The War on Drugs is an American term usually applied to the US federal government's campaign on drug bans, military aid, and military intervention, with the other aim being to reduce the trafficking of illegal drugs. This initiative includes a set of drug policies intended to prevent the production, distribution and consumption of psychoactive drugs that participating governments and the UN have done illegally. The term was popularized by the media shortly after a press conference given on June 18, 1971 by President Richard Nixon - a day after the publication of President Nixon's special message to Congress on Drug Abuse Prevention and Control - in which he proclaimed drug abuse "public enemy number one". The message to Congress included texts about devoting more federal resources to "the prevention of new addicts, and the rehabilitation of the addicted," but that part did not receive the same public attention as the "war on drugs". However, two years earlier, Nixon officially declared a "war on drugs" that would be directed toward eradication, prohibition and detention. Today, the Drug Policy Alliance, which advocates for an end to the War on Drugs, estimates that the United States spends $ 51 billion annually on this initiative.
On May 13, 2009, Gil Kerlikowske - Director of the Office of the National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) - hinted that the Obama administration does not plan to significantly change its drug enforcement policies but also that the government will not use the term "War on Drugs", because Kerlikowske considers the term it is "counter-productive". The ONDCP view is that "drug addiction is a disease that can be successfully prevented and treated... making more drugs available will make it harder to keep our community healthy and safe." One of the alternatives shown by Kerlikowske is the Swedish drug policy, which seeks to balance public health problems with the rejection of drug legalization. The prevalence rate for cocaine use in Sweden is almost a fifth of those in Spain, the largest consumer of drugs.
In June 2011, the Global Commission on Drug Policy released an important report on the War on Drugs states: "The global war on drugs has failed, with devastating consequences for individuals and communities around the world.Fifty years after the initiation of the United Nations Single Convention on Narcotics Drugs , and a few years after President Nixon launched the US government's war on drugs, fundamental reforms in national and global drug control policies are urgently needed. "The report was criticized by organizations that oppose the general legalization of drugs.
Video War on drugs
Histori
abad ke-20
The first US law to restrict the distribution and use of certain drugs was the Harrison Narcotics Tax Act of 1914. The first local law appeared in early 1860. In 1919, the United States passed the 18th Amendment, banning the sale, manufacture , and transport of alcohol, with the exception of religious and medical uses. In 1920, the United States passed the National Prohibition Act, enacted to implement the provisions of the 18th Amendment law.
The Federal Narcotics Bureau was established at the US Treasury Department with the action of 14 June 1930 (46 Stat. 585). In 1933, the federal ban on alcohol was lifted by part of the 21st Amendment. In 1935, President Franklin D. Roosevelt publicly supported the adoption of the Uniform State Narcotics Drug Act. The New York Times uses the title "Roosevelt Ask for Narcotics War Support".
In 1937, the Law of Marihuana Law of 1937 was passed. Some experts have claimed that the goal is to destroy the hemp industry, largely as the efforts of businessmen Andrew Mellon, Randolph Hearst, and the Du Pont family. These scholars argue that with the discovery of decorticator, hemp is a very cheap substitute for pulp used in the newspaper industry. These scholars believe that Hearst felt that this was a threat to his vast forest ownership. Mellon, the US Treasury Secretary and the richest man in America, has invested heavily in DuPont's new nylon synthetic fibers, and considers its success to depend on the replacement of its traditional hemp resources. However, there are circumstances that conflict with this claim. One reason to doubt such claims is that new decorticators are not entirely satisfactory in commercial production. To produce fiber from hemp is a labor-intensive process if you include harvesting, transportation and processing. Technological developments reduce labor by hemp but not enough to eliminate these losses.
On October 27, 1970 Congress passed the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act 1970, which, among other things, categorized substances controlled on the basis of their drug use and potential addiction. In 1971, two congressmen released an explosion report about a heroin epidemic developed among US soldiers in Vietnam; ten to fifteen percent of the soldiers were addicted to heroin, and President Nixon declared drug abuse to be "public enemy number one".
Although Nixon declared "drug abuse" to be the number one public enemy of 1971, the policy adopted by his administration as part of the Abuse and Abuse of Drug Abuse Prevention in 1970 is a continuation of the US drug ban policy, which began in 1914.
"The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House thereafter, have two enemies: leftists and anti-war blacks You know what I say We know we can not make it illegal to fight war or black, but by publicly associating hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing the two, we can disrupt the community.We can catch their leader, raid their homes, break their encounters, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Do we know we are lying about drugs? Of course we do. " - John Ehrlichman, for Dan Baum for Harper's Magazine in 1994, about President Richard Nixon's war on drugs, declared in 1971.
In 1973, the Drug Eradication Administration was created to replace the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs.
