not?
The U.S. War on Drugs
Read The Real Reason We Started the War on Drugs (Links to an external site.) (Links to an external site.)
Links to an external site.
. What was the Controlled Substances Act? The author states, “The drug war actually started much earlier, and the outlawing of opium, cocaine, and marijuana all have links to both racism and xenophobia.” What does he mean?
President Nixon officially started the “war on drugs” in 1970. Granted his sentiments were recorded privately, but what did he say about drugs?
In the 1980s, Reagan intensified the War on Drugs with help from his wife, Nancy who introduced the “Just Say No” campaign. Watch her video: Get Social Science help today
