Anthony Peebles
HIST 1302
Jared Ingram
Never Ending War The United States has been involved in several wars and have declared itself the winner in most. There has been civil wars and world wars that have taken troops around the globe to defend democracy and freedom. America has stood up for those whose human and civil rights were threatened, we have supplied small armies with the funds, equipment, and intelligence needed to defeat the enemy. America has a great track record at defeating its enemy and making sure they don’t show their heads anymore, but since being declared an enemy publicly in 1971 this enemy continues to deliver major blows to America and its citizens. This enemy is not a nation of communist, an insane dictator, or a group of extremist, this enemy is drugs. The war on drugs has been the biggest and longest war in my lifetime. Although Richard Nixon is known for launching what we consider the modern day war on drugs, this war was started several years prior to Nixon becoming President of the United States. Some local laws against drugs where established as early as 1860. The first national law was the Harrison Narcotics Act of 1914. This act was to provide registration to all that dealt in the services of opium and coca leaves. Coca leaves once extracted provides the bases for cocaine. In this time cocaine was not illegal and was often prescribed by doctors to patients for ailments such as common headaches or colds. Unknowingly those patients became addicted to cocaine and opium. It was estimated that one in every 400 U.S citizens where addicted to some form of opium or cocaine in 1911 (Kandall). The act did not come without some effects. While the act was concerned about marketing opiates and cocaine openly, it also hindered physicians from prescribing the drugs and caused a lot of doctors to be incarcerated. The Harrison Act of 1914 is credited for starting the modern criminal drug addict and the American black market of drugs.
Five years later and America was hit with prohibition with the 18th Amendment, which stopped the manufacturing, sale, and transportation of alcohol. After establishing the laws that made alcohol illegal to sale, make, or move, the National Prohibition Act was formed a year later. This act was actually vetoed by President Woodrow Wilson but that veto was overwritten by congress on the same day. The act provided the enforcement of the 18th Amendment and further defined the legal use of alcohol and what an intoxicating beverage was. According to this act an intoxicating beverage was any beverage containing more than 0.5% alcohol. Prohibition lasted for thirteen years, during that time we saw the creation of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics which was established in the United States Department of the Treasury in June of 1930.
While America was fighting to keep drugs and alcohol out many Americans where thinking of ways to get drugs in and move alcohol freely. America started to see an influx in the drugs coming across our borders for Mexico and other countries. America also experienced the raise of bootlegging alcohol and perfecting ways to move about the city with illegal substances undetected by the authorities. In 1933 the 21st Amendment was passed, thus ratifying the 18th Amendment and putting control of the state absolute control of alcoholic beverages. It was stated in a case that “The aim of the Twenty-first Amendment was to allow States to maintain an effective and uniform system for controlling liquor by regulating its transportation, importation, and use” (544 U.S. 460, 484-485).
In the years following the passage of 21st Amendment Congress would pass several different acts to combat the drug issue America was facing. Congress issued the Marijuana Tax Act which required anyone distributing marijuana to pay a $1 tax and to maintain a detailed account of all transactions. Congress would also pass the Boggs Act which increased the mandatory penalties for illegal substances. This act was followed by the Daniel Act which increase the mandatory penalties of the Boggs Act by a factor of eight and proposed that the use of marijuana led to the use of more addictive drugs like heroin, which created the gateway drug theory. With the raise of heroin use by U.S citizens, we began to see the foundation of modern day drug laws constructed with the passing of the Controlled Substances Act or CSA. This act regulated the manufacture, import, possession, use, and distribution of controlled substances. President Richard Nixon coined the phrase “war on drugs” in a public speech given on June 17th, 1971. America would began to see local and federal authorities combining forces and forming task forces that would raid areas known for heavy drug activity. It was at this time local police began to receive the surplus military equipment by way of federal grants. Nixon would increase the size and presence of federal drug control agencies, and pushed through measures such as mandatory sentencing and no-knock warrants. Nixon would also place marijuana in the highest restrictive category of any drug. During this time many commissions motioned to have the possession of marijuana be decriminalized but those requests went ignored by President Nixon. In the 80s and 90s America would see a huge spike of people in jail because of non-violent drug offenses, in 1980 only 50,000 people would be behind bars but in 1997 400,000 people would be behind bars. This was effecting communities in America. Most of these offenders being male it left many home without a provider causing women to take up the slack , just as previous wars did. In the late 80s and early 90s one would not believe that local governments would began to legalize marijuana. In the 2000s we have seen many states begin to legalize the use and distribution of marijuana. This is only at a state level, while the war still goes forward on the federal level. With any war there is finical cost that comes with it, over the last four decades America has spent more than $1 Trillion dollars on the war on drugs. This by far is the longest and most expense war fought by America and is the only war fought on American streets.

Works Cited
Gerber, Rudolph Joseph. "Legalizing Marijuana: Drug Policy Reform and Prohibition Politics." Choice Reviews Online (2004): 7. Print.
Mcclellan, Michelle L. "Book Review:Substance and Shadow: Women and Addiction in the United States Stephen R. Kandall, Jennifer Petrillo." ISIS: 159. Print.
The Pharmaceutical era, vol 53". Archive.org. 2001-03-10. Retrieved 2014-01-01.
Records of the Drug Enforcement Administration DEA". Archives.gov. Retrieved27 March 2011
War on Drugs. The Global Commission on Drug Policy. 2011. p. 24.