The Nixon Administration also revoked a 2-10 year federal mandatory penalty for marijuana ownership and initiated a federal demand reduction program and drug treatment program. Robert DuPont, "Czar Drug" in the Nixon Administration, stated it would be more accurate to say that Nixon ended, instead of launching, "war on drugs". DuPont also argues that it is a supporter of the legalization of drugs that popularized the term "war on drugs".
In 1982, Vice President George H. W. Bush and his aides began to encourage CIA and US military involvement in drug prohibition efforts.
The Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) was originally established by the National Narcotics Leadership Act of 1988, which mandated a national anti-drug drug campaign for youth, which would later become the National Anti-Drugs National Media Campaign. The ONDCP Director is commonly known as the Drug tsar, and was first implemented in 1989 under President George HW Bush, and was appointed to cabinet-level status by Bill Clinton in 1993. This activity was later funded by the Ministry of Finance and the Public Administration. Act of 1998. The 1998 Drug-Free Media Campaign Act codified the campaign at 21 USCÃ, §§§ 1708.
21st century
The Global Commission on Drug Policy released a report on June 2, 2011, stating that "The War on Drugs Fails." The Commission consists of 22 self-appointed members including prominent international politicians and writers. Surgeon General Regina Benjamin also released the first National Prevention Strategy.
On May 21, 2012, the US Government published the latest version of the Drug Policy. The ONDCP Director states simultaneously that this policy is something different from the "War on Drugs":
- The US government views the policy as a "third way" approach to controlling drugs; an approach based on large investment returns in research from some of the world's leading intellectuals on substance abuse diseases.
- This policy does not see the legalization of drugs as a "silver bullet" solution to drug control.
- This is not a policy in which success is measured by the number of arrests made or imprisoned.
At the same meeting was a declaration signed by representatives of Italy, the Russian Federation, Sweden, Britain and the United States in line with this: "Our approach must be balanced, incorporating effective enforcement to limit the supply of medicines, by reducing demand and building recovery ; support people to live free of addiction. "
In March 2016 the International Narcotics Control Board declared that the International Drug Control treaty did not mandate a "war on drugs."
Maps War on drugs
US domestic policy
Arrest and detention
According to Human Rights Watch, the War on Drugs led to a surge in arrest rates that are disproportionately targeted to African-Americans due to various factors. John Ehrlichman, a Nixon aide, said that Nixon used a war on drugs to criminalize and disrupt black communities and hippies and their leaders.
The current state of detention in the US as a result of the war on drugs arrives at several stages. In 1971, different stops on drugs had been implemented for more than 50 years (eg since 1914, 1937, etc.) with only a very small increase of inmates per 100,000 population. During the first 9 years after Nixon created the phrase "War on Drugs", statistics show only a slight increase in the total number of imprisoned.
After 1980, the situation began to change. In the 1980s, while the number of arrests for all crimes increased by 28%, the number of arrests for drug offenses increased 126%. The result of increasing demand is the development of privatization and nonprofit prison industries. The US Department of Justice, reporting on the impact of state initiatives, has stated that, from 1990 to 2000, "the increasing number of drug offenses accounted for 27% of total growth among black prisoners, 7% of total growth among Hispanic inmates, and 15% growth among white prisoners. "In addition to prison or jail, the United States provides for deportation of many non-citizens convicted of drug offenses.
In 1994, the New England Journal of Medicine reported that the "War on Drugs" resulted in the arrest of one million Americans each year. In 2008, the Washington Post reported that of the 1.5 million Americans arrested each year for drug offenses, half a million will be jailed. In addition, one in five black Americans will spend time behind bars due to drug laws.
Federal and state policies also impose collateral consequences for those convicted of drug offenses, such as a refusal of a benefit or a public license, which does not apply to those convicted of other types of crimes. In particular, part of the 1990-Solomonenberg Lautenberg change led many countries to impose a mandatory driver's license suspension (at least 6 months) for the person committing the drug offense, regardless of whether there was a motor vehicle involved. Approximately 191,000 licenses are suspended in this way by 2016, according to a Prison Policy Initiative report.
Penalties of disparity
In 1986, the US Congress passed a law that created a 100 to 1 inequality penalty for trading or ownership of a gap when compared to the punishment for the trafficking of cocaine powder, which had been widely criticized as discriminatory against minorities, mostly blacks, who are more likely to use crack than cocaine powder. This 100: 1 ratio has been required under federal law since 1986. Persons convicted in federal court have 5 grams of cocaine crack receiving a mandatory minimum 5 years in federal prison. On the other hand, ownership of 500 grams of cocaine powder brings the same sentence. In 2010, the Just Penal Code cuts the penalty to 18: 1.
According to Human Rights Watch, crime statistics show that - in the United States in 1999 - compared to non-minorities, African-Americans were far more likely to be arrested for drug crimes, and received far more severe punishments and sentences.
