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| Question | Answer |
| Introduction | Homelessness became extremely common in the eighties due to the recession, making people willing to do anything to get back on their feet and afford a house. During the eighties, drugs, such as cocaine, were becoming extremely popular. People could go from living on the streets to becoming a millionaire as a drug dealer. |
| Crack Epidemic | The biggest issue in the eighties was the crack epidemic. Cocaine was being shipped to the United States, then transformed into a smokeable form of the drug, which was much easier for drug dealers to sell in smaller quantities to more people. In the early 1980s, this form of cocaine, called crack, was appearing in Houston, Los Angeles, San Diego, Detroit, and other major cities in America. By 1985 5.8 million people admitted to using cocaine everyday and from 1985 and 1987, health emergencies rose from 23,500 to 94,000 people. The effects of drugs were very harmful, causing deaths, low birth-weight babies, as well as causing people to commit crimes. AIDS were rising, as the use of already used needles would transmit the disease to multiple people. |
| Crime | During this time, crime rose by 33%. Society was torn apart by the overwhelming popularity of drugs. Here is a graph representing people were in jail for during the eighties. With this graph we can see that around 60% of people in jail was to drug offense. |
| War on Drugs | Many of the actions taken for the war on drugs were done in the late eighties and beyond. A political hysteria about drugs started by the end of the 1980s, which created very harsh and severe penalties for those convicted for recreational drug use. In 1987, a new method of sentencing was being used, causing parole to be abolished. In 1988, there was the Anti-Drug Abuse Act which established a death penalty for ‘drug lords’, which were people making a lot of money by selling drugs. |
| Just Say No | First Lady Nancy Reagan started the Just Say No campaign, which was created to prevent kids and teenagers from using drugs. Nancy Reagan’s campaign started in 1982, when a girl asked what to do if she was being offered drugs. Her answer was to, “Just say no.” She talked at schools, on television, and at rehabilitation centers. The message of her campaign was able to get to many other countries as well. Although it did not get rid of the use of recreational drugs for good, the amount of drugs being used significantly declined. |
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