Drugs and Society questions

Section 1

C.

Three myths of the illicit drug trade are that it is the biggest market on earth but at the same time it is in the black market which is not true (although it is a huge enterprise it is not the biggest market in the world). Another myth is that it is centralized and has one boss to rule over all of the trade which is also not true (people think there is one cartel in Mexico for example) which is also not true as there are many cartels that handle different illicit substances. Another myth is that the illicit drug trade is a huge economic liability which it is also not as in some way it helps the economy as there is a constant cash flow which is also a positive as that helps local economies.

Section 2

E.

During Nixon’s time as president of the United States of America, he changed the focus of fighting drugs by concentrating on treatment and prevention instead of incarcerating people. There was even a program called the Illinois Drug Abuse Program that was in place to help reduce overdoses and crime rates which it effectively did, and even marijuana was advised to be decriminalized although by the end of Nixon’s term this approach began switching to enforcing harshly and a lot of incarcerations were a result afterwards. Now under the Obama administration we can see that the federal government still is 100% against marijuana and have no intent on legalizing it, the administration also has emphasized its focus on “prevention over incarceration” but in truth the Obama administration is not putting its best efforts in solving this issue but they are focusing on eliminating over-prescription of painkillers and other types of pills as they are highly abused.