Statistics from 1998 show that there are major racial differences in arrest, prosecution, punishment and death. African-American drug users accounted for 35% of drug arrests, 55% of confidence, and 74% of people sent to jail for drug possession offenses. African-Americans nationwide are sent to state prisons for drug offenses 13 times more often than other races, even though they comprise only 13% of ordinary drug users.
Anti-drug laws from time to time also show a clear racial bias. University of Minnesota professor and social justice writer Michael Tonry writes, "The War on Drugs can foresee the lives of hundreds and thousands of disadvantaged young Americans and undermine decades of efforts to improve the chances of life for lower-class urban blacks."
In 1968, President Lyndon B. Johnson ruled that the government needed to try to reduce the social unrest surrounding the country at that time. He decided to focus his efforts on the use of illegal drugs, an approach that was consistent with the expert opinion of the subject at the time. In the 1960s, it was believed that at least half of US crimes were drug-related, and this number grew as high as 90 percent over the next decade. He created the 1968 Reorganization Plan that incorporated the Narcotics Bureau and the Drug Abuse Bureau to establish the Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs Bureau within the Justice Department. The current belief in drug use is summarized by journalist Max Lerner in his famous American work as Civilization (1957):
For example, we can take the known facts about the prevalence of reefer and drug addiction in Negro areas. This is basically explained in terms of poverty, slum life, and cluttered families, but it would be easy to point out the lack of drug addiction among other ethnic groups where the same conditions prevail.
Richard Nixon became president in 1969, and did not retreat from the anti-drug precedent set by Johnson. Nixon began nationwide drug raids to enhance his "preserved" reputation. Lois B. Defleur, a social historian who studied drug arrests during this period in Chicago, stated that, "police administrators indicate that they are committing the public's desired arrest". In addition, some newly created Nixon law enforcement agencies will use illegal practices to make arrests as they attempt to meet public demand for the number of arrests. From 1972 to 1973, the Office of Drug Abuse and Law Enforcement committed 6,000 drug arrests in 18 months, the majority of blacks were arrested.
The next two Presidents, Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter, responded with programs that were essentially a continuation of their predecessors. Shortly after Ronald Reagan became President in 1981 he delivered a speech on the topic. Reagan announced, "We lowered the flag of surrender that has flown over so many drug attempts: we run the banner of war." During his first five years in office, Reagan slowly strengthened drug enforcement by creating mandatory minimum penalties and seizure of cash and real estate for drug offenses, policies far more detrimental to poor blacks than any other sector affected by the new law.
Then, fueled by a 1986 cocaine overdose from the black bias star Len Bias, Reagan was able to pass the Anti-Drug Abuse Act through Congress. The law provides an additional $ 1.7 billion to fund the War on Drugs. More importantly, he established 29 new minimum mandatory penalties for drug offenses. Throughout the history of the country up to that time, the legal system saw only a total of 55 minimum sentences. The main provisions of the new penal rules include different mandatory minimums for powder and cocaine. At the time of the bill, there was a public debate about the differences in the potential and effect of cocaine powder, commonly used by whites, and crack cocaine, commonly used by blacks, with many believing that the "crack" was substantially more powerful and addictive.. Crack and cocaine powder are chemicals that are closely related, crack to a smoke free form of powdered cocaine hydrochloride powder that produces shorter, higher when using less drugs. This method is more cost-effective, and is therefore more common in city streets, while cocaine powder remains more popular in white edges. The Reagan administration began to support public opinion against the "gap", prompting DEA official Robert Putnam to play the harmful effects of the drug. Stories of "crack prostitutes" and "crack babies" are common; in 1986, Time has declared a "crack" problem this year. Riding a wave of public fervor, Reagan set a far tougher penalty for crack cocaine, handing him a harder criminal penalty for a much smaller amount of the drug.
Reagan protà © à © gà © Å © gà © Å © and former Vice President George H. W. Bush was next to an oval office, and the drug policy under his supervision held firmly to his political background. Bush retained the hard line drawn by his predecessor and his former boss, increasing the rule of narcotics when the First National Drug Control Strategy was issued by the National Office of Drug Control in 1989.
The next three presidents - Clinton, Bush and Obama - continue this trend, defending the War on Drugs as they inherit it when it takes over office. During the passivities by the federal government, the states started controversial legislation in the War on Drugs. Racial bias manifests itself in the states through controversial policies such as "stopping and swiping" police practices in New York City and the "three strike" crime laws began in California in 1994.
In August 2010, President Obama signed the Fair Penalty Act into a law that dramatically reduces the 100-to-1 inequality of punishment between powder and crack cocaine, which disproportionately affects minorities.
Most commonly used illegal drugs
Commonly used illegal drugs include heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine, and marijuana.
Heroin is a very addictive addict. If caught selling or possessing heroin, the offender may be charged with a crime and face two or four years in jail and be fined up to $ 20,000.
