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No george h w bush made the war on drugs

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a big part of his campaign strategy He promised to

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battle the rampant drug use that had spread throughout america

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during the nineteen eighties No needle or mysterious white powder

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would be safe from his wrath Sadly drugs really had

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become a big problem The bourbon areas as well as

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the inner cities reported increased drug use with cocaine being

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the hard drug of choice Despite the obvious challenges bush

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was determined to win this war Well he began by

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appointing william j bennett as america's Drugs are ok that

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sounds bad but he appointed him as head of the

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new office of national drug control policy But bush had

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more in mind than appointing some other guy to solve

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america's massively complicated drug problem In fact he had a

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three pronged approach That's a lot of franz Well first

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he wanted to increase law enforcement numbers and direct their

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focus to fighting drug abuse which would be in a

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lot more work for you know the drug sniffing dog

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union Good for them This tough economy Well second he

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wanted to institute rug testing in the workplace which would

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turn the peeing into a cop into a popular watercooler

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gossip material And last but not least bush plans to

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cut the drugs supply off of the past which meant

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a concentrated effort to eliminate the incoming flow of drugs

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from colombia peru will the drug trade found its home

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base in south and central america Trade was dangerous but

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super lucrative with increasing Numbers of american buyers 1 of

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the big players in this international trade was panamanian leader

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manuel noriega nineteen eighty eight Noriega was indicted by a

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federal grand jury in miami of the international drug smuggling

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gunrunning and money laundering He was kind of you know

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a jack of all criminal trades Will noriega wasn't going

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down easy In nineteen eighty nine he was named animas

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head of state in the country Declared war on the

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us Probably not the smartest thing noriega ever did And

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the next day an american marine stationed in panama was

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shot Also not smart Well bush responded quickly with a

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deployment of troops to strategic panamanian locations American forces seized

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the headquarters of the panamanian defense forces but noriega high

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tailed it out of there He took refuge in the

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vatican embassy but after three weeks of negotiations he surrendered

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himself to american forces He was finally convicted in nineteen

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ninety two on eight counts of racketeering and drug distribution

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But it seemed that there were a dozen more noriega's

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ready to take his place in the booming latin drug

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cartels And while drug related arrests did increase from nineteen

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eighty eight to nineteen eighty nine cocaine and crack were

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still easy to find On the streets of america Frightening

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statistics showed that in nineteen eighty nine three hundred seventy

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five thousand american babies were born addicted to either cocaine

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or heroin Well any and america's drug problem was like

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a slacker friend who's been sleeping on your couch for

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weeks No matter what the bush administration did drugs would 00:03:06.095 --> [endTime] just not leave eh Come on

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