In 1997 when federal examiners drug tested certain inmates in federal prisons, nine percent of these inmates tested positive for drugs in their system (1Gray 49). Putting drug offenders into prison did not stop the flow of drugs.
The "war on drugs" has had some successes in the Bush and Nixon administrations. The tough drug laws have caused some people to stop using for fear of being arrested. In a survey of two hundred former heavy cocaine users in California, it was noted that fear of arrest was the sixth reason on their list for quitting (2Gray 194). The Bush administration also had several successes in catching prominent drug pushers. General Noriega of Panama was captured and Pablo Escobar, a drug lord in Colombia was killed. Bush reassured the public by pressing for the death penalties for these drug dealers (2Gray 126-28). .
In 1999, the United States partnered with Colombian agents and arrested smugglers accused of bringing in thirty tons of cocaine per month into the United States. On the other hand, the "War on Drugs" has made the criminal justice system one of the top growth industries. In two years in the Bush administration, the number of federal prosecutors doubled (Baum 306). The "war on drugs" has progressed since first being established in 1971 as according to Judge Gray "we now see larger seizures of drugs, larger forfeitures of assets, more arrests and convictions of drug offenders, and longer prison sentences than ever before" (1Gray 6). However, these small successes do not outweigh the failures of the Drug War. .
In Nixon's address to the Republican Convention in 1968 he stated, "the first civil right of every American is to be free from domestic violence" (Nixon 4). However, from 1971 when Nixon first declared the "war on drugs" to 1992, "the violent crimes most commonly associated with substance abuse (murder, robbery, and aggravated assault) have risen at a per capita rate of 67%, while arrests for violation of the United States narcotics laws are up by a full 104%" (Wells 12).