Meth crystal consists of methamphetamine hydrochloride. It is marketed as white powder or in solid form (stone). Ownership of crystal meth can result in punishments varying from fines to imprisonment. As with any other drug crime, the penalty may increase depending on the amount of drug found in the defendant's possession.
Ownership of cocaine is illegal in the US, with cheaper crack cocaine leading to greater penalties. Having is when the defendant deliberately has it in his person, or in a purse or purse. Ownership of cocaine without prior conviction, for the first offense, the person will be sentenced to a maximum of one year in jail or a fine of $ 1,000, or both. If the person has prior confidence, whether it is narcotics or cocaine, they will be sentenced to two years in prison, a $ 2,500 fine, or both. With two or more confidence in possession before this offense, they can be sentenced to 90 days in jail along with a $ 5,000 fine.
Cannabis is the most popular illicit drug in the world. The penalty for ownership is less than the possession of cocaine or heroin. In some US states, drugs are legal. More than 80 million Americans have tried marijuana. The Criminal Defense Attorney states that, depending on the age of the person and how many people have been arrested for ownership, they will be fined and can bid to go to a treatment program rather than going to jail. In each country beliefs are different from how much marijuana they have on the person.
US foreign policy and secret military activities
Some experts claim that the phrase "War on Drugs" is a propaganda that covers the expansion of previous military or paramilitary operations. Others argue that a large number of "drug wars", foreign aid money, training, and equipment are actually used to combat leftist revolts and are often given to groups involved in large-scale narcotics trade, such as corrupt Colombian members. military.
The war in Vietnam
From 1963 to the end of the Vietnam War in 1975, the use of marijuana became commonplace among US soldiers in non-combat situations. Some soldiers also use heroin. Many soldiers ended the use of heroin after returning to the United States but came home with addiction. In 1971, the US military conducted a study of drug use among American soldiers and women. It was found that the daily use rate for pharmaceuticals worldwide was as low as two percent. However, in the spring of 1971, two congressmen released an alarming report that 15% of soldiers in Vietnam were addicted to heroin. The use of marijuana is also common in Vietnam. Soldiers who use drugs have more discipline problems. Frequent drug use has been a problem for Vietnamese commanders; in 1971 an estimated 30,000 drug addicts, most of them heroin.
From 1971, therefore, returnees were required to take a mandatory heroin test. Soldiers tested positive after returning from Vietnam are not allowed to go home until they pass the test with negative results. The program also offers treatments for heroin addicts.
Elliot Borin's article "The US Military Needs Speed" - published on Wired on February 10, 2003 - reported:
But the Department of Defense, which distributed millions of amphetamine tablets to troops during World War II, Vietnam, and the Gulf War, the soldiers insisted that they were not only harmless but beneficial.
In a press conference held in connection with Schmidt and Umbach Article 32 of hearing, Dr. Pete Demitry, an Air Force doctor and a pilot, claimed that "the Air Force has been using (Dexedrine) safely for 60 years" with "no known speed. " related accidents. "
The need for speed, Demitry added "is a matter of life and death for our military."
Intercept operation
One of the first anti-drug attempts in the realm of foreign policy was Operation Operation President Nixon, announced in September 1969, aimed at reducing the amount of marijuana entering the United States from Mexico. This effort began with a rigorous inspection that resulted in almost deadly cross-border traffic. Due to the burden of controversial border crossings in border countries, the effort lasted only twenty days.
Operation Cause Only
On December 20, 1989, the United States attacked Panama as part of Operation Just Cause, which involved 25,000 American troops. General Manuel Noriega, head of the Panamanian government, has provided military assistance to Contra groups in Nicaragua at the request of the US who, instead, tolerates drug trafficking activities, which they have known since the 1960s. When the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) tried to indict Noriega in 1971, the CIA prevented them from doing so. The CIA, later directed by future president George H. W. Bush, gave Noriega hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in payment for his work in Latin America. When CIA pilot Eugene Hasenfus was shot down over Nicaragua by Sandinistas, the above-air document revealed many CIA activities in Latin America, and the CIA's relationship with Noriega became a "responsibility" of public relations for the US government, which ultimately enabled the DEA to indict him for trade drugs, after decades of tolerating its drug operations. Operation Just Cause, which aims to capture Noriega and overthrow his government; Noriega found a temporary asylum in Nuncio Papal, and surrendered to US troops on January 3, 1990. He was sentenced by a court in Miami to 45 years in prison.
Plan Colombia
As part of the Plan Colombia program, the United States government currently provides hundreds of millions of dollars annually in military, training and equipment assistance to Colombia, to combat left-wing guerrillas like the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC-EP)), accused of involvement in trade drugs.
US private companies have signed contracts to carry out anti-drug activities as part of the Colombian Plan. DynCorp, the largest private company involved, was among those contracted by the Department of Foreign Affairs, while others signed contracts with the Department of Defense.
