Essay about Criminal Law and The War on Drugs - 1701 Words

Criminal Law and The War on Drugs These records of wars, intrigues, factions, and revolutions, are so many collections of experiments, by which the politician or moral philosopher fixes the principles of his science, in the same manner as the physician or natural philosopher becomes acquainted with the nature of plants, minerals, and other external objects, by the experiments which he forms concerning them. (David Hume.)2 Our long armed and hairy ancestors had no idea of redress beyond vengeance, or of justice beyond mere individual reprisal.3 To determine what constitutes criminal law, is, as one learned judge has opined, a work of art, it is something that may be easier to recognize than define ...4†¦show more content†¦That effect may be in relation to social, economic or political interests; and the legislature has had in mind to suppress the evil or to safeguard the interest threatened.8 And further, it cannot be neither a static catalogue of offences nor order of sanctions. The evolving and transforming types and patterns of social and economic activities are constantly calling for new penal controls and limitations and that new modes of enforcement and punishment adapted to the changing conditions are not to be taken as being equally within the ambit of parliamentary power is, in my opinion, not seriously arguable.9 In the relatively recent case of RJR - Macdonald v. Canada (1995), the Supreme Court of Canada, it was determined that the exercise of the power to make an act a criminal one, a test is to be applied; one of substance, not form.10 To be fully fledged criminal law, the act prohibited must pose a significant, grave and serious risk of harm to public health, morality, safety or security ... And, so, how does this established judicial view apply to the business of keeping in check those substances which may prove to be harmful to the individuals who misuse them? As to the nature of the various illegitimate drugs and their effect on human beings -- well, I shall have to leave that to the medical doctors; but, I just simply wonder, what is so wrong withShow MoreRelatedThe War On Drugs And The United States1063 Words   |  5 PagesThe War on Drugs has become an epidemic today afflicting United States and the United Nations; which are swayed by global drug laws which preserve the criminal justice system. These new laws promote an ineffective policies on the war on drug. Therefore, communities are locked while the promotion of illicit drugs becomes the dominate framework to organized crimes. Today, the war on drugs continues to be an ongoing battle within our society. This paper will examine these issues focusing primarily onRead MoreThe War On Drugs And The United States1063 Words   |  5 PagesThe War on Drugs has become an epidemic today afflicting United States and the United Nations; which are swayed by global drug laws which preserve th e criminal justice system. These new laws promote an ineffective policy on the war on drug. Therefore, communities are locked while the promotion of illicit drugs becomes the dominate framework to organized crimes. Today, the war on drugs continues to be an ongoing battle within our society. This paper will examine these issues focusing primarily onRead MoreEssay on The Failure of the War on Drugs1025 Words   |  5 Pagespolicymakers and law enforcement officials stepped up efforts to combat the trafficking and use of illicit drugs. 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Approximately $350 billion is spent per year on the â€Å"war on drugs†, only $7 billion is spent on prevention programs by the federal government. The war on drugs is more heavily focused on how to control crime, instead of how to prevent it. Not only is the war on drugs costlyRead MoreLaw Enforcement : The United States Essay1595 Words   |  7 PagesWe the People Law enforcement was designed in the early 1800’s by a man named Robert Peal, which is why cops are sometimes referred to as Bobbies in England; designing an organization of law enforcement that would protect people from harming other people (Christ). This was the model that we based our western law enforcement agencies on, until prohibition became a federal task in the 1920’s. This is when the federal government decided to take up the task of protecting people from themselves. FastRead MoreMichelle Alexander Mass Incarceration1601 Words   |  7 PagesMichelle Alexander  who was born in 1968 is an associate professor of law at  Ohio State University also a civil rights  advocate and a writer. She is a highly acclaimed civil rights lawyer, advocate, and legal scholar. In recent years, she has taught at a number of universities, including Stanford Law School, where she was an associate professor of law and directed the Civil Rights Clinics. Alexander published the book  The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. In it, she arguesRead MoreThe New Jim Crow1697 Words   |  7 Pagesconvictions for drug offenses. Today there are half a million in prison or jail due to a drug offense, while in 1980 there were only 41,100. They have tripled since 1980. The war on drugs has contributed the most to the systematic mass incarceration of people of color, most of them African-Americans. 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