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This is a history of drug prohibition in the United States .
| | This article needs additional citations for verification .(December 2013) |
This is a history of drug prohibition in the United States .
During the 19th century, "there was virtually no effective regulation of narcotics in the United States". Statutes regulating the sale of narcotics had been passed by several state governments, and opium smoking was outlawed in numerous American municipalities, though these legislation were "only sporadically enforced". Such loose restrictions led to roughly 300,000 drug addicts in the U.S. by the turn of the century. [1] The rate of opiate addiction increased from about .72 addicts per 1,000 people to a high of 4.59 per 1,000 in the 1890s. [2]
Efforts to regulate the sale of pharmaceuticals began around 1860, and laws were introduced on a state-to-state basis that created penalties for mislabeling drugs, adulterating them with undisclosed narcotics, and improper sale of those considered "poisons". Poison laws generally either required labels on the packaging indicating the harmful effects of the drugs or prohibited sale outside of licensed pharmacies and without a doctor's prescription. Prominent pharmaceutical societies at the time supported the listing of cannabis as a poison. [3]
In 1906, the Pure Food and Drug Act required that certain specified drugs, including alcohol, cocaine, heroin, morphine, and cannabis, be accurately labeled with contents and dosage. Previously, many drugs had been sold as patent medicines with secret ingredients or misleading labels. Cocaine, heroin, cannabis, and other such drugs continued to be legally available without prescription as long as they were labeled. It is estimated that sale of patent medicines containing opiates decreased by 33% after labeling was mandated. [4]
1911: United States first Opium Commissioner, Hamilton Wright argues that of all the nations of the world, the United States consumes most habit-forming drugs per capita. Massachusetts also becomes the first U.S. state to criminalize marijuana on April 29. [5]
1913: The American Medical Association created a propaganda department to outlaw health fraud and quackery. [6] In the same year, California outlawed cannabis.
1914: The first recorded instance of the United States enacting a ban on the domestic distribution of drugs is the Harrison Narcotic Act [7] of 1914. This act was presented and passed as a method of regulating the production and distribution of opiate-containing substances under the commerce clause of the U.S. Constitution, but a section of the act was later interpreted by law enforcement officials for the purpose of prosecuting doctors who prescribe opiates to addicts. [8]
1919: Alcohol prohibition in the U.S. first appeared under numerous provincial bans and was eventually codified under a federal constitutional amendment in 1919, having been approved by 36 of the 48 U.S. states.
1925: United States supported regulation of cannabis as a drug in the International Opium Convention. [9] and by the mid-1930s all member states had some regulation of cannabis.
1930: The Federal Bureau of Narcotics was created. For the next 32 years, it was headed by Harry J. Anslinger who came from the Bureau of Prohibition as did many of its initial members.
1932: Democrat Franklin Roosevelt ran for President of the United States promising repeal of federal laws of Prohibition of alcohol.
1933: Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution is repealed. The amendment remains the only major act of prohibition to be repealed, having been repealed by the Twenty-first Amendment to the United States Constitution.
1935: President Roosevelt hails the International Opium Convention and application of it in US. law and other anti-drug laws in a radio message to the nation. [10]
1937: Congress passed the Marijuana Tax Act. Presented as a $1 nuisance tax on the distribution of marijuana, this act required anyone distributing the drug to maintain and submit a detailed account of his or her transactions, including inspections, affidavits, and private information regarding the parties involved. [11] This law, however, was something of a "Catch-22", as obtaining a tax stamp required individuals to first present their goods, which was an action tantamount to confession. This act was passed by Congress on the basis of testimony and public perception that marijuana caused insanity, criminality, and death. [12]
1951: The 1951 Boggs Act increased penalties fourfold, including mandatory penalties. [13]
1956: The Daniel Act increased penalties by a factor of eight over those specified in the Boggs Act. Although by this time there was adequate testimony to refute the claim that marijuana caused insanity, criminality, or death, the rationalizations for these laws shifted in focus to the proposition that marijuana use led to the use of heroin, creating the gateway drug theory.[ citation needed ]
1965, in Laos, the CIA's airline, Air America, is suspected of flying Hmong (Meo) opium out of the hills to Long Tieng and Vientiane to obtain hard currency for their otherwise unfunded Hmong war against the Viet Cong in 1971. [14] During the Laotian Civil War, Long Tieng served as a town and airbase operated by the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States. [15]
The Golden Triangle (Southeast Asia) became a mass producer of high-grade no. 4 heroin for the American market. [16]