Colombian military personnel have received counter-insurgency training from US military and law enforcement agencies, including the School of Americas (SOA). Author Grace Livingstone has stated that more Colombian SOA graduates have been involved in human rights abuses than currently known SOA graduates from other countries. All brigade commanders highlighted in the 2001 Human Rights Watch report in Colombia are SOA graduates, including the III brigade at Valle del Cauca, where the 2001 Alto Naya Massacre took place. US-trained officers have been accused of being directly or indirectly involved in many atrocities during the 1990s, including the Trujillo Massacre and the 1997 Mapiripa Massacre.
In 2000, the Clinton administration initially ruled out all but one of the human rights conditions inherent in the Colombian Plan, since such assistance was essential to national security at the time.
The efforts of the US and Colombian governments have been criticized for focusing on fighting left-wing guerrillas in the south without applying sufficient pressure on right-wing paramilitaries and continuing drug smuggling operations in the north of the country. Human Rights Watch, congressional committees and other entities have documented links between Colombian military personnel and AUC, which have been registered by the US government as a terrorist group, and that Colombian military personnel have committed human rights abuses that would make them ineligible for aid US under current legislation.
In 2010, the Washington Office in Latin America concluded that both the Colombian Plan and the Colombian government's security strategy "came at a high cost in life and resources, doing only part of the work, resulting in diminished returns and have left the less important institutions. "
A 2014 report by the RAND Corporation, which was issued to analyze a viable strategy for Mexican drug war considering the success experienced at Columbia, notes:
Between 1999 and 2002, the United States provided $ 2.04 billion in aid to Colombia, 81 percent for military purposes, placing Colombia directly under Israel and Egypt among the largest recipients of US military aid. Colombia increased its spending from 3.2 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2000 to 4.19 percent in 2005. Overall, the results are very positive. Greater spending on infrastructure and social programs helped the Colombian government improve its political legitimacy, while better security forces were better able to consolidate control over large swathes of countries previously controlled by insurgents and drug cartels.
It also notes that, "The Colombian plan has been widely hailed as a success, and some analysts believe that, by 2010, Colombia's security forces are finally getting the most profit once and for all."
MÃÆ' Â © rida Initiative
The MÃÆ' Â © rida Initiative is a security cooperation between the United States and the governments of Mexico and the countries of Central America. It was approved on 30 June 2008, and its goal was to combat the threat of drug trafficking and transnational crime. The MÃÆ' Â © rida Initiative allocated $ 1.4 billion in a three-year commitment (2008-2010) to the Mexican government for training and military and law enforcement equipment, as well as technical advice and training to strengthen the national justice system. The MÃÆ' Â © rida Initiative targets many very important government officials, but fails to address the thousands of Central Americans who must flee from their country due to the dangers they face daily due to the war on drugs. There is still no type of plan addressed to these people. No weapons are included in the plan.
Application of air herbicides
The United States regularly sponsors large-scale herbicide spraying such as glyphosate in the forests of Central America and South America as part of drug eradication programs. The environmental consequences resulting from air fumigation have been criticized for harming some of the world's most fragile ecosystems; Similar air fumigation practices are more credited with causing health problems in the local population.
AS. operations in Honduras
In 2012, the US sends DEA agents to Honduras to assist the security forces in counter-narcotics operations. Honduras has been a major deterrent to drug dealers, who use small plane and landing lanes hidden across the country to transport drugs. The US government entered into agreements with several Latin American countries to share information and resources to fight drug trafficking. DEA agents, working with other US agencies such as the Department of Foreign Affairs, the CBP, and the Joint-Bravo Task Force, assisted Honduran forces in carrying out raids at the merchant's operations site.
Public support and opposition in the United States
The War on Drugs has been a very controversial issue from the start. A poll on October 2, 2008, found that three out of four Americans believe that War On Drugs failed.
At a meeting in Guatemala in 2012, three former presidents from Guatemala, Mexico and Colombia said that the fight against drugs had failed and that they would propose a discussion on alternatives, including decriminalization, at an American summit in April of that year. Guatemalan President Otto PÃ © Ã © rez Molina says that the fight against drugs demands too high a price on Central American life and that it is time to "end the taboo in discussing decriminalization". At the summit, the Colombian government pushed the furthest change in drug policy since the war on narcotics was declared by Nixon four decades earlier, citing the impact of the catastrophe in Colombia.
