Background

This war on drugs has been an on going issue ever since president Nixon took office in 1969. It has cost billions of dollars to try and fight this war. All though Nixon made a dent in use of marijuana in the late 1960s. A new drug was discovered that made an uproar in the 1980s that called for president Reagan to increase the fund for this war. This did little to stop the use of crack, it made it worse. Gangs became of this new drug and cities were reporting record homicide rates. Reagan took action and announced a "zero tolerance" for anyone in the drug market. After Reagan' s term ended President George Bush came into office and countinued the war.
Soon after the new drug "crack" found it's way to the streets of America, president Ronald Reagan increased the funding for this war from $1.5 billion when he came into office in 1981 to an amazing $2.75 billion in 1985. This of course made Americans mad and said that the war was unnecessary and a waste of time and money.

As bad as this drug was it did not come alone. Along with this drug came gangs of young adults distributing this drug, also weapons, and the willing to kill/protect their "turf". These distributors were willing to sell to anyone even schoolchildren. Only a few years after this drug was discovered it was available in every inner-city , and many major cities in the U.S. were reporting record numbers of homicide in that city. Which soon made the nations leading concern. Since the laws at the time were unable to stop or even reduce the violence caused by this drug Reagan took another step by announcing "zero tolerance" towards any all members of the drug market. Which cracked down on anyone associated with the drug.
All in all our former presidents have done decent job on trying to fight this war, but even 40 years later we are still fighting the war and cannot seem seem to stop the violence in our own nation, but it has become worse now the drugs are smuggled across the U.S.-Mexico border which is causing even more violence.