Malia,

Your contextual analysis is very good and you present a lot of facts and cover many aspects of the issue on the War on Drugs. Putting the history on what the war on drugs was a good addition to your paper and made it clear as to what exactly you are talking about. You also do a great job of putting in relevant statistics such as “Statistics from around that time began to show an increase in certain drug overdoses, mostly due to an increase in the use of cocaine. In fact, in 1985, cocaine accounted for 5 percent of overdose deaths, a figure which had risen to 13 percent by 1988”. Although you did an excellent job of showing how the police, government, and policies can make the war on drugs racial, this is a contextual analysis so you need to present all of the sides of your issue. Even though it is clear that you believe things need to change, you should add at least one paragraph exploring how the war on drugs could not be considered “racist”. For example you could talk about how in today’s society a lot of high-class businessmen are being arrested and investigated for their drug use (there was recently a dateline or 60 minutes about it). Another thing I was confused about in your paper was the following paragraph: Statistics from around that time began to show an increase in certain drug overdoses, mostly due to an increase in the use of cocaine. In fact, in 1985, cocaine accounted for 5 percent of overdose deaths, a figure which had risen to 13 percent by 1988 (Lusane 170). Almost immediately after this higher usage of crack cocaine appeared, the Reagan administration leaped at the opportunity to finally publicize a drug in an effort to further rustle up support for its drug war. I was confused because you go from talking about cocaine to talking about crack cocaine, which even though they are essentially the same thing, they aren’t. Crack cocaine is prepared differently than cocaine. Cocaine is powder and can’t be smoked, whereas crack cocaine can be smoked and contains hard crystals. Cocaine is often times referred to as the “rich mans drug”, whereas crack cocaine is usually associated with poorer people. I’m not sure if you meant for it to be that way, but I would recommend changing it because it was a little confusing. Overall you have done a wonderful job with your essay.

-Madeline