Some criticisms have compared the wholesale detention of the disagreeing minorities of drug users to the detention of other minority wholesalers in history. Psychiatrist Thomas Szasz, for example, wrote in 1997. "Over the past thirty years, we have replaced the medical-political persecution of illegal ('obscene' and 'psychopathic') sex users with a more violent political-medical persecution of illegal drugs users. "
Socio-economic effects
Create a permanent underclass
The penalties for drug crime among American youth almost always involve permanent or semi-permanent removal of opportunities for education, stripping of their voting rights, and then involve making criminal records that make the work even more difficult. Thus, some authors argue that the War on Drugs has resulted in the creation of a permanent lower class of people who have little educational or employment opportunities, often as a result of punishment for drug offenses which in turn resulted from attempts to earn a living. despite having no education or job opportunities.
Fees for taxpayers
According to a 2008 study published by Harvard economist Jeffrey A. Miron, the annual savings on enforcement and containment costs of drug legalization will amount to approximately $ 41.3 billion, with $ 25.7 billion being saved between states and over $ 15 , 6 billion accrued to federal government. Miron estimates at least $ 46.7 billion in tax revenues based on levels comparable to those in tobacco and alcohol ($ 8.7 billion of marijuana, $ 32.6 billion from cocaine and heroin, the rest from other drugs ).
Low taxation in Central American countries has been credited with the weakening of regional responses in dealing with drug traffickers. Many cartels, notably Los Zetas, have taken advantage of the limited resources of these countries. The 2010 tax revenues in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras, comprise only 13.53% of GDP. For comparison, in Chile and the US, taxes are respectively 18.6% and 26.9% of GDP. However, the direct tax on income is very difficult to enforce and in some cases tax evasion is seen as a national pastime.
Impact on planter
The status of coca and coca farmers has become a strong political issue in several countries, including Colombia and particularly Bolivia, where president, Evo Morales, former coca farmer union leader, has promised to legalize traditional cultivation and coca-use. Indeed, legalization efforts have resulted in some success under the Morales government when combined with aggressive and targeted eradication efforts. The country saw a 12-13% decline in coca cultivation in 2011 under Morales, which has used a coca farmer federation to ensure compliance with the law rather than providing a leading role for the security forces.
The policy of coca eradication has been criticized for its negative impact on the livelihood of coca farmers in South America. In many areas of South America coca leaves have traditionally been chewed and used in tea and for religious purposes, medicines and nutrients by the locals. For this reason many are adamant that the illegality of traditional coca cultivation is unfair. In many areas, the US government and military have forced coca eradication without providing meaningful alternative crops to farmers, and have also destroyed many of their food or market crops, leaving them starving and destitute.
Allegations of US government involvement in drug trafficking
The CIA, the DEA, the State Department, and several other US government agencies have been allegedly linked to various groups involved in drug trafficking.
CIA and Contra cocaine trafficking
US Senator Senator John Kerry 1988 The Committee on Foreign Relations reported the Contra drug link concluding that members of the US Department of State "who provided support for Contras engaged in drug trafficking... and the Contras elements themselves consciously received financial and material assistance from drug traffickers "The report further states that" Contra drug links include... payments to drug traffickers by the US Treasury endorsed by Congress for humanitarian aid to the Contras, in some cases after merchants have been indicted by federal law enforcement agencies. drug charges, while others while merchants are being actively investigated by this same agency. "
In 1996, journalist Gary Webb published a report on San Jose Mercury News, and later in his book Dark Alliance, detailing how Contras, has been involved in distributing cocaine to Los Angeles while receiving money from the CIA. Contras uses money from drug trafficking to buy weapons.
Webb's views on US Government connections were initially attacked at the time by the media. It is now widely accepted that Webb's main statement about "knowledge of drug operations, and collaboration with drug and drug dealers" by Webb is correct. In 1998, CIA Inspector General, Frederick Hitz, published a two-volume report that seemed to dispute claims about Webb's knowledge and collaboration in conclusion did not deny it in his body. Hitz went on to recognize the CIA's fraud in an affair in testimony to the House congressional committee. There was a reversal between the mainstream media of his position on Webb's work, with acknowledgment made of his contribution to uncover a scandal he had ignored.
According to Rodney Campbell, an editorial assistant for Nelson Rockefeller, during World War II, the United States Navy, concerned that strikes and labor disputes in the eastern ports of the US cruise would disrupt wartime logistics, free Mafia Lucky Luciano from prison, and collaborate with him. to help the mafia control the port. Trade union members were terrorized and killed by mafia members as a means to prevent labor unrest and ensure the smooth delivery of goods to Europe.
According to Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St Clair, to prevent members of the elected Communist party in Italy after World War II, the CIA worked closely with the Sicilian Mafia, protecting them and assisting in heroin smuggling operations around the world. The Mafia was in conflict with the left and was involved in the murder, torture and beating of left political organizers.
