Many have heard the term “war on drugs.” To many, this may seem like a bold but necessary response to the drug problem in the United States. After all, drug addiction is a huge problem in America. It tears families apart and is devastating to lives across the nation. In the 1970s there were many movements that then-President Richard Nixon felt compelled to fight against. He warned that people who participate in these acts will be arrested and spoke often about the need to follow American laws and respect them, mainly talking about drugs. This began the era of treating drug addiction and drug dependence as a crime problem rather than a health problem. The “War on Drugs” was never intended as a fight against harmful drugs, but as a powerful movement to tear apart and incarcerate black communities after the abolition of slavery in the United States. While President Nixon was introducing this idea to the American people, the next president, Ronald Reagan, literally took action with the “War on Drugs.” Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay The history behind the “War on Drugs” is worth delving into. To do this, we must take into consideration the United States' Thirteenth Amendment, which states: “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude.” This seems fair enough and also quite logical. But this amendment contains a clause that makes the difference. This clause states: "except as punishment for crime of which the party has been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States or any place subject to the jurisdiction thereof." Many, including myself, agree that this clause is a loophole that leaves room for increased mass incarceration. According to Flores A. Forbes, a formerly incarcerated writer, “Our ultimate target is the millions of ex-convicts who are treated as former slaves and, after their emancipation from prison, as second-class citizens. We are collaborating with the civic, private, and public sectors to mount an effort that is not just about social justice, but about economic justice. The "exception" clause essentially represents an economic deviation towards the real freedom of a people." This loophole in the 13th Amendment leaves too much room for discrimination and inhumane cheap labor for incarcerated people. While I agree that those who intentionally cause harm or break the just laws of the United States should be reprimanded, this was not the case after the abolition of slavery in 1865. Before that, blacks contributed significantly significant to the economy and workforce of the American South. When slavery was finally abolished, the economy suffered a significant loss. In a racist attempt to offset this negative effect on the economy, southern blacks were discriminated against and often arrested for minor crimes. They were put in prison and incarcerated so that our government would receive free labor to make up for the lost slave labor. According to Andrea Armstrong, a law professor at Loyola University New Orleans, “What we see after the passage of the 13th Amendment is the convergence of a couple of different things. First, the text of the 13th Amendment allows for involuntary servitude upon conviction of a crime. At the same time, the “black codes” in the South created new types of crimes, especially attitudinal crimes: disrespect, that kind of thing.” Blacks were arrested for minor crimes, such as loitering or being “disrespectful,” fueling the idea that blacks wereinherently dangerous or “animal” in some sense. The demonization of the black community was incredibly present in the news, media and television. They were described as criminals, rapists and drug addicts. According to racialequitytools.org, “While many aspects of the actual lived experience of Black males tend to be missing from collective media representation, some aspects are very present and, in fact, exaggerated.” While we may have been subconsciously conditioned to think that Blacks are inherently more dangerous and more likely to commit crimes than whites, this mentality is what the media wants you to believe, “Perhaps the most discussed pattern is the association between black males and crime, in particular in television news – where they are not only likely to appear as criminals, but are likely to be shown in ways that make them seem particularly threatening (compared to white criminals, for example) they are overrepresented as perpetrators of violent crimes when covered Journalism is compared to arrest rates, but they are underrepresented in the more inclusive roles of victim and law enforcement officer.” Therefore, this proves the idea that black men are no more susceptible to committing crimes than white men, but we have been programmed to believe the opposite. While all this was happening in the late 1800s and 1900s, when Richard Nixon was elected as President of the United States in 1969, the prison population in the United States began to increase. Richard Nixon was a California Republican who had previously served as vice president and senator. He believed in strong conservative values ​​and often spoke out about issues that were “torn apart” America. The late 1960s and early 1970s in the United States were famous for many movements, such as women's liberation, the Black Panthers, gay liberation, and the anti-war movement. President Nixon is quoted as saying, “There can be no progress in America without respect for the law.” He has often spoken of fighting against these “dangerous” social movements and has promised to take every action necessary to impoverish them. President Nixon declared: “We need an all-out war against the evils we see in our cities. Federal spending on local law enforcement will double. We must wage what I have called “total war” against public enemy no. 1 in the United States; the problem of dangerous drugs”. President Nixon coined the term “War on Drugs,” which began the era in which drug addiction and drug addiction were treated as a crime problem rather than a health problem. According to Nixon, "America's public enemy No. 1 is drug abuse." President Nixon felt compelled to combat these problems, as he thought they were causing soaring rates of crime and drug abuse, or at least that's what we were led to believe. . John Ehrlichman, one of Richard Nixon's top advisors, was recorded saying, “The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House afterward, had two enemies: the antiwar left and blacks. Do you understand what I'm saying? 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. This statement devalued all previous statements and views of thepresident on this issue, but the majority of the American public has turned a blind eye to this truth that has been revealed. During Nixon's time as president, incarceration rates continued to rise. Hundreds of thousands of people were incarcerated for simple possession of marijuana, a very low-level crime. Most of those sent to prison were black men. The oppressor could not be “slavery,” but it could be “prison,” which was apparently the same thing. Black men were torn from their families and thrown into prison for the same crimes for which white men would receive a simple slap on the back. wrist. In 1981, Ronald Reagan, a former Hollywood actor, was elected president of the United States. Voters liked him for his public speaking skills and his optimistic views on American politics. His wife, Nancy Reagan, was also popular in the public eye. During his term, President Reagan took many drastic steps that even former President Richard Nixon avoided. While President Nixon spoke mostly about the metaphorical “war on drugs,” President Reagan took action on the literal war on drugs, with First Lady Nancy Reagan as spokesperson. According to drugpolicy.org, “Richard Nixon officially launched the war on drugs in 1971, but his war was modest compared to Reagan's. Reagan's presidency marked the beginning of a long period of skyrocketing incarceration rates, largely thanks to his unprecedented expansion of the war on drugs. The number of people behind bars for nonviolent drug law violations increased from 50,000 in 1980 to more than 400,000 in 1997.” (Newman, para. 2). Nancy Reagan started a drug prevention campaign called "Just Say No". The advertising campaign was aimed primarily at discouraging children from using and abusing recreational drugs by offering various ways to say “no.” In her “Just Say No” campaign ad, Nancy Reagan reportedly said, “There is an epidemic of drug and alcohol abuse in this country and no one is safe from it. Not you, not me, and certainly not our children. Because this epidemic has their names written all over it. Many of you may think, "well, drugs don't bother me," but it concerns you, because of the way it destroys our lives and because it aims to destroy the brightness in the lives of your sons and daughters. of the United States.” While the “Just Say No” campaign was in full effect, there were also a lot of shady things going on behind the scenes. President Reagan signed the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986, which “was a drug war law passed by the United States Congress. Among other things, they transformed the federal supervised release system from a rehabilitative system to a penal system. The 1986 law also prohibited analogues of controlled substances. The bill introduced new mandatory minimum sentences for drugs, including marijuana.” This bill targeted black and poor communities and sent thousands of people to prison for first-time, nonviolent drug offenses. At the same time, the more expensive form of powdered crack, more commonly known as cocaine, has had little to no repercussions. Cocaine was considered more “sophisticated” and was more expensive. Therefore, he was mainly associated with wealthy white men. When caught with the drug, individuals often received a "slap on the wrist" compared to the drug's rock-form counterpart. This unequal punishment further fueled the prison population, and by 1990 the United States prison population stood at over 777,000. Even today we see the harmful effects in our prison system due to the racist “War on Drugs”. The United States.