WK6 War on Drugs History Coursework Research Paper

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The War on Drugs is a phrase that often connotes the efforts of the government to eliminate usage, distribution, and trade of illegal drugs. Various governments, particularly the US, aim to stop this practice due to its numerous negative effects and results. Drug abuse has been increasingly prevalent among adults during the 1970s that led to the declaration of the War on Drugs. The use of drugs for recreational and medical purposes has been taking place ever since. Due to substance abuse and to levy taxes, laws have emerged to ban and regulate these drugs. However, support from the public for the war on drugs has been declining recently in the past decades. For several, the campaign has been ineffectual which resulted in the racial divide.
According to a 2011 analysis conducted by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, the largest source of income by transnational crime is attributed to illicit drugs. It has been estimated that the market value of these drugs reached up to US$322 billion in 2003 which is higher than the GDP of 88 percent of the world countries combined that year. Trading illicit drugs have become a source of vast wealth by the organized crime groups originating from several countries. Over the decades, governmental efforts focused on the prosecution, extradition, surveillance, imprisonment, and even the killing of these kingpins and low-level dealers from both destination and source countries such as Colombia and Peru. Even the mere use and possession of drugs have been criminalized which resulted in prisons becoming overcrowded with low-level drug trade participants. Furthermore, governments have engaged in fumigating crops and encouraged farmer s to plant other different crops. In 2003, approximately 139,000 hectares were sprayed with chemicals to fumigate the crops as a source of these illicit drugs. These are only a few of the e...