In the article The Lockdown, one main focus is how the criminal justice system

 

has put so much stress on the war on drugs that it has given law enforcement facilitation

 

to violate the Fourth Amendment. There have also been exceptions that revolve around

 

this amendment for the sake of the war on drugs. The Fourth Amendment basically states

 

that people have the right for protection against unreasonable searches and seizures. As

 

the war came about, the Supreme Court has made “drug exceptions”. For example, in

 

California v. Acevedo (1991), searches were being made without warrants or defective

 

warrants and the court stood by it and supported it. Another example of the violation of

 

this amendment was in the case of Terry v. Ohio (1968). This case influenced the start of

 

the stop and frisk rule because the Supreme Court stated that if a police officer believes a

 

person is involved in some kind of suspicious, dangerous criminal activity, the officer is

 

entitled for the “protection of himself and others in the area” to conduct a search for

 

“weapons that might be used to harm” others. This just gave them more power for

 

searches as long as they gave “consent”. The Supreme Court has even given law

 

enforcement the ability to conduct “consent searches”, so all they have to do is ask the

 

person if they could talk to them and if they could put their hands up for a search. Most

 

people would comply and hardly ever say no, so this is how police says they “ask” for

 

consent. Police has even taken it a step further by using “pretext stops” in order to hunt

 

for drugs. Pretextual stops are basically stops that the police conducts to any motorist (in

 

search of drugs) and use a minor traffic violation as an excuse to search their vehicle. If a

 

person refuses to be searched, they could be put in jail, not for the minor traffic violation,

but for the fine or, they could even bring out the drug sniffing canines to smell their

 

vehicle because according to the Supreme Court, drug sniffing canines are not considered

 

as an actual “search”, therefore it is not a violation the Fourth Amendment. It is clear

 

that the “exceptions” being made for the Fourth Amendment have a strong tie to the war

 

on drugs. As police have less restrictions, it means they could easily arrest people and

 

accuse anyone of a drug crime.