Drugs and War | Economics Assignment

Running Head: ECONOMICS
ECONOMICS
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author’s Note

1ECONOMICS
Question 1:
The War on Drugs began under President Richard Nixon, and the movement continues to
enact and enforce policies related to the prohibition of Drugs for the achievement of varied
objectives. The proponents of US Drug policy argue that the drug use and trafficking adversely
impact the public health, social wealth, unemployment issues, criminal activities and its
promotion, corruption in the activities related to law enforcement, and other officials elected by
the government (Brown 2017). Thus, the aim of the war on drugs is to combat the alleged
adversities of the illicit use of drugs resulting in the jeopardizing of our health and social well-
being. It has been contended that banning the use of drugs would help the officials in achieving
their target to eradicate the drug market. However, it has been argued that the prohibition acts as
a taxation scheme on the sellers and vendors who are engaged in the marketing of drugs
including the cost in capturing the vendors and sellers and eradicating their business models.
Further the violence in the drug markets may be an outcome of the restriction imposed by the
prohibition and not from the inter-gang rivalry (Andreas 2019). Thus, it has been explained that
it is the prohibition and the idea of restriction which has led to the violence in the market and
increased corruption because the once a substance is illegal, the buyers and sellers are
automatically referred to as the criminals and hence the failure of the policy because it paves way
for higher cost when the supply is less with demand, and other factors remaining the same.
Question 2:
The Human Rights Watch has observed increasing and high number of arrest rates which
can be explained as disproportion towards the African Americans who were targeted for the
purpose(Lim 2018). It has been explained that the war On Drugs was specifically designed to