Benefits of the United States war against drugs
In 1986, the US Department of Defense funded a two-year study by the RAND Corporation, which found that the use of armed forces to ban drugs entering the United States will have little or no effect on cocaine traffic and may, in fact, increase cartel and producer earnings cocaine. The 175-page study, "Sealing the Borders: Effects of Increased Military Participation in Drug Interdiction", was prepared by seven researchers, mathematicians and economists at the National Defense Research Institute, RAND branch, and released in 1988. The study notes that seven previous studies in nine Recent years, including one by the Naval Research Center and the Office of Technology Assessment, have come to similar conclusions. The ban effort, using current armed forces resources, will hardly affect cocaine imports to the United States, the report concludes.
During the early to mid-1990s, the Clinton administration ordered and funded a major cocaine policy study, again by RAND. The Rand Research Policy Research Center study concluded that $ 3 billion should be diverted from federal and local law enforcement to treatment. The report says that treatment is the cheapest way to cut drug use, stating that drug treatment is twenty-three times more effective than "war on drugs" on the supply side.
The National Research Committee's Board of Data and Research for the Policy on Illegal Drugs published its findings in 2001 on the efficacy of drug warfare. The NRC Committee found that the existing research on efforts to address drug use and smuggling, from US military operations to eradicate coca fields in Colombia, to domestic drug treatment centers, have all been inconclusive, if the program has been evaluated at all: "Existing drug use monitoring systems are inadequate to support the various policy decisions that the state must make.... It is unfair for this country to continue to implement this massive public policy and cost in no way to know whether and to what extent it has the desired effect. " The study, though not ignored by the press, was ignored by top-level policymakers, who chaired Committee Chairman Charles Manski to conclude, as noted by an observer, that "the drug war has no interest in its own results".
In mid-1995, the US government tried to reduce the supply of methamphetamine precursors to disrupt the drug market. According to a 2009 study, this effort was successful, but the effect was largely temporary.
During the alcohol ban, the period 1920-1933, the use of alcohol initially fell but began to rise in early 1922. It has been extrapolated that even if the ban was not revoked in 1933, alcohol consumption would quickly surpass the pre-ban level. One argument against the War on Drugs is that it uses similar steps as Prohibition and is no more effective.
In the six years from 2000 to 2006, the US spent $ 4.7 billion on Plan Colombia, an attempt to root coca production in Colombia. The main result of this effort is to divert coca production to more remote areas and to force other forms of adaptation. The total area cultivated for coca in Colombia at the end of six years was found to be the same, after the US Drugs Czar Office announced a change in methodological measurement in 2005 and included new areas in the survey. Cultivation in Peru and Bolivia's neighboring countries is on the rise, some people will describe this effect like a balloon squeeze.
Richard Davenport-Hines, in his book The Pursuit of Oblivion , criticizes the efficacy of the War on Drugs by pointing out that
10-15% of forbidden heroin and 30% of forbidden cocaine are intercepted. Drug dealers have a gross profit margin of up to 300%. At least 75% of the shipment of illegal drugs should be intercepted before the merchant's profits are saved.
Alberto Fujimori, Peruvian president from 1990 to 2000, described the US foreign drug policy as "failing" on the grounds that "for 10 years, there was a large amount of invested by the Peruvian government and other amounts on the part of the American government, and this did not cause a reduction the supply of coca leaves offered for sale.In contrast, within 10 years from 1980 to 1990, it grew 10-fold. "
At least 500 economists, including Nobel Laureate Milton Friedman, George Akerlof and Vernon L. Smith, have noted that reducing the supply of marijuana without reducing demand causes prices, and therefore the profit of cannabis sellers, rises, according to the law of supply and demand. Increased profits encourage manufacturers to produce more drugs despite the risks, providing a theoretical explanation for why attacks on drug supplies fail to have lasting effects. The economists mentioned above published an open letter to President George W. Bush stating "We urge... the state to start an open and honest debate about the prohibition of marijuana... At least, this debate will force the current policy advocates to show that the ban has enough benefits to justify the fees to taxpayers, lost tax revenues and the additional consequences resulting from the prohibition of marijuana. "
The Declaration of the World Forum Against Drugs, 2008 states that a balanced policy of preventing drug abuse, education, treatment, law enforcement, research, and supply reduction provides the most effective platform for reducing drug abuse and related hazards and calling on governments to consider demand reduction as false one of their first priorities in the fight against drug abuse.
Although more than $ 7 billion is spent annually to capture and prosecute nearly 800,000 people nationwide for marijuana offenses in 2005 (FBI Uniform Crime Reports), the Federal-funded Future Monitoring Survey reports about 85% of senior high school seniors find marijuana " easily obtained". That number has remained virtually unchanged since 1975, never falling below 82.7% in the three decades of a nationwide survey. The Drug Enforcement Administration states that the number of US cannabis users declined between 2000 and 2005 even with many countries issuing new medical marijuana laws that make access easier, even though usage rates remain higher than in the 1990s according to the National Survey on Use Drugs and Health.
