Drug War Summary

In order to understand the implications of the drug war one must understand its origin. In the late 1960s there was an increase in recreational drug use in the United State. At the time when recreational drug use rised in United States and around the same time recreational drug use became fashionable among young, white, middle class Americans (Thirty Years, 2014). The social stigmatization previously associated with drugs had lessened as their use became more mainstream (Thirty Years, 2014). Drug use then became representative of protest and social rebellion in the era's atmosphere of political unrest (Thirty Years, 2014).
In 1968 Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs was founded, under President Lyndon Johnson administration consolidates

The group lobbies for decriminalization of marijuana (Thirty Years, 2014). In this same year 1970 Narcotics Treatment Administration is founded (Thirty Years, 2014). The Richard Nixon administration provided funds to allow Dr. Robert DuPont to expand his methadone program in Washington D.C (Thirty Years, 2014). The program caused controversies because some believed that methadone was just a substitute for heroin, and others felt there were racial undertones behind the effort (Thirty Years, 2014). However, one year after the program was started, burglaries in D.C. decrease by 41% (Thirty Years, 2014). October 27, 1970 Congress passed the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act (Thirty Years, 2014). This law amalgamated the previous drug laws and reduced penalties for marijuana possession (Thirty Years, 2014). “It also strengthened law enforcement by allowing police to conduct "no-knock" searches” (Thirty Years, 2014). The Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act included the Controlled Substances Act, which establishes five categories ("schedules") for regulating drugs based on their medicinal value and potential for addiction (Thirty Years,

In September of 1971 Operation Golden Flow went into effect in order to attack habits of U.S. servicemen. In June 1971, the U.S. military announces they will begin urinalysis of all returning servicemen. The program went into effect in September and the results were favorable: only 4.5% of the soldiers test positive for heroin (Thirty Years, 2014).
January of 1972 the Office of Drug Abuse Law Enforcement (ODALE) was founded. This was created by Nixon’s Administration to establish joint federal/local task forces to fight the drug trade at the street level (Thirty Years, 2014). The French Connection was broken up in 1972, the results are soon evident in a heroin shortage on the U.S. East Coast (Thirty Years, 2014).
July of 1973 The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) was established. The DEA consolidates agents from the BNDD, Customs, the CIA and ODALE (Thirty Years, 2014). August 9th 1974 President Nixon resigned (Thirty Years, 2014). September 1975 “the Domestic Council Drug Abuse Task Force releases a report that recommends that priority in Federal efforts in both supply and demand reduction be directed toward those drugs which inherently pose a greater risk to the individual and to society” (Thirty Years,