Reagan ruled that marijuana was concluded to be a gateway drug, which lead to the abuse of harder drugs such as crack, cocaine, and heroin.
George Bush decided that drugs are immoral and unlawful; hence labeling drugs a moral issue. His number one target for some time were the pregnant women who abused crack of which he named their unborn children "crack babies". Bush had ideas to become tougher with drug laws such as the death penalty and using the armed forces. He considered drugs "the greatest domestic threat". Under the Bush Administration, exorbitant amounts of money with medial reform were spent. However, Bush's most prominent plan was the "Weed & Seed Plan", today known as the Community Project for Restoration. This plan consisted of removing the bad residents from the community and providing them with opportunities for improvement.
Bill Clinton believed in utilizing marijuana for medicinal purposes such as A.I.D.S., cancer, and glaucoma but not for the general legalization. He pushed a crime bill for drug leaders consisting of a life sentence for three time offenders. Under the Clinton Administration, California and Arizona both legalized marijuana for solely medicinal purposes. Arizona also began to move legislation to approve the medicinal use of heroin and L.S.D.
The connections between drug use and drug policy are simple. Drug policy is created to help prevent, if not end drug use. As drug use continues and more problems arise, the drug policy will change and have more laws added.
The problematic aspects of the U.S. drug policy consist of two major flaws: ineffectiveness; mainly laws against drugs not being an effective solution, and prejudice. The drug policy does not meet any of its stated goals. Instead, it is supporting two drug enforcement and drug trafficking. America's enforcement-oriented strategy has resulted in millions of arrests and hundreds of thousands of prisoners who are Black or Hispanic.