America and the War on Drugs

Sarah Urbanek

May 6, 2000

Perhaps Americans take what they have for granted and forget that there are other countries with problems. Why does America care about what is happening in other countries like Columbia, when they have their own problems with drugs? The Untied States of America has a rather large drug trafficking problem but compared to Columbia it is fairly small. To help Columbia solve their problem the U.S. senate has decided to send troops over there and take control. This new involvement will have many consequences in and what can you make for instance the cost of a war, the loss and gain of jobs, and physical side effects.

Now war is a very serious subject to study for sociologists, this gives them a chance to study people and how they react to certain environment. Sociologists have three main paradigms that they can coincide with people to learn they function under certain circumstances. The paradigms used are the Structural-Functional, Social-Conflict and Symbolic-Interaction. Here is a brief description to help make the sociologist perspective more understandable. The Structural-Functional paradigm has multiple interrelated parts; morally desirable functional consequences and conflict is often destructive. How is society integrated? What consequences are there for these various parts? The Social-Conflict paradigm is what you have when a society is a competitive situation. Some groups have power and others that want it, some win and some lose. Last the Symbolic-Interaction paradigm is that society is like a stage where people define and redefine meaning as they interact with one another. This brief description should help make this writing about the sociologist view of the war on drugs a little easier to understand.

In the events of war people usually tend to suffer great losses financially, the reason for this is because prices go up to cover for the loss of other things. Money becomes very scarce in war because there is a cost for machinery such as guns, tanks, shelter for the troops and so on. Unfortunately this war is going to cost 1.7 billion dollars. Patrick Simms a radio announcer for national public radio has decided that he is going to name a magazine series based on this war and that series is going to be called "Putting the war into the war on drugs." This label is pretty precise because Americans are actually paying to fight these drug lords and eliminate drugs all together and what better place to start than Columbia. Since it is the origin or starting place of most drugs the senate feels that no matter the cost America has to stop of drugs in order to make America a better and safer place to live. According to Sociologists war is very interesting, it shows many different sides of people that are usually hidden by everyday rituals. In war the loss of money or the gain of it can be cauterized under the Structural-Functional paradigm because in war there are consequences. Some consequences of lost money are starving people, unclean because of no utilities, and deathly ill people. Now war has many upsides with money America can win the war and be reimbursed if they succeeded in against the drug lords and drugs all together.

The Positives of war for America and job gain is that people who do not have any jobs can get one either fighting in the war or helping the troops at base camp with cooking and cleaning. Also other interesting and less dangerous are jobs building guns and tanks and other machines, these provide the poor with jobs. Now the gain of jobs for Columbia are pretty much the same but they too employ or the drug lords do to help them cut package and deliver the drugs. With a war they need to do things quickly so they get can stop of the product before they are can. Also those who have dedicated their whole life into dealing or selling drugs will end up poor or homeless. There are many consequences when employing people for war because when the war is through they those people that were hired will lose their job and end up poor.

In accordance with the loss and