1989-+War+on+Drugsg5

=War On Drugs Declared = 

Overview
 The war on drugs was a plan to reduce the number of illegal drugs related crimes and deaths. Illegal drugs were becoming more popular and causing more problems during the late 1980s and early 90s. President Ronald Reagan and later President Bush vowed to stop this increase and fight the "war on drugs."

Central Issue
In the 1980s, the number of arrests for drug offenses rose 126%. It was estimated that 9% of employees show up to work with drugs in their system, which costs businesses about $60 billion every year. In 1985, the United States Department of Justice released a report that said 48% of people that committed crimes were under the influence of alcohol at the time that they committed their crimes. President George Bush officially began his "war on drugs" on September 5, 1989, when he outlined the federal government's strategy for eliminating drug use. The plan called for $7.9 billion from Congress. Of the $7.9 billion that Bush asked for, 70% would go to law enforcement, which included $1.6 billion for jails. However, only 30% went to prevention, education, and treatment. The Bush administration sought to wage its war by primarily focusing on demand in the United States, which meant attacking and arresting the drug user, rather than focusing on prevention, education and treatment, or trying to reduce the supply of drugs.

Conclusion
Bush's plan and his war on drugs produced some results, but was not a complete success. The biggest success was the 22% decrease in cocaine use. There were also some bad things that came out of it. In 1992, poor people used more drugs than when the war on drugs began. About one million people still smoked crack by the end of the Bush administration. The crime rate increased during the war on drugs.