The war on drugs has been lost, and just like countless other redundant efforts by society, we still insist that it is exactly the opposite. We have lost billions of dollars in the economy, ruined countless innocent lives, and created a shameful stigma around people suffering from addiction issues. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why violent video games should not be banned”?Get the original essay Although governments have taken action against drug use since the early 20th century, the real “declaration of war " against drugs was made by Nixon in 1971, when President Richard Nixon of the United States announced that drugs were "public enemy number one in the United States." He explained that drugs like marijuana were driving teenagers crazy, leading to violent rampages and rapes, and these women were becoming psychotic drug addicts. Furthermore, the reason for this sudden attack was not due to an increase in consumption rates or an increase in overdose deaths, but rather because Nixon's cabinet could vilify its enemies. Nixon's domestic policy adviser, John Ehrlichman, led this battle and several years later, in 1994, in an interview with Dan Baum for Harper's magazine, he said: "You want to know what it was really about? Nixon's campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House thereafter, had two enemies: the anti-war left and black people. We knew we couldn't make it illegal to be against the war or to be black, but by getting the public to associate hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then heavily criminalizing both, we could disrupt these communities. We could arrest their leaders, search their homes, interrupt their meetings and defame them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about drugs? Of course we did. » The war on drugs is deeply rooted in systemic human rights violations and has since caused countless racial stereotypes and conflicts. This is evident from countless studies, including a statistical analysis report by the Bureau of Justice Statistics, which shows that while white men are 3 times more likely to become addicted to drugs, black men are 2.5 times more likely to be arrested for drug possession. And according to the FBI, DEA, Creative Spirits, ABS and other institutions, about one in three dark-skinned adults will be arrested or spend time in prison for nonviolent drug offenses, compared to an adult white out of 19 on average. Furthermore, these tactics have proven to be ineffective. We repeat the past and are doomed to make the same fatal mistakes as before. The ACT banned alcohol between 1910 and 1928. Just like in America and every other country, people continued to drink alcohol by any means necessary, this led to several social and political problems and when substances are banned, time and potency has been shown time and time again to increase. People will pay for anything they can find, and if you were to receive the same punishment for taking a low quality product as a high quality product, why wouldn't you go for the stronger option, why take a substance that makes you go "meh" when you can take one that causes laughter and seemingly endless moments of fun. This directly leads to an increase in non-violent incarcerations.