President Richard Nixon invented the phrase "war on drugs" and used it in a political environment much like we are experiencing today. Mr. Nixon was faced with an unwinnable war in Viet Nan and growing trade deficit and inflation in America. And on the 17th June 1971, Nixon declared illegal drugs "public enemy number one ."
Thirty-eight years later, Mr. Obama has also faced with the seemingly unwinnable, war in Iraq and Afghanistan with a growing deficit and rising inflation on the domestic front. And yet the legacy of the war on drugs raring its ugly head require Obama to address the problem sooner rather than later. During the Obama townhall meeting online issue of legalizing marijuana was one of the most popular questions submitted to the Government's website. After several attempts to evade an answer to the question of legalization of marijuana, said Mr. Obama ", the answer is no, I do not think that is a good strategy for growing our economy ."
The issue of legalizing marijuana got a lot of ink, the mass media is all over it. However, the public should not be blinded by the bright lights of the legalization debate, but should look into the mysterious activities taking place on the Mexican border. How to fight the war on drugs, Mr. Nixon has created an army to fight against the drug agency now known as the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA). With the creation of federal agencies under the label "war" president transmitted drug problems of state and local communities where the focus was on treatment of illegal drugs. "war" on drugs approach also addressed the treatment model, but also established a special enforcement agencies that operate under the presidential mandate.
Mr. Nixon's anti-drug legacy created an environment that in practice the fundamental mechanisms of social control that are still active in today's society. wide spread criminalization of drugs is responsible for the closure of many young African-American and Latino-American. war on drugs has served as a distraction from the serious social and political issues that pervade America during the 1970th war on drugs and zero tolerance law is a vehicle to channel vast amounts of taxpayers' money to support a corrupt and abusive police force instead of drug treatment and community prevention programs.
Laura Carlsen, a reporter for Foreign Policy in Focus (FPIF), said that the war on drugs has also proven a useful tool for geo-political control abroad. By elevating drug trafficking at the level of national security, war on drugs model has led to U.S. intervention in politics and the drug producing and drug-transit nations. war on drugs has been used to justify the militarization of the entire field of foreign nations like Colombia, or the invasion of Panama to remove inconvenient foreign leaders. A far reaching arms of the United States security agenda came to a neighboring country of Mexico.
Mexican President Felipe Calderon appears to be following in the foot steps of Richard Nixon, with several pages from Mr. Bush's strategy book. By setting in motion a war on drugs, Mr. Calderon hopes to expand the powers of the presidency and the Unable to locate image itself a strong leader in the deeply polarized socio-political environment. Like the Bush administration, Mr. Calderon announced constitutional reforms removing all legal barriers designed to prevent the illegal phone taps, detentions, and searches in the case of organized crime, as reported by Barbara Zamora, a lawyer and human rights defenders.
So far, Obama has given mixed messages about the war on drugs. What is known, however, that the Obama administration has said that more border agents and troops will be deployed to stem drug-related violence that has spilled into the United States. On the other hand, President Calderon said that the assistance that America is too little to deal with a drug problem in Mexico. Mr. Calderon has called on President Obama to contribute tens of billions of additional dollars to help Mexico fight its war on drugs, such as the Financial Times reported. It's the same approach taken by Mr. Nixon in 1971 to reward its friends and punish your enemies.
There are those who believe that Mr. Obama must take a position on the war against drugs - the rest of the fence is unacceptable and will encourage supporters of the war on drugs approach in order to justify military responses that promote their causes, regardless of the counterproductive results And serve to highlight the failure as success. excessive risk assessment that is too often over-amplified by the mass media that reenforce the public with fear and uncertainty that could clear the way for military intervention at the border of Mexico, using the war on drugs as a rationalization.
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