Anti-Drug Legislation Analysis
Different kinds of drugs have been around the United States for many years. The main three drugs that the most popular were cocaine, marijuana, and opiates (morphine). Back many years ago before these drugs were actually thought of as street drugs, they were used as medication by the doctor’s clinics. The bad thing about the doctors giving these drugs out to his or her patients is that the side effects of these drugs were unknown then.
The 1914, the federal government put an Act in place called the Harrison Act that would make all doctors who dealt with any kind of drugs would have to pay taxes on these drugs. By placing this Act that made all doctors pay taxes on all drugs that are being disturbed out to patients is at the time in the possession these particular drugs became illegal. The punishment for not paying taxes on these kinds of drugs and for having any one of these drugs in his or her possession without a prescription was extensive fines and a prison sentence.
By the 1920s the Heroin Maintenance Act was brought into effect, which was used to allow people with an addiction to heroin to be treated legally with the drug. By the studies performed on this type of treatment came to conclusion that using heroin to treat an addiction only prolonged the addiction. With this being proven by the studies the government put an end to any doctor buying heroin.
The depression ended by the middle of 1937 and the Food, Drug, and Cosmetics Act was completed by 1938 that affected the health regulations (Annuals, 2004). In 1937 the government also created a narcotics team called the Federal Bureau of Narcotics. With this narcotics team in place, the team came up with a Marijuana Tax Act. The point of this act was to try to place marijuana in the awareness of the public eye. Even though marijuana is not considered to be a dangerous drug because it is an herb, the government thinks this is the start of a chain that will lead to harder drugs such as heroin or cocaine. “By 1951, The Boggs Act was established that requiring mandatory federal sentences for possession of marijuana, cocaine and morphine” (about.com, 2010).
The “war on drugs” started around 1952 and lasted more than a half a century by a man named General Dwight D. Eisenhower. By 1954 Mr. Eisenhower put together a committee that was called the U.S. Interdepartmental Committee. For the next couple of years the committee put societal and political pressure on the drug fight that made the punishments for any drug conviction harsher.
By the 1970s the government took an actual role in the “war on drugs” fight by passing an act called the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act. By the time President Nixon made his speech called “Drug abuse, public enemy number one,” there were drug rehabs were invented to help drug addicts get off drugs, which was mainly heroin at this time. At this time there was another