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The War on Drugs Begins

Drug use for medicinal and recreational purposes has been happening in the United States since the country's inception. In the 1890s, the popular Sears and Roebuck catalogue included an offer for a syringe and small amount of cocaine for $1.50. (At that time, cocaine use had not yet been outlawed.)

In some states, laws to ban or regulate drugs were passed in the 1800s, and the first congressional act to levy taxes on morphine and opium took place in 1890.

The Smoking Opium Exclusion Act in 1909 banned the possession, importation and use of opium for smoking. However, opium could still be used as a medication. This was the first federal law to ban the non-medical use of a substance, although many states and counties had banned alcohol sales previously.

In 1914, Congress passed the Harrison Act, which regulated and taxed the production, importation, and distribution of opiates and cocaine.

Alcohol prohibition laws quickly followed. In 1919, the 18th Amendment was ratified, banning the manufacture, transportation or sale of intoxicating liquors, ushering in the Prohibition Era. The same year, Congress passed the National Prohibition Act (also known as the Volstead Act), which provided guidelines on how to federally enforce Prohibition.

Prohibition lasted until December, 1933, when the 21st Amendment was ratified, overturning the 18th.

Marijuana Tax Act of 1937

In 1937, the "Marihuana Tax Act" was passed. This federal law placed a tax on the sale of cannabis, hemp, or marijuana.

The Act was introduced by Rep. Robert L. Doughton of North Carolina and was drafted by Harry Anslinger. While the law didn't criminalize the possession or use of marijuana, it included hefty penalties if taxes weren't paid, including a fine of up to $2000 and five years in prison.

Controlled Substances Act

President Richard M. Nixon signed the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) into law in 1970. This statute calls for the regulation of certain drugs and substances.

The CSA outlines five "schedules" used to classify drugs based on their medical application and potential for abuse.

Schedule 1 drugs are considered the most dangerous, as they pose a very high risk for addiction with little evidence of medical benefits. Marijuana, LSD, heroin, MDMA (ecstasy) and other drugs are included on the list of Schedule 1 drugs.

The substances considered least likely to be addictive, such as cough medications with small amounts of codeine, fall into the Schedule 5 category.

Nixon and the War on Drugs

In June 1971, Nixon officially declared a "War on Drugs," stating that drug abuse was "public enemy number one."

A rise in recreational drug use in the 1960s likely led to President Nixon's focus on targeting some types of substance abuse. As part of the War on Drugs initiative, Nixon increased federal funding for drug-control agencies and proposed strict measures, such as mandatory prison sentencing, for drug crimes. He also announced the creation of the Special Action Office for Drug Abuse Prevention (SAODAP), which was headed by Dr. Jerome Jaffe.

Nixon went on to create the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) in 1973. This agency is a special police force committed to targeting illegal drug use and smuggling in the United States.

At the start, the DEA was given 1,470 special agents and a budget of less than $75 million. Today, the agency has nearly 5,000 agents and a budget of $2.03 billion.

Ulterior Motives Behind War on Drugs?

During a 1994 interview, President Nixon's domestic policy chief, John Ehrlichman, provided inside information suggesting that the War on Drugs campaign had ulterior motives, which mainly involved helping Nixon keep his job.

In the interview, conducted by journalist Dan Baum and published in Harper magazine, Ehrlichman explained that the Nixon campaign had two enemies: "the antiwar left and black people." His comments led many to question Nixon's intentions in advocating for drug reform and whether racism played a role.

Ehrlichman was quoted as saying: "We knew we couldn't make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course, we did."

The 1970s and The War on Drugs

In the mid-1970s, the War on Drugs took a slight hiatus. Between 1973 and 1977, eleven states decriminalized marijuana possession.

Jimmy Carter became president in 1977 after running on a political campaign to decriminalize marijuana. During his first year in office, the Senate Judiciary Committee voted to decriminalize up to one ounce of marijuana.

Say No to Drugs

In the 1980s, President Ronald Reagan reinforced and expanded many of Nixon's War on Drugs policies. In 1984, his wife Nancy Reagan launched the " Just Say No " campaign, which was intended to highlight the dangers of drug use.

President Reagan's refocus on drugs and the passing of severe penalties for drug-related crimes in Congress and state legislatures led to a massive increase in incarcerations for nonviolent drug crimes.

In 1986, Congress passed the Anti-Drug Abuse Act, which established mandatory minimum prison sentences for certain drug offenses. This law was later heavily criticized as having racist ramifications because it allocated longer prison sentences for offenses involving the same amount of crack cocaine (used more often by black Americans) as powder cocaine (used more often by white Americans). Five grams of crack triggered an automatic five-year sentence, while it took 500 grams of powder cocaine to merit the same sentence.

Critics also pointed to data showing that people of color were targeted and arrested on suspicion of drug use at higher rates than whites. Overall, the policies led to a rapid rise in incarcerations for nonviolent drug offenses, from 50,000 in 1980 to 400,000 in 1997. In 2014, nearly half of the 186,000 people serving time in federal prisons in the United States had been incarcerated on drug-related charges, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons.

A Gradual Dialing Back

Public support for the war on drugs has waned in recent decades. Some Americans and policymakers feel the campaign has been ineffective or has led to racial divide. Between 2009 and 2013, some 40 states took steps to soften their drug laws, lowering penalties and shortening mandatory minimum sentences, according to the Pew Research Center.

In 2010, Congress passed the Fair Sentencing Act (FSA), which reduced the discrepancy between crack and powder cocaine offenses from 100:1 to 18:1.

The recent legalization of marijuana in several states and the District of Columbia has also led to a more tolerant political view on recreational drug use.

Technically, the War on Drugs is still being fought, but with less intensity and publicity than in its early years.

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War on Drugs - Timeline in America, Definition & Facts | HISTORY

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The War on Drugs is a phrase used to refer to a government-led initiative in America that aims to stop illegal drug use, distribution and trade by increasing and enforcing penalties for offenders. The movement started in the 1970s and is still evolving today.

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Washington Governor Jay Inslee offered pardons for thousands of people with marijuana misdemeanors

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“We shouldn’t be punishing people for something that is no longer illegal in Washington state,” Inslee tweeted.

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Story highlights

The global war on drugs is failing, new research suggests, as the price of heroin, cocaine and cannabis has fallen while their purity has increased.

Using seven sets of government drug surveillance data, a team of Canadian and U.S. researchers reviewed drug supply in the United States, Europe and Australia and drug production in regions such as Latin America, Afghanistan and Southeast Asia.

They found that illegal drugs have become cheaper while their potency has increased, indicating that efforts to control "the global illegal drug market through law enforcement are failing."

"During the past two decades, the supply of major illegal drugs has increased, as measured through a general decline in the prices and a general increase in the purity of illegal drugs in a variety of settings," said the study, which was published by BMJ Open, an open-access journal published by the British Medical Journal.

READ: Drug war demonizes people

In the U.S., the average price of heroin, cocaine and cannabis decreased by at least 80% between 1990 and 2007, while average purity increased by 60%, 11% and 161% respectively.

Similar trends were seen in Europe over the same period, while in Australia the price of cocaine, heroin and cannabis fell by 14% to 49% between 2000 and 2010.

"These findings add to the growing body of evidence that the war on drugs has failed," said Dr Evan Wood, scientific chair of the International Centre for Science in Drug Policy and research chair in Inner City Medicine at the University of British Columbia in Canada.

"We should look to implement policies that place community health and safety at the forefront of our efforts, and consider drug use a public health rather than a criminal justice issue," added Wood, who was also one of the research team that produced the study.

Prices fell despite a general increase in seizures and a fall in production of some illegal substances, the study added.

READ: War on drugs a trilion-dollar failure

Seizures of cannabis by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration increased by 465% between 1990 and 2010, heroin seizures increased by 29%, but cocaine seizures fell by 49% over the same period.

The researchers did concede their source data had limitations, with price and purity patterns a marker of drug supply that does not capture other factors that determine the availability and use of drugs.

However, the report findings demonstrated "a general global pattern of falling drugs prices and increasing drug purity and potency, alongside a relative consistent pattern of increasing seizures of illegal drugs."

Campaign groups said the study showed that drug policies needed to be grounded in science, health and human rights rather than prohibition.

"The punitive prohibitionist approach to global drug control has proven remarkably costly, ineffective and counterproductive," said Ethan Nadelmann, director of the U.S.-based Drug Policy Alliance.

"It has generated extraordinary levels of violence, crime and corruption while failing to reduce the availability and use of psychoactive drugs."

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Report: Cheaper, purer illegal substances suggest global war on drugs is failing | CNN

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The global war on drugs is failing, new research suggests, as the price of heroin, cocaine and cannabis has fallen while their purity has increased. Using seven sets of government drug surveillance data, a team of Canadian and U.S.

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Jay Z "The War on Drugs is an Epic Fail"

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3 Arguments Why Marijuana Should Stay Illegal Reviewed

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Editor's Note: Michael K. Williams is an actor, dancer and the American Civil Liberties Union's ambassador for ending mass incarceration. He is best known for his roles in the "The Wire," "Boardwalk Empire" and "The Night Of." The opinions expressed in this commentary are his.

Story highlights

The war on drugs is arguably one of the most expensive and longest-running policy initiatives ever pursued by the American government. And this year, as it marks its 45th anniversary, it's clear it's also one of the most successful.

It's destroyed lives, torn families apart, filled our jails and prisons and hijacked countless futures of black and brown youth - but that's what it was supposed to do.

We now know, 45 years later, the war on drugs wasn't meant to make America safer or more productive - it was meant to mute President Richard Nixon's toughest critics, to criminalize black people and so-called anti-war hippies.

We now know, 45 years later, that the war on drugs is a war on people - and more specifically, black and brown people, whom it has sought to demonize and silence, criminalizing generations of youth of color and creating severe drug-sentencing laws ultimately to target and incarcerate communities of color.

And sadly, we now know, 45 years later, that it has accomplished many of its goals.

As of 2014, we had 2.2 million people in our nation's prisons and jails -a 350% increase over the past four decades. This uptick took place at the same time we doubled down on policies born from the war on drugs, such as mandatory minimum sentencing.

These policies were designed to destabilize and demoralize black communities, and they have been effective in doing just that. Almost 60% of the people in prison today are people of color, and 1 in 3 black men born today face the likelihood of imprisonment. Nationally, black men are six times as likely to be incarcerated as white men in federal and state prisons, and local jails.

The effects of the war on drugs have been, and continue to be, devastating. The millions of parentless homes, the heartbreaking struggles with addiction, the financial desperation and the overall feeling that systems were built to hurt, not help, are painful consequences of racially motivated policies that continue rippling throughout our communities. This "war" has left an unforgivable blight on black communities across the country. And yet it still rages.

The war on drugs is a war on people and a war on progress. It's a war on opportunity for a generation of black and brown Americans who have grown up conditioned to believe that prison is inevitable, and incarceration is imminent.

I've been lucky in my life. I've played some incredible characters on television and in film (a few of whom know the pitfalls of our country's criminal justice system all too well), and it's taken me pretty far for a kid from East Flatbush in Brooklyn.

But more than that, when I've struggled with addiction issues, I've been able to get the help and treatment I needed. I've been fortunate enough to have a network of support that has helped me through tough times and empowered me to pursue my dreams, a career, and success. I realize that no one's life, least of all mine, would have been safer, better or more productive if I had been jailed for my addiction issues.

Fortunately for me, the war on people did not swallow me up. I was able to sidestep the trappings of a system designed to make me fail. But this isn't the case for many young men and women of color.

But while we can't erase the pain or impact of 45 years of policies designed to demoralize black Americans, we can organize, mobilize and take action to end the war on people and begin reversing some of its dire consequences. We can hold policymakers in Washington - and presidential candidates crisscrossing the campaign trail - accountable and demand they fulfill their moral and social responsibilities to make America the true beacon of justice and democracy it was meant to be.

In Washington, there has been positive movement toward reforming our system.

President Barack Obama has commuted more sentences - focused on drug offenses - than any other sitting president, and the Department of Justice has announced it will end the use of private prisons, removing a perverse financial incentive to incarcerate more and more Americans.

There is also an opportunity right now to begin dismantling some of the most disastrous policies on Capitol Hill. The Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act, which the Senate is currently considering, wouldn't undo the war on people, but it would reform some mandatory minimum sentencing - which has been used for decades to lock up black men and women across the country.

The changes would reduce mandatory sentences and give judges more freedom to hand down sentences that actually fit the crimes committed. It would expand programs to reduce the rate at which people return to prison, and invest in programs aimed at drug treatment and rehabilitation.

Our prisons are packed with people serving long, harsh sentences - in many cases for drug offenses. Instead of providing people with rehabilitation and treatment programs, let alone education and job training, we have put them into cages and have left them untreated, forgotten and ignored.

This has taken its toll on communities across the country - especially lower-income and economically disadvantaged ones.

Luckily, we're already seeing some progress at the state level. Sixteen states, including South Carolina, Tennessee and West Virginia, already treat simple possession of drugs as a misdemeanor instead of a felony in some or all cases - and Oklahoma may join them in November. Many more states need to follow suit. Reclassifying certain drug possession offenses from a felony to a misdemeanor not only reduces a sentence, but it also recognizes that drug addiction and substance abuse are health conditions that are better treated than incarcerated and ignored.

This year, as the war on people turns 45, we must collectively acknowledge that it is one of the greatest American injustices ever committed, and turn outrage and frustration into action and progress.

We must demand that policymakers in Washington begin unraveling the policies that have shackled generations of young Americans by supporting criminal justice reforms such as the Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act, and start peeling back layers of policy that have criminalized and demoralized our communities for too long.

And we must demand that presidential candidates make a pledge to voters that in exchange for our votes they will begin undoing the injustices that have left too many behind and blown over, and finally create a level playing field for all Americans - especially Americans of color.

There is no "cure-all" for what has become of our so-called justice system. But pursuing legislative reforms and calling for a new era in American justice on the campaign trail is a strong first step in empowering and teaching the next generation of young black Americans that incarceration isn't inevitable.

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The war on drugs is a war on people | CNN

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Editor's Note: Michael K. Williams is an actor, dancer and the American Civil Liberties Union's ambassador for ending mass incarceration. He is best known for his roles in the "The Wire," "Boardwalk Empire" and "The Night Of." The opinions expressed in this commentary are his.

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Should Marijuana be Legalized ProCon.org

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Should Marijuana be Legalized ProCon.org

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https://medicalmarijuana.procon.org/

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https://newsela.com/view/cl48r01rv04p00and4a91fsgw/

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Addiction is a Disease. We Should Treat It Like One

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Addiction is a Disease. We Should Treat It Like One

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https://newsela.com/view/clk1cc2gt1s8d07p2e86vb8d3/