Historical Overview of Drug use in America

[Sanslines]

Historical Overview of Drug use in America (and around the world)

(See: Drugs in American Society, 5th, 6th, and 7th editions, Erich Goode, McGraw-Hill, 1999/2005/2008. Chapter 4)

Long History of Drug Use in Human Societies

• ETOH: 10,000 years
• Coca: Thousand's of years
• Marijuana: over 10,000 years
• Peyote: Pre-Columbian

Drug Use is a Cultural Universal

• Only Inuit Eskimos have no record of traditional Drug use
• And, this changed when contact with Europeans was established
• Most, if not all, societies integrate drug use into accepted, sometimes ritualistic, cultural patterns of behavior
• Drug use seems to be a vital part of everyday social interaction

Use of Psychoactive Substances is MASSIVE in Modern Society

• Over 2.4 billion prescriptions are written in the USA each year@$100 billion
• OTC Sales (USA) @$15 billion
• Over 50% of Americans report having used Alcohol (etoh) within the past month (current NHSDUH)
• About 25% of Americans smoke cigarettes (multiple times a day)
• About 40% of Americans have tried marijuana (2006 NHSDU, http://www.oas.samhsa.gov/NSDUH/2k6N...46.htm#Tab1.1B) and the World Drug Report suggests 42%.
• 55.9% (down .4% from 1997 and still up 8.3% from 1991) H.S. seniors report lifetime use of Marijuana, 37.8% report use in the past year, and 23.1% report past month use. Current MTF
• About 6% of Americans have used marijuana in the last month (~15,600,000 people)
• Illicit drug trade = ~$40-100 billion dollars annually in USA
• Legal drugs generate far higher profits

Drug Use Prior to the Twentieth Century

Medicine and Medicinal Drug Use in the 19th Century

Primitive Techniques

• Limited access to drugs (opiates were the primary source of pain management, when available). Alcohol was also commonly used. In particular, the use of opiates masked the symptoms of most illnesses, providing the false impression of curing.
• Brutal surgeries and amputations (no antiseptic technique). Ignaz Semmelweis (Hungarian physician) advocated hand washing to prevent spread of infections in the 1850s. His work was ignored until the 1890s.
• "Patent Medicines"
  • Unregulated (until 1906)
  • Contents: alcohol, opium, cocaine, cannabinoids
  • Dr. Hostetter's Stomach Bitters (see also)
• Opium, Morphine, Marijuana, and Cocaine widely available.
  • Narcotics
  • Cocaine
  • Alcohol
  • Marijuana

Innovations

• Morphine (1803)
• Codeine (1831)
• Hypodermic Syringe (1850s)
• Cocaine isolated (1859)
• A Social History of America's Most Popular Drugs (PBS Frontline: Drug Wars, 2000)

Users

• No accurate data
• Estimates of narcotic "addicts" in 1900 range from 100,000-500,000. Best estimates 250,000 (Musto) and 313,000 (Courtwright). (US population: 76,200,000): .4%. Today (2003), population 12 years and older: 237,000,000. Two percent report past month non-medical use of any pain reliever, .05% report past month use of heroin.
• User Groups:
  • Medical/quasi-medical use: white, middle aged, middle class, women (largest group)
  • Opium smokers (Chinese immigrants)
  • Criminal Sub-culture (morphine)
  • Cocaine users: 80,000

