A Brief & Sordid History of Drug Laws!

:beatdeadhorse5:
"Unless we put medical freedom into the Constitution, the time will come when medicine will organize itself into an undercover dictatorship"
Dr. Benjamin Rush, Physician & Signer of the Declaration of Independence.

1900 - Back in the good-old-days, No substance on Earth required a citizen to provide special credentials or "good reason" to have or buy. Drugs were a item of commerce, without negative or suspicious connotations.
the problem of habit forming-drugs did-not exist before the turn-of-the-century. Terminology had to be invented and defined before "addicts" could be identified & punished. At the time the word "addict" meant something close to "fan". A person might be a novel-reading addict or a baseball addict, but there was no such thing, really as a drug addict ( they were called "habitue's").

> the idea of government saving people from "bad" medicine, or of ostracizing & punishing users of Narcotics just did-not compute!
It took a sustained propaganda campaign to invent and drive home the concept of evil narcotic use!

* 1906 - the Pure Food & Drug Act is Passed, regulating the labeling of medicines, it popped Americas drug law cherry, you might say!

* 1909 - Smoking Opium Exclusion Act, notably, it addressed only smoking 0pium - favored by the Chinese - not the patent medicines favored by other Americans.

* 1912 - the Hague Convention, an international group which met at the Hague & was primarily involved with solving the 0pium "problem" in the far east, this had a direct impact in the United States, leading to the Harrison Act in 1914, which was originally more about meeting international obligations than domestic morality.

* 1914 - Dr. Rush's fears of a covert medical dictatorship resulting from lack of constitutional vigilance was realized when, one year after gaining the hotly-disputed income tax, congress passed the Harrison Act in 1914, the country's first attempt to restrict drug use on a national level, the federal government relied on it's new found power to tax as a way to regulate medical products. In this case 0pium, Coca leaves & a few derivatives. the Harrison Act never intended to restrain itself to taxation, thou officials continued this charade for a number of years as a means to accustom citizens to the rapid expansion of federal police power.
the act was also explained as the means the US government could comply with non-binding treaties drawn-up by a few wealthy citizens to control 0pium production worldwide.

> Altho Alcohol Prohibition was repealed ( due to a shocking increase in organized crime & police corruption ) in just a decade, Drug laws have stayed and flourished without Constitutional Amendment or Popular Referendum! By linking them to the executive office, and by using "foreign policy" as a excuse to enforce them, the laws could never be repealed or even challenged, since they were never properly enacted in the first place! the original idea of the Harrison act was to provide protection against fraud & raise a few $$$ for the General Welfare, has grown into a mega-regulating civic nightmare in which citizens who use drugs that were once sold over-the-counter in pharmacies are treated as horrible criminals and incarcerated by the millions in a civil war known as the "war on drugs"!!!

* 1919...the 18th. Amendment & the Volstead act prohibited alcoholic beverages in the United States, repealed in 1933.

* 1930... the Federal Bureau of Narcotics is created with Harry Anslinger as it's head.

* 1937... the Marijuana "Tax" Act. Our old friend Mary-Jane becomes the new threat to society, due to a massive propaganda campaign carried out by Anslinger, & the Hearst newspapers!!!

* 1942... the Opium Poppy Control Act is passed.

*1951... the Boggs act ups the penalties for all "drug crimes".

* 1956... the Narcotics Control act enforces mandatory prison terms for "offenders", even thou the Supreme Court had ruled, 3 decades earlier, addiction was a medical condition.

*1965... Drug Abuse Control Laws.
In the 1960's the idea of prescription "drug abuse" was put into peoples heads by hysterical articles in the mass media... various uppers-n-downers were once considered respected medicines until it was realized millions of these pills were consumed "illegitmately" each year! Along with LSD & similar substances, they were classified as "dangerous drugs" in 1965.

1/6/66... LSD Outlawed in California.

* 1970... President Nixon replaced the earlier laws with "the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention & Control Act".

* 1973... Nixon created the DEA & declared "an all-out global war on drugs"!

* 1981... President Reagan nullifies the "Posse Comitatus" act, which forbids the U.S. Military to function against U.S. Citizens on U.S. soil. President Raygun orders the military to work with drug enforcement agencies.

* 1984... the Comprehensive Crime Control Act, allows the Administrator of the DEA to directly place a substance into Schedule I.
The Impact of this Law was Subtle but Very Profound. For the First Time in History,
a Drug could be made Illegal without Review by the Elected Government!


* 1986... A Federal Law known as the "Analogue Substance Act" is passed, which makes it illegal to use or manufacture substances similar to existing "illegal" drugs. ( this is now being used to bring the heavy end of the hammer down on the re-search chemicals!!! )

* 1988... Reagan Passes Even More Laws, Creating a "Drug Czar" & laws aimed at Money Laundering & regulating companies that sell chemicals that can be used to make "illegal" drugs & "urine testing".

* 1994.. the Anti-Crime Bill, raises the penalties for "drug crimes" even more.

* 2012... Since 1981 the American workers have been forced to spend Hundreds of BILLION's of their Taxes to finance the drug war. More than half the Prisoners in America ( POW's ) are locked-up for so-called "drug crimes"! New Laws continue to be enacted with No End in Sight! ( I'm sure I missed many "laws", but the ones listed seem to be the main "offenders"! )

> Laws like these & the Confused & Impoverished Value System which allows them to manifest are Seriously Dissociated from Reality.
the People Who Demand Them & the People Who Enforce Them Have Lost All Humane Perspective, & These Appalling Statutes Long-Ago Forfeited the Respect & Allegiance of Rational Minds!
Injustice Always Breeds Contempt for the Law!!!
eace:
PEACE!