ONDCP stated in April 2011 that there has been a 46 percent decrease in cocaine use among young adults over the past five years, and a 65 percent decrease in the rate of positive people using cocaine at work since 2006. At the same time, a 2007 study found that up to 35% of college students use stimulants that are not prescribed to them.
A study in 2013 found that the heroin, cocaine and marijuana prices had declined from 1990 to 2007, but the purity of these drugs has increased over the same time.
The War on Drugs is often called policy failure.
Legality
The Legality of the War on Drugs has been challenged in four major regions in the US.
- It is said that the drug ban, as it is currently applied, violates the doctrine of the substantive judicial process because its benefits do not justify the violation of the right that should be guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment and Fourteenth of the US Constitution. On July 27, 2011, US District Judge Mary S. Scriven ruled that Florida law intended to abolish intent as an element of drug possession is unconstitutional. The commentator explains the decision in terms of legal process.
- Religious freedom of conscience legally enables some (eg, members of the Native American Church) to use peyotes with certain spiritual or religious motives. The use of sacramental dimethyltryptamine in the form of ayahuasca is also permitted for the members of the UniÃÆ'Â Â o o to do Vegetal. The Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment implies there is no requirement for a person to affiliate with an official church - hence leaving some ambiguity.
- It has been argued that the Trade Clause means that the power to regulate drug use should be a non-federal state law.
- The injustice of prosecution of war against certain drugs but not alcohol or tobacco is also questionable.
Alternative
Some authors believe that the federal and state governments of the United States have chosen the wrong method to combat the distribution of illicit substances. Aggressive and heavy-handed enforcement involves people through courts and prisons; instead of treating the cause of addiction, the focus of government efforts is on punishment. By making illegal drugs rather than managing them, War on Drugs creates a very profitable black market. Jefferson Fish has edited a collection of scientific articles offering a wide range of alternative and community-based health-based alternative medicine policies.
In 2000, the United States' drug control budget reached 18.4 billion dollars, nearly half of which was used to finance law enforcement while only a sixth was spent on treatment. In 2003, 53 percent of the drug control budget requested was for enforcement, 29 percent for treatment, and 18 percent for prevention. The state of New York, in particular, assigned 17 percent of its budget for spending related to drug abuse. Of that, only one percent is devoted to prevention, treatment, and research.
In a survey taken by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), it was found that drug users who remained in longer treatment tended to continue their previous habits. Of the people studied, 66 percent were cocaine users. After undergoing long-term hospitalization, only 22 percent returned cocaine. Treatment has reduced the number of cocaine abusers by two-thirds. By spending most of his money on law enforcement, the federal government has underestimated the true value of drug treatment facilities and its benefits against reducing the number of addicts in the US.
In 2004 the federal government issued a National Drug Control Strategy. It supports programs designed to expand treatment options, improve treatment delivery, and improve treatment outcomes. For example, the Strategy provides SAMHSA with a $ 100.6 million grant to include in their Access to Recovery (ATR) initiative. ATR is a program that provides vouchers to addicts to give them the means to obtain clinical care or recovery support. The objectives of the project are to expand capacity, support client choice, and improve various faith-based and community-based providers for clinical care and support recovery services. The ATR program will also provide more flexible services based on individual care needs.
The 2004 Strategy also announced a significant $ 32 million increase in the Drug Court Program, which provides detainees with alternative drug abusers. Instead of prison, drug courts identify offenders who abuse substance and place them under strict court control and community oversight, and provide them with long-term treatment services. According to a report issued by the National Drug Court Institute, drug courts have various benefits, with only 16.4 percent of national drug court graduates being recaptured and accused of crimes within one year of completion of the program (versus 44.1% end up in jail within 1 year). Additionally, enrolling an addict in a drug court program is much cheaper than imprisoning someone in jail. According to the Bureau of Prisons, the cost to cover the average cost of detention for Federal inmates in 2006 was $ 24,440. The annual fee of receiving treatment in a drug court program ranges from $ 900 to $ 3,500. The drug court in New York State alone saved $ 2.54 million in prison fees.
Describing the failure of the Drug War, New York Times columnist Eduardo Porter notes:
Jeffrey Miron, an economist at Harvard who studies drug policy closely, has suggested that legalizing all illegal drugs would generate net benefits for the United States at about $ 65 billion annually, mostly by cutting public spending for law enforcement and through crime reduction and corruption. A study by analysts at RAND Corporation, a California research organization, suggests that if marijuana is legalized in California and the drug spills from there to other countries, Mexican drug cartels will lose about a fifth of their annual income of about $ 6.5 billion from illegal. export to USA.
Many believe that War on Drugs is very expensive and ineffective especially because of the inadequate emphasis placed on addiction treatment. The United States leads the world in drug use and detention rates. 70% of men arrested in metropolitan areas tested positive for illicit substances, and 54% of all jailed men would be repeat offenders.
Source of the article : Wikipedia
0 Comments