The War On Drugs Summary

Allen, Danielle. “How the War on Drugs Creates Violence.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 16 Oct.2015,www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/how-the-war-on- drugs-creates- violence/2015/10/16/6de57a76-72b7-11e5-9cbb-79036964 3cf9_story.html. Danielle Allen’s introduction provides ideas on how to handle the drugs that the War on Drugs has been having issues with. Once she states these ideas the rest of the article builds on them by providing examples on how the War on Drugs hasn’t been effective. Allen’s main point is that the War on Drugs ineffectiveness creates violence. She describes the trigger-happy cops and citizens to prove that the War on Drugs has created a system that doesn’t give justice and keeps people on edge. Allen’s concluding paragraph …show more content…
The first two decades discussed are the 60s and 70s when the War on Drugs was declared. During these decades, drugs were given a bad reputation because of former President Nixon’s political agenda. The next two decades talk about the War on Drug’s expansion and harsh zero tolerance drug policies. These rigid laws have remained since the late 80’s. The Drug Policy Alliance explains that in an effort to end these harsh laws, it created this website. The author of this article is the website itself. Even though there is no definitive author, the website itself is credible because it’s founder is Ethan Nadelmann. Nadelmann has a Ph.D. in Political Science from Harvard as well as a Masters' degree in International Relations. He and his colleagues have also helped reform drug sentencing and marijuana policy, which are involved with the War on Drugs. Lastly, their members are from both left and right sides of the political spectrum, making their organization more diverse and less prone to one-sided …show more content…
2016,www.drugpolicy.org/sites/default/files/DPA% 20Fact%20Sheet_Drug%20War%20Mass%20Incarceration%20and%20Race_(Feb.%202016).pdf. The Drug Policy Alliance starts by showcasing some statistics about the incarceration rates that the War on Drugs has caused an increase in. Accompanying these statistics is a graph that shows how many people are incarcerated compared to other countries. Another three graphs are presented to help illustrate different aspects of the War on Drugs, such as incarceration rates throughout the years, the impact of drugs laws on minorities, incarceration rates of males by race. Each graph had an explanation below it. The end of this piece contains a list of policy recommendations to help with the problems that were pointed out. The last page of this PDF was a list of the sources in APA format. They used endnotes to help locate where their information came from in their sources page. There weren’t a lack of sources, so there was a variety of information to justify their claims, but the sources were hard to get to. The Drug Policy Alliance’s is an activist group with the goal to end the War on Drugs. They are a non-profit organization, so they aren’t spreading this awareness with money in mind; their activism is done with people's well-being in mind. These reasons make them a credible source for most

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