2. (a) Describe briefly our society's underlying motivations for the establishment of governmental regulation and the control of drugs and drug use, differentiating between regulating drug use and taking a laissez-faire approach.

In the 1800 the United States took a Laissez-faire approach to drug use by individuals. A laissez-faire approach would be considered as the theory or system of government that upholds the autonomous character, believing that government should intervene as little as possible. It was up to the buyer and seller of the drugs to conduct business without the government getting in the way. Substances such as heroin, morphine, and cocaine are readily available and sold as part of "patent" medicines to cure everything from menstrual cramps to toothaches in children.

The United States government started to intervene is such transactions so they could regulate drugs. It was believed that sellers were taking advantage of people by not properly disclosing the drug information. In this country, the restriction of use and distribution of drugs on a Federal level is less than 100 years old. In 1906 Food and Drug Act enacted-- strictly a "labeling law"-- only affected misbranded foods and drugs. Main concern was "patent medicines" that could be made up of tar, animal secretions, cocaine, heroin, or whatever and no one would know. As far as the law was concerned, the medicine could contain all of these as long as it was labeled properly. Previous to 1906, any restrictions were on the State or local level, and those restrictions were few and far between and commonly targeted to use by certain groups.

(b) Comment on the nature and usefulness of drug use data provided by the DAWN system, addressing in your response the limitations as well as the benefits derived from this reporting system.

When we speak of the Drug Abuse Warning Network or