The war on drugs has been lost, and just like countless other redundant efforts society has undertaken, we continue to insist on the exact opposite. We have lost billions of dollars from the economy, ruined countless innocent lives, and created a shameful stigma around people with addiction problems. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay Although governments have taken action against drug use since the beginning of the 20th century, the real "declaration of war" against drugs was made by Nixon in 1971, when US President Richard Nixon announced that drugs were “public enemy number one in the United States.” He explained that the reasons for this were that drugs such as marijuana were driving teenagers crazy, leading to violence and rape, and that women were turning into psychotic drug addicts. Furthermore, the reason for this sudden attack was not due to increased consumption or increased overdose deaths, but rather so that Nixon's government could smear its enemies. Nixon's domestic policy advisor, John Ehrlichman, was leading this battle and several years later, in 1994, in an interview with Dan Baum for Harper's magazine he stated: “Do you want to know what this was really about? The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House thereafter, had two enemies: the anti-war left and blacks. We knew we couldn't make it illegal to be anti-war or to be black, but by getting the public to associate hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then heavily criminalizing both, we could destroy those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, disrupt their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about drugs? Of course we did." The war on drugs has deep roots in systemic human rights violations and has since caused countless race-based stereotypes and conflicts. This is proven in countless studies, such as a statistical analysis report conducted by the Bureau of Justice Statistics showing that although white males are 3 times more likely to become addicted to drugs, black males are 2.5 times more likely to be arrested for drug possession. And according to the FBI, DEA, Creative Spirits, ABS and other institutions, about 1 in 3 dark-skinned adults will be arrested or spend time in prison for nonviolent drug crimes, compared to the average of 1 white adult on 19. Beyond that, these tactics have proven to be ineffective. We are repeating the past and are condemned to make the same fatal mistakes as before. In the ACT there was a prohibition on alcohol from 1910 to 1928. Just as in America and every other country people continued to drink alcohol by any means necessary, this in turn caused several social and political problems and when the substances were banned, time and once again it was proven that the potency increases. People will pay for anything they can get their hands on, and if you were to receive the same punishment if you take a low quality product for a high quality product, why not go for the stronger option, why take a substance that It makes you go "meh" when you can get one that induces seemingly endless laughter and moments of fun. This leads directly to an increase in unnecessary nonviolent incarcerations and alcohol-related injuries and even deaths. The exact same effect is occurring with illicit and prohibited drugs, as they are illegal, their potency is increased and new.