The first ever head shop, Ron and Jay Thelin's Psychedelic Shop, opened on Haight Street on January 3, 1966. Located at the center of hippie culture in the Haight-Ashbury, it offered drugs such as LSD, the use of which was believed to expand one's consciousness. [17]
In 1969, psychiatrist Dr. Robert DuPont conducted a urinalysis of everyone entering the D.C. jail system in August 1969. He found 44% test positive for heroin and started the first methadone treatment program in the Department of Corrections in September 1969 for heroin addicts. [18] [19]
In 1970, the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) was enacted into law by Congress. The CSA is the federal U.S. drug policy under which the manufacture, importation, possession, use and distribution of certain substances is regulated. This legislation is the foundation on which the modern drug war exists. Responsibility for enforcement of this new law was given to the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs and then, in 1973, to the newly formed Drug Enforcement Administration. During the Nixon era, for the only time in the history of the war on drugs, the majority of funding goes towards treatment, rather than law enforcement. [18]
In June 1971, the Vietnam War was linked with concerns over drugs. The Nixon administration coined the term War on Drugs. [18] [20] [21] He characterized the abuse of illicit substances as "public enemy number one in the United States".
In May, 1971 Congressmen Robert Steele (R-CT) and Morgan Murphy (D-IL) released a report on the growing heroin epidemic among U.S. servicemen in Vietnam. [18]
Later in May 1971, the U.S. military announced they would begin urinalysis of all returning servicemen. The program goes into effect in September. 4.5% of the soldiers test positive for heroin. [18]
1972, March 22: The National Commission on Marijuana and Drug Abuse recommended legalizing possession and sales of small amounts of marijuana. This recommendation is ignored. [24]
1974: A Senate Internal Security Subcommittee on The Marihuana-hashish epidemic and its impact on United States security invited 21 scientists from seven different countries, including Gabriel G. Nahas and Nils Bejerot, to testify about the dangers of the drug. [25] [26]
1979: Illegal drug use in the U.S. peaked when 25 million of Americans used an illegal drug within the 30 days prior to the annual survey. [27]
1986: The Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986 was enacted into law by Congress. It changed the system of federal supervised release from a rehabilitative system into a punitive system. The bill enacted new mandatory minimum sentences for drugs, including marijuana.
1988: Near the end of the Reagan administration, the Office of National Drug Control Policy was created for central coordination of drug-related legislative, security, diplomatic, research and health policy throughout the government. In recognition of his central role, the director of ONDCP is commonly known as the Drug Czar . The position was raised to cabinet-level status by Bill Clinton in 1993.
1990: The Solomon–Lautenberg amendment is enacted. [28] As a result, many states pass "Smoke a joint, lose your license" laws to punish any drug offense with a mandatory six month driver's license suspension. [29] [30]
1992: Illegal drug use in the U.S. fell to 12 million people. [27]
1993: Joycelyn Elders, the Surgeon General, said that the legalization of drugs "should be studied", causing a stir among opponents. [31]
1998: The government commissioned the first-ever full study of drug policy, to be carried out by the National Research Council (NRC); the Committee on Data and Research for Policy on Illegal Drugs is headed by Econometrician Charles Manski.
2001: The National Research Council Committee on Data and Research for Policy on Illegal Drugs was published. The study revealed that the government had not sufficiently studied its own drug policy, which it called "unconscionable". (see more under Efficacy of the War on Drugs)
2001: 16 million in the U.S. were drug users. [27]
2008: Several reports stated the benefits of drug courts compared with traditional courts. Using retrospective data, researchers in several studies found that drug courts reduced recidivism among program participants in contrast to comparable probationers between 12% and 40%. Re-arrests were lower five years or more later. The total cost per participant was also much lower. [32] Office of National Drug Control Policy reports that the Actual youth drug use, as measured as the percent reporting past month use has declined from 19,4% to 14,8% among middle and high school students between 2001 and 2007. [33]
2009: Gil Kerlikowske, the current Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, signaled that the Obama Administration would not use the term "War on Drugs," as he claims it is counter-productive and is contrary to the policy favoring treatment over incarceration in trying to reduce drug use. "Being smart about drugs means working to treat people who go to jail with a drug problem so when they get out and return to the communities you protect, you will be less likely to re-arrest them". [34]
2010: California Proposition 19 (also known as the Regulate, Control and Tax Cannabis Act) was defeated, with 53.5% of California voters voting "No" and 46.5% voting "Yes." [35]
2010: The Fiscal Year 2011 National Drug Control Budget proposed by the Obama Administration devoted significant new resources, $340 million, to the prevention and treatment of drug abuse. [37]
2012: Colorado and Washington (state) passed laws to legalize the consumption, possession, and sale of marijuana.
2014: Alaska, Minnesota and Oregon passed laws to legalize the consumption, possession, and sale of marijuana.
2016: recreational marijuana use was legalized in California, Massachusetts, Nevada and Maine.
2018: Michigan passed laws legalizing the consumption, possession, and sale of marijuana
2020: Oregon became the first state to decriminalize the consumption and possession of all drugs. [38]
The Harrison Narcotics Tax Act was a United States federal law that regulated and taxed the production, importation, and distribution of opiates and coca products. The act was proposed by Representative Francis Burton Harrison of New York and was approved on December 17, 1914.
The prohibition of drugs through sumptuary legislation or religious law is a common means of attempting to prevent the recreational use of certain intoxicating substances.
The Marihuana Tax Act of 1937, Pub. L.Tooltip Public Law 75–238, 50 Stat. 551, enacted August 2, 1937, was a United States Act that placed a tax on the sale of cannabis. The H.R. 6385 act was drafted by Harry Anslinger and introduced by Rep. Robert L. Doughton of North Carolina, on April 14, 1937. The Seventy-fifth United States Congress held hearings on April 27, 28, 29th, 30th, and May 4, 1937. Upon the congressional hearings confirmation, the H.R. 6385 act was redrafted as H.R. 6906 and introduced with House Report 792. The Act is referred to, using the modern spelling, as the 1937 Marijuana Tax Act. It was overturned in 1969 in Leary v. United States, and was repealed by Congress the next year.
The illegal drug trade, drug trafficking, or narcotrafficking is a global black market dedicated to the cultivation, manufacture, distribution and sale of prohibited drugs. Most jurisdictions prohibit trade, except under license, of many types of drugs through the use of drug prohibition laws. The think tank Global Financial Integrity's Transnational Crime and the Developing World report estimates the size of the global illicit drug market between US$426 and US$652 billion in 2014 alone. With a world GDP of US$78 trillion in the same year, the illegal drug trade may be estimated as nearly 1% of total global trade. Consumption of illegal drugs is widespread globally, and it remains very difficult for local authorities to reduce the rates of drug consumption.
Harry Jacob Anslinger was an American government official who served as the first commissioner of the U.S. Treasury Department's Federal Bureau of Narcotics during the presidencies of Herbert Hoover, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower, and John F. Kennedy. He was a supporter of Prohibition, and of the criminalization of all drugs, and spearheaded anti-drug policy campaigns.
The war on drugs is the policy of a global campaign, led by the United States federal government, of drug prohibition, military aid, and military intervention, with the aim of reducing the illegal drug trade in the United States. The initiative includes a set of drug policies that are intended to discourage the production, distribution, and consumption of psychoactive drugs that the participating governments, through United Nations treaties, have made illegal.
Commonly-cited arguments for and against the prohibition of drugs include the following:
In the United States, the removal of cannabis from Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act is a proposed legal and administrative change in cannabis-related law at the federal level. It has been proposed repeatedly since 1972. The category is the most tightly restricted category reserved for drugs that have "no currently accepted medical use."
The Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, 1961 is an international treaty that controls activities of specific narcotic drugs and lays down a system of regulations for their medical and scientific uses; it also establishes the International Narcotics Control Board.
In the United States, the non-medical use of cannabis is legalized in 24 states and decriminalized in 7 states, as of November 2023. Decriminalization refers to a policy of reduced penalties for cannabis offenses, typically involving a civil penalty for possessing small amounts, instead of criminal prosecution or the threat of arrest. In jurisdictions without penalty the policy is referred to as legalization, although the term decriminalization is sometimes used for this purpose as well.
In the United States, increased restrictions and labeling of cannabis as a poison began in many states from 1906 onward, and outright prohibitions began in the 1920s. By the mid-1930s cannabis was regulated as a drug in every state, including 35 states that adopted the Uniform State Narcotic Drug Act. The first national regulation was the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937.
The drug policy in the United States is the activity of the federal government relating to the regulation of drugs. Starting in the early 1900s, the United States government began enforcing drug policies. These policies criminalized drugs such as opium, morphine, heroin, and cocaine outside of medical use. The drug policies put into place are enforced by the Food and Drug Administration and the Drug Enforcement Administration. Classification of Drugs are defined and enforced using the Controlled Substance Act, which lists different drugs into their respective substances based on its potential of abuse and potential for medical use. Four different categories of drugs are Alcohol, Cannabis, Opioids, and Stimulants.
A drug policy is the policy regarding the control and regulation of psychoactive substances, particularly those that are addictive or cause physical and mental dependence. While drug policies are generally implemented by governments, entities at all levels may have specific policies related to drugs.
Drug liberalization is a drug policy process of decriminalizing or legalizing the use or sale of prohibited drugs. Variations of drug liberalization include: drug legalization, drug re-legalization and drug decriminalization. Proponents of drug liberalization may favor a regulatory regime for the production, marketing, and distribution of some or all currently illegal drugs in a manner analogous to that for alcohol, caffeine and tobacco.
Canada's drug regulations are measures of the Food and Drug Act and the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act. In relation to controlled and restricted drug products, the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act establishes eight schedules of drugs and new penalties for the possession, trafficking, exportation and production of controlled substances as defined by the Governor-in-Council. Drug policy of Canada has traditionally favoured punishment for the smallest of offences, but this convention was partially broken in 1996 with the passing of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act.
The National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws developed the Uniform State Narcotic Drug Act in 1934 due to the lack of restrictions in the Harrison Act of 1914. The Harrison Act was a revenue-producing act and, while it provided penalties for violations, it did not give authority to the states to exercise police power regarding either seizure of drugs used in illicit trade or punishment of those responsible.
In the early 21st century, advocacy for drug legalization has increased in Latin America. Spearheading the movement, the Uruguayan government announced in 2012 plans to legalize state-controlled sales of marijuana in order to fight drug-related crimes.
The list includes and details significant events that occurred in the global history of national-level implementations of, or changes made to, laws surrounding the use, sale, or production of the psychoactive drug cannabis.
The Cannabis Act (C-45) of June, 2018 paved the way for the legalization of cannabis in Canada on 17 October 2018. Police and prosecution services in all Canadian jurisdictions are currently capable of pursuing criminal charges for cannabis marketing without a licence issued by Health Canada. The Supreme Court of Canada has held that the federal Parliament has the power to criminalize the possession of cannabis and that doing so does not infringe upon the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The Ontario Court of Appeal and the Superior Court of Ontario have, however, held that the absence of a statutory provision for medical marijuana is unconstitutional, and to that extent the federal law is of no force and/or effect if a prescription is obtained. The recreational use of cannabis has been legalized by the federal government, and took effect on 17 October 2018.
During the administration of American President Lyndon B. Johnson (1963–1969), the government made moves to reconsider cannabis law enforcement in the nation, including a more treatment-based approach to drug use. However, Johnson was saddled with controversies regarding the Vietnam War and internal national tensions, and was not able to make major changes to cannabis policy before declining to run for a second term in 1968. During the Johnson administration, cannabis usage was an issue of concern both in the youth counterculture as well as among American troops serving in the Vietnam War.
When political infighting among the Lao elite and the escalating war forced the small Corsican charter airlines out of the opium business in 1965, the CIA's airline, Air America, began flying Meo opium out of the hills to Long Tieng and Vientiane.
Without air transport for their opium, the Meo faced economic ruin. There was simply no form of air transport available in northern Laos except the CIA's charter airline, Air America And according to several sources, Air America began flying opium from mountain villages north and east of the Plain of Jars to Gen. Vang Pao's headquarters at Long Tieng. Air America was known to be flying Meo opium as late as 1971. Meo village leaders in the area west of the Plain of Jars, for example, claim that their 1970 and 1971 opium harvests were bought up by Vang Pao's officers and flown to Long Tieng on Air America UH-lH helicopters. This opium was probably destined for heroin laboratories in Long Tieng or Vientiane, and ultimately, for GI addicts in Vietnam.