Early Legislation

1. Opium Control and Chinese Immigrants
   • Railroad and gold
   • Economic change and growing prejudice
   • 1875: San Francisco passes anti-opium legislation
   • 1882: Chinese Exclusion Act (banned immigration for 10 years)
   • 1909: Opium Exclusion Act
2. Pure Food and Drug Act
   • Concerns over patent medicines (popular magazines)
   • Upton Sinclar's The Jungle, 1906.
   • Congress passes act to ban interstate commerce in adulterated or misbranded food or drugs.
   • Passing the act created the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
   • Did not ban patent medicine or other drugs, merely required labeling, and government oversight. There was no focus on safety or effectiveness of medicinal compounds, either.
   • FDA Today
3. Shanghai Commission (The International Opium Commission), 1909
   • Opium Wars and trade with China (huge market)
   • US possession of The Philippines (1898) following the Spanish-American War: banned opium in 1905 (chinese residents) and 1908 (all residents).
   • Growing concern over the opium trade.
   • Thirteen countries meet. US delegation (Dr. Hamilton Wright: "father of American narcotic laws") presents information on the dangers of narcotics.
   • Wright drafts a bill (Foster bill) to regulate opiates, cannabis, cocaine, etc.) here in the US.
   • Hague Conference (International Conference on Opium) convenes in 1911. Again the US pushes for stricter controls (although none existed in the US).
   • Afterwards, push is on to enact domestic laws--The Harrison Act.
   • See, "THE HISTORY OF LEGISLATIVE CONTROL OVER OPIUM, COCAINE, AND THEIR DERIVATIVES" by David Musto
4. Harrison Act, 1914: "the single most important piece of drug legislation ever enacted in the United States." (Goode, 2005, page 97)
   • Aftermath:
     • Narcotic Maintenance Clinics (1918-1923)
     • 30,000 physicians arrested between 1914-1938
     • Narcotic addiction became a criminal offense.
     • Emergence/solidification of a criminal subculture (starts prior to Harrison Act)
     • David Courtwright: decline in narcotic addiction occurred between 1895 and 1915 based on voluntary changes in the way physicians managed patients. This led to a proportional increase in the underworld addict population, and following the Harrison Act, and the criminalization, led to the solidification of the heroin using addict subculture (Congress passed a bill in 1924 specifically banning heroin: Heroin Act). "Junkie" comes from the junk collecting activity of NYC addicts in the 1920s--their method of supporting themselves.
5. Alcohol Prohibition Movement (Alcohol Laws today)
6. Marijuana Tax Act
7. Nixon and the Controlled Substances Act (Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act)
   • Supercedes all previous drug legislation.
   • Commission on Marijuana and Drug Abuse 1972-1973
     • Decriminalize marijuana
     • NIDA
     • Delete word "abuse"
     • Bureau of Narcotics (treasury) to Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs (justice). Later: DEA
8. Thirty Years of America's Drug War (from PBS)

Nixon's Presidency

• Only president to focus on treatment and prevention (budget 1/3 supply, 2/3 demand)
• Dole and Nyswander: Methadone Maintenance
• Dr. Jerome Jaffe (early methadone advocate, Illinois)--national policy
• Law and order: crime rate increase and presidential secretary's purse snatching. Egil Krogh, Mr. "Fix-It."
• Robert DuPont: another methadone advocate
• Vietnam and heroin addiction (~4% versus 10%). Drug Urinalysis Testing
• Nixon/Jaffe: SAODAP (1971): $155 million, $105 for treatment. "War on Drugs." (demand-side)
• 1972: $35 million to Turkey--stop poppy production (also spraying marijuana in Mexico with herbicide, Paraquat)
• "French Connection." Crime down, heroin supplies low. Mexico, SE Asia, Iran, and Afghanistan enter supply chain.
• 1973/1974: Federal anti-drug budget $600 million (8x increase. addicts in treatment: over 80,000
  • Rockefeller in NY: harsh laws--focus on punishment
  • Nixon pushes for similar federal laws. March 1973: The Heroin Trafficking Act.
  • May 1973: BNDD--DEA.
  • Alcohol, Drug Abuse, and Mental Health Administration (ADAMHA) created to coordinate federal research and treatment.
  • Methadone program doing well, but public opinion moving towards punishment
  • Jaffee resigns, Dupont dismantles SAODAP (geography--SAODAP was close to White House, NIDA, far away)
  • 1972-1974: Watergate, Nixon resigns (not much thought on drug policy)
• Ford takes office. Not much concern. Methadone funding declines. White Paper on Drug Abuse (can't eliminate drugs, but can reduce harm: ignored)
  • Shift to enforcement activities. Budget: 50/50
  • Start of massive increase in incarcerations.

The Carter/Reagan-Bush Years (1976-1992)

• Carter: Liberal, popular
• Peter Bourne: Drug Advisor (treatment oriented, worked with Jaffee)
• Marijuana decriminalization movement
• 1976-1977: Schuchard family incident. Dupont shifts to hard-line
  • National opinion shifting--"parent's Movement" formed
  • Reverses opinion on marijuana, it becomes the new target: Mexico and Paraquat (scroll to middle of linked page)
• 1978: Bourne "busted" (quaalude prescription and cocaine at NORML party (2/3 down)). "Zero-tolerance" becomes the rule.
• 1976-1980: illicit use rises. 11 states decriminalize marijuana
• 1980: Peak of use. Reagan elected
  • Emphasis on enforcement. Budget reverses: 1/3 treat, 2/3 enforcement.
  • DuPont leads "zero-tolerance" movement
  • 1981: Carlton Turner appointed drug advisor: All illegal drugs dangerous. Treatment encourages use.
  • Federal spending on treatment down 75%
• Nancy Reagan
  • Bad press (extravagance)
  • Picks up "Just say no" from NIDA film. 1985: White-house anti-drug event. Phrase picked up in press.
• Federal spending: 1/5 treatment, 4/5 enforcement
• 1986: DARE program started by LAPD--quickly spreads to other cities, and receives federal support.
• 1985-1986: Crack Panic (Len Bias, Dan Rodgers: cocaine deaths)
• Ed Koch in NYC: death penalty (becomes life sentence for selling ~$50 of crack).
• Summer of 1986: Reagan: Nationwide crusade against drugs.
• Anti-drug Abuse Act of 1986: overwhelmingly approved. Major intensification of penalties. Death to traffickers, No longer distinctions between "hard" and "soft" drugs, or "recreational" use/abuse.
  • Analog Drug Act 1986
• Public opinion increasing harsh (ironically reported drug use falling rapidly).
• George Bush (the elder) elected. Carries on. William Bennett: Drug Czar.
  • ONDCP created: 1988 (Current Director: John Walters)
• 1989: 64% of Americans name drug abuse number one problem (illicit use at historic low). Only 2% viewed it as so problematic in 1986.

1992-2000: Bill Clinton

• Smoked, but didn't inhale.
• Illicit use increases
• 1992: ADAMHA Reorganization: Transfers NIDA, NIMH, and NIAAA to NIH and incorporates ADAMHA's programs into the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA)
• Federal anti-drug budget increases ten fold ($1.5 billion in 1989--$18.5 billion in 2000)
• Gen. Barry McCaffrey appointed Drug Czar. (1996)
• Arrests soar: 1,580,000 arrested in 2000 (use approaching secondary plateau)
• Refuses federal support for needle-exchange
• Links drug use violation to termination of federal education loans and grants
• November 1996: Proposition 215 in California: medicinal marijuana
• 1998 Tobacco Settlement

2000-2008: George W. Bush

• Other wars
• Targeting marijuana
• Methamphetamine and MDMA
  • Rave Act (2002)--Illicit Drug Anti-Proliferation Act of 2003
    • DEA information
    • Drug Policy Alliance information and Legislative update
    • The text of the act.
  • Cleanup Act (2003-4) (concerns)
    • See also, http://www.drugwar.com/ppromoterprosecutions.shtm
    • DEA information
  • The Methamphetamine Project
• Victory Act (2003). See also, Drug Policy Alliance on the Patriot Act.
• Office of National Drug Control Policy
• September 2004: "Alaska Supreme Court Upholds Marijuana Use at Home"
• Continued "crackdown," arrests 1980-2005.

Another look at the history of American Drug Legislation

A Social History of America's Most Popular Drugs (PBS Frontline: Drug Wars, 2000)
Bias, the Media, and Research

URL: http://www.umsl.edu/~keelr/180/drughistory.htm
Owner: Robert O. Keel rok@umsl.edu
References and Credits for this Page of Notes
Last Updated: Tuesday, April 7, 2009 2:10 PM

http://www.umsl.edu/~keelr/180/drughistory.htm