Narcotics and Drug Abuse

In 1967, The President s Commission On Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice compiled a public document titled Task Force Report Narcotics and Drug Abuse, Annotations and Consultants Papers, referred to as TFR 1967. I will quote from the various consultants reports to lay a foundation for a better understanding of prohibitionist policies and the long term effects of these policies. 

This Commission has not and could not have undertaken to duplicate the comprehensive study and report on drug abuse so recently completed by another Presidential Commission. Yet any study of law enforcement and the administration of criminal justice must of necessity include some reference to drug abuse and its associated problems. In the course of the discussion in this chapter, recommendations are made where they seem clearly advisable. In many instances these recommendations parallel ones made by the 1963 Commission. 

Careful implementation, evaluation, and co-ordination of the new programs, some of which are not yet in operation will be absolutely essential. These are among today s first needs. New ideas are only a 

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The President s Commission on Narcotics and Drug Abuse recommends greater use of drug treatment instead of jail for narcotics offenders. 

With the coincidental retirement in 1962 of Commissioner Anslinger and the Supreme Court s decision that addiction was a disease, and with the arrival of President Kennedy s New Frontier, the Bureau s approach was becoming anachronistic. The prevailing mood of the day encouraged reduced penalties, more medical treatment, possible development of maintenance clinics, and a reevaluation of drug laws. In 1962 a White House Panel on Narcotic and Drug Abuse reported that It is the opinion of the Panel that the hazards of marijuana per se have been exaggerated and... 

Other Chronic Nonpsychiatric Hazards (cosponsored by the Center for Studies of Narcotic and Drug Abuse, NIMH, and EMS)... 

In 1975, a "first, intensive, multidisciplinary study of marijuana use and users, entitled Ganja In Jamaica, was sponsored by the Center for Studies of Narcotic and Drug Abuse, a division of the National Institute of Mental Health. This study focused on people who had smoked marijuana in huge quantities for between twelve and thirty years conclusions drawn then were ... 

President s Advisory Commission on Narcotic and Drug Abuse, Final Rep. 21-30 (1963). 

A White House Conference on Narcotic and Drug Abuse — 1... 

After his election Nixon created the President s National Commission on Marijuana and Drug Abuse. In 1970, Congress passed the Controlled Substances Act (CSA), the first comprehensive narcotics control law since 1914. The CSA systematically arranged drugs in schedules according to an assessment of addictive potential, dangerousness of effects, and pervasiveness of abuse. 

Researchers long ago found an association between narcotics addiction and increased levels of crime. Significant numbers of prisoners incarcerated in the United States have been imprisoned because of crimes involving drugs and drug abuse. A report by a conference at the National Institutes of Health found that more than one-fourth of all prisoners at all state and federal prisons were convicted of drug-related crimes. 

Controlled Drug S8 Narcotics and drugs of abuse available only with prescription and require other special controls. 

In 1963 the President s Advisory Commission on Narcotic. ind Drug Abuse found that public and professional education in... 

Velapoldi, R. A., and S. A. Wicks. "The Use of Chemical Spot Test Kits for the Presumptive Identification of Narcotics and Drugs of Abuse." Journal of Forensic